Sano hitting rockets as slow start already in rearview mirror

We are constantly talking about “small sample sizes” this early in the season, warning that just about anything can happen in a tiny sample of games, and that it’s not necessarily indicative of what the entire season will look like. After all, even the great Manny Machado isn’t going to hit .407 all year. Chris Archer is too good to carry a 7.32 ERA all season. Hot or slow starts are just that: starts.

So fear not, Twins fans. Miguel Sano is going to be just fine. Forget “going to be,” actually. He is just fine.

That was understandably difficult to believe over the nine-game Minnesota losing streak to begin the year, over which Sano hit just .143/.294/.143 — that’s four hits, all singles, and a handful of walks in 34 plate appearances. That being the case, the panicked explanations were endless. Was it a sophomore slump? Was it a repercussion of his move to right field? Was it that Sano wasn’t putting enough work in during the spring, as one major local media outlet breathlessly suggested?

In times of crisis, grasping for answers is justifiable. But the truth was a whole lot simpler: It was 34 plate appearances. In 31 plate appearances since, as the Twins have won five of seven games, Sano has hit .360/.484/.680, including a home run on Thursday in a victory over Milwaukee.

It’s not that the more recent stretch is the “real” Sano either, because we chose those endpoints arbitrarily and he won’t keep up a .360 batting average all season long any more than he was a .143. It’s just that the underlying indicators show plenty of reasons to trust that the Sano of 2016 is going to end up looking a lot like the Sano of ’15, and that Sano was a star.

For example: Despite the fact that Sano has just a .245 batting average, he’s actually been 30 percent better than league average as a hitter this year, as evidenced by a 130 …

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