Clutch Joe Mauer Is Suddenly An RBI Machine

The home run off of Bastardo ended a 286 at-bat homerless drought for Mauer. Statistically speaking, the corner infield spots are traditionally held down by hulking home run hitters who drive the ball to all fields. Power has generally not been part of Mauer's game (just 37 HR since 2010), and still isn't, but Mauer has reinvented himself and is bringing new value to the role.

Often regarded as an opposite field hitter (outside of his relative reliability at pulling ground balls) Mauer has used all fields incredibly well in 2015. He is currently pulling 31.5% of his batted balls, while going up the middle with 35.4%, and hitting to the opposite field 33.1% of the time. A career 28.8% pull hitter, he has more evenly used all fields in 2015.

Although Mauer is more evenly distributing his hits, the number is falling and providing fewer total bases. That can likely be explained by his hard hit percentage. Owner of a career 33.6% hard hit percentage, Mauer is hitting just 23.6% of his batted balls hard this year. While his medium hits are at 59.1% (as opposed to a career 56.7%), his soft hits are also significantly up at 17.3% (career 9.7).

The most visible place these numbers have shown up is in the number of doubles. With eight total through the first quarter of the season, reaching his career-high 43 will require a few more balls driven to the gaps. However, Mauer does have two triples already this season, matching his 2014 total.

And yet, may be on pace for one of his best offensive seasons in recent memory. Home runs aside, he is driving the Twins offense right now, quite literally.

Leading the club in runs batted in with 24, Mauer is blistering past his 2014 pace (which ended with 55 RBI). Mauer's previous career high in runs batted in came during his 2009 AL MVP season, in which he drove in 96 runs. As it stands now, he's on pace to even that mark. Mauer driving in runs is a by-product of his success in high leverage situations this season, and his success is astounding.

A large portion of being a talented hitter is situational hitting. While Mauer's .284/.341/.381 slash line leaves room for improvement, it's tough to argue with what he's done in high leverage situations. In 2015 with runners on base, Mauer is hitting .382/.463/.485 and with runners in scoring position he's even better, .419/.500/.512. Taking it one step further, Mauer is 4-5 with a triple and eight RBI with the bases loaded in, equating to a 2.000 OPS. Driving runners around and putting the Twins on the board is no doubt among the most important offensive feats, no matter how that is accomplished.

Now that we've established why Mauer's lack of home runs doesn't really matter, it's probably a good time to suggest things could continue to get even better. Hoping that Mauer's overall slash line reverts back towards his career numbers is not an unreasonable hope.

Last season, Mauer didn't hit .300 in any single month until September. In 2015, Mauer's April line checked in at .318/.392/.412. He's struggled at the plate in May (outside of those high leverage situations), but it's pretty apparent that a healthy Mauer can still hit. As the summer wears on, it should be expected that Mauer will hit at a better than average clip.

This Twins team is in a good place right now, and with key additions coming as the season goes on, they are in position to keep getting better. The sixth best offense in baseball is continuing to push runs across at a strong clip, and Joe Mauer is a big reason for it, despite the lack of home runs.