Jeff Roberson/AP Of the boatload of people who deserve kudos for the Twins’ surprising season, which incredibly has them in the thick of a pennant race just six weeks before Labor Day, pitching coach Rick Anderson belongs near the top of the list. Having traded away their Cy Young Award-winner (Johan Santana) and top young […]
Mean Business
May 1, 2008 by
The Minnesota Twins mean business in their new commercial. Morneau, Cuddyer, and Mauer wear ultra-cool Twins fan gear. They begin strolling to the soundtrack of Led Zeppelin’s "Dazed and Confused." In slow motion, the camera catches each individual, like a shot out of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. On location, at the under-construction open stadium, it’s […]
Confidence Game: A Case of the Yips in the Motor City
April 16, 2008 by
AP Photo by Duane Burleson We’ve been spoiled. While the Twins starting pitching and offense have too often been an iffy, up-and-down proposition throughout most of the 21st century, the bullpen has pretty consistently owned the late innings and protected leads. It was easy, in fact, to take them for granted. It didn’t seem to […]
The Postponement Blues
April 11, 2008 by
Early April baseball in the Midwest can be a flat-out teeth-kicker. Baseball, of course, can kick your teeth in on a regular basis no matter the month, but shit like last night is brutal, even if it (literally) comes with the territory. Couldn’t they at least have given us a rain delay, so we could […]
Paper Tigers, etc: Seriously, People, It's Still Too Damn Early to Even Have This Conversation
April 5, 2008 by
AP Photo, by Paul Battaglia I walk away happy as a clam from any baseball game that features a successfully executed suicide squeeze. It’s a great, gutsy, and increasingly rare play, and last night, with the Kansas City Royals in town (I actually heard some radio guy refer to them as the "red hot Royals"), […]
Opening Night: And So It Begins. Again.
April 1, 2008 by
AP photo by Tom Olmscheid Representatives of the local sporting press —of which I am a decidedly derelict member— were packed cheek to jowl in the Herb Carneal Memorial Press Box at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome Monday night. It was not, as you might imagine, a pretty picture. If somewhere there exists an International […]
What Do I Know?
December 3, 2007 by
Here’s what I’d like to know: Since when are the New York Yankees in any position to play hardball with the Twins? Given the pitching situation in New York, and given the fact that this is a team that is now in the (for them) desperate position of playing second-fiddle to the Red Sox, would […]