Rangers' Napoli Shows Whats Wrong with Minnesota Twins

There are many things the World Series showed us: No lead is ever safe, pitching on short rest isn't always a bad thing, etc. But Rangers catcher Mike Napoli taught us a lot about the 2011 Minnesota Twins. Hey Minnesota players, you can play through injuries.

Napoli had one of the worst twisted ankles you've ever seen (that's Napoli's ankle in the picture) in Game 6 of the World Series and what was he doing the next day? Playing baseball.

If Napoli was a Twins player he wouldn't be playing, he’d probably be in the hospital.

Now Napoli’s team lost, but isn't it nice just to see someone play through injuries. Some injuries you can’t play through, but it’s hard to sell me that all the time Twins players missed this year were all due to those kind of injuries.

If you go down the line of Twins, there were few players who weren't hurt this year at some point. Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Jason Kubel, Scott Baker, Joe Nathan, Alexi Casila and Tsuyoshi Nishioka all missed significant time. Heck even Jim Thome and Delmon Young missed serious time before moving on to the Indians and Tigers respectively. Heck even Delmon played hurt in Detroit!

My point is the Twins need to play through some injuries. The Twins can’t rely on Danny Valencia and Trevor Plouffe to carry this team. Former AL MVPs Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer have to stay healthy. If those two would stay healthy, the season may have turned out completely different.

IF the World Series showed Twins fans anything it’s that this current squad is far away from the biggest stage in baseball, because they don’t even dare hobble up to that stage.