Torii Hunter's tirade only part of Twins' rough patch

If Torii Hunter achieved one thing Wednesday night, it is this: A good chunk of the discussion about the Twins on Thursday was not about their recent tailspin but rather about a nearly 40-year-old man melting down to the point that he was in the beginning stages of a "Slap Shot"-esque striptease.

This piece of veteran savvy was not likely on Hunter's mind as he stewed about what he believed was a revenge call on a ball a couple of inches outside, but the byproduct — locally and nationally — has taken at least some of the focus off the team's woes.

Let me redirect your attention, then, back to the real story: a slumping Twins offense that has been dreadful in June.

I mention that bad stretch with full knowledge that the month is only 10 games old and that almost every capable team will go through a rough patch or two in a season (the 1991 Twins, who won 95 games and the World Series, started out 2-9 and had two other separate meaningful stretches that season in which they went 1-7 and 2-8).

• Pitching most definitely has not been the problem. The Twins have gone 3-7 in June, but their team ERA this month is a sparkling 3.17 — better than it was in April (4.36) or in the red-hot month of May (3.57) in which the Twins went 20-7.

• The team's hitting, however, has taken a huge nose-dive. After a pedestrian month of April scoring close to four runs a game, the Twins jumped up to 5.15 runs per game in May. In June so far, they've scored just 25 runs — 2.5 per game, or less than half of what they were scoring last month.

• Some of it, however, has to do with a little bad luck. The Twins are actually putting the ball in play more often this month than in previous months. As a team, they struck out one out of every 4.65 plate appearances in an April, once every 5.01 in May … and once every 5.4 in June. But if they were somewhat fortunate before — their .314 batting average on balls in play in May is above the league average — they are unlucky now. Their BABIP through 10 games in June is just .235, well below the MLB average.

Offensively, the Twins will get some better luck as the games wear on … though envisioning them as a five-plus runs per game team for the long haul is also not realistic. The likely conclusion is they'll settle in somewhere in the middle — just as the overall team will settle in somewhere between that 20-7 May juggernaut and the 3-7 June jugger-not (so, so sorry for that awful play on words).

In the meantime, Hunter's game of strip baseball is an unintentionally clever diversion, but not much more.

Michael Rand