How about last night!? (Forgive my excitement, but we may need to celebrate smaller victories this season.)

"Kyle Gibson pitched 6 2/3 innings of 1 run baseball and Oswaldo Arcia hit a 2-run homer to lead the Twins to a 3-1 victory over the undefeated Royals." Games like last night give glimpses of the future the Twins hope they are building. Let's hope we can read many more headlines with those names in the storyline. Now, onto the real point of this post...

I know it's only been a week, but the Twins need to be more patient and walk A LOT more if they are to replicate their 2014 success at the plate. They scored the 5th most runs in the the American League in 2014 largely because they were patient and drew a ton of walks. Only Oakland drew more.

Walk-to-strikeout ratio (BB/K) is a great measure of a hitter's plate discipline and knowledge of the strike zone. Joe Mauer's career 680/664 BB/K ratio is insanely good, as a reference. It's very rare a player walks more than he strikes out.

Mauer's 4/4 ratio through 8 games is a good indicator he is seeing the ball better, thus far, and Trevor Plouffe's 4/7 ratio shows that he has continued the disciplined approach he demonstrated in 2014. Danny Santana's 0/8 ratio through 7 games obviously needs to improve, especially if he is to continue batting leadoff. Santana is not going to bat above .400 on balls in play again in 2015.

Surprisingly, Brian Dozier has also yet to see his first "ball 4" in 2015. Dozier's value at the plate in 2014 largely came through the walk; his .242 average was below the league median but his .345 OBP was quite nice. It's a small sample size, so I'm not concerned. But I will be if his BB/K ratio doesn't improve by the end of April.

Arcia and Vargas each have identical 2/5 BB/K ratios, which is to be expected from young power hitters. They need to keep swinging hard while also drawing the occasional walk.

It's only been a week, so I'm not concerned. But I hope someone in the Twins clubhouse will mention the virtue of patience to Dozier and Santana soon.

"He gets on base. Do I care if it's a walk or a hit?" (Brad Pitt points at Jonah Hill)

"You do not."

PogueBear out. (drops mic)