Admit it, you’re nervous. Sure, there are only twelve games left and the Twins have an easier path than the LAAAA but man can the Twins just pull off a nice 5 game win streak? Can they take advantage of facing a pedestrian Jaime Garcia and win the first game of the series against the Yankees? Can’t the Angels just fall on their face for 4 games or so and then we can all relax? In my estimation Twins need one win at the Yankees and one win at Cleveland then take at least 5 from the lowly Tigers to assure a playoff berth.
Tonight we get old versus young, fat versus skinny, $25,000,000 versus $507,500. CC Sabathia against Joes Berrios. Live from Yankee Stadium at 6:10p.
Nineteen games. Over 88 percent of the season is complete and the Twins still in the driver seat for a one game playoff against the Yankees. Since the Twins have hit this “easy” part of the schedule, they’ve kind of scuffled. Lose a couple here, win three in a row there. The other teams in wildcard contention are scuffling too and it seems that LAAAAAA is the only team really interested in playing the spoiler to what was considered unthinkable five months ago: The Twins could be a playoff team.
Two game series against the woeful San Diego Padres. Gibby on the mound and he’s been pretty decent of late, including a 3-0 record and a nice 1.69 ERA. Travis Wood on the mound for the Padres. He came over from the Royals so there is some familiarity there. Wood hasn’t had a lot of luck against the Twins so let’s hope this is the start of a nice winning streak. Game at 7:10p. Going to be gorgeous evening… just what you want in September: Meaningful baseball with fantastic weather in a beautiful ball park.
In the continual roller coaster of the Twins season, we are now back on the downward slide. Three losses out of four games against marginal teams has left everyone a little grumpy. Will the Twins bounce back like they have so many times this season and finally put a stranglehold on a playoff berth or is this fatal fall that we’ve all worried about since May? Except for Sano, Twins looking to field a full roster today as Castro back to catching after being in the concussion protocol. Bartolo Colon on the mound for the Twins and they will need a big sexy game from him. Jake Odorizzi brings his pedestrian 7-7, 4.85 record to the Trop for the Rays. Game at 6:10p.
Twins get the Whities again after losing a disappointing 3 of 5 last week in Chicago. Extracting some revenge should be the order of the day as winning these games really puts the Twins in a position of controlling their own destiny, especially since their upcoming next 10 games after the White Sox series are with the Royals and Rays.
Beautiful night for baseball as Ervin Santana on the mound against James Shields. White Sox have played well lately so hopefully the Twins can rise to the occasion. First pitch at 7:10p.
Twins in the beginning of a long stretch of games against sub-500 teams, with very few teams more sub-500 than the Chicago White Sox. The third game of a rare five game tilt against the Pale Hose has Gibby once again trying to get keep the Twins in the playoff hunt. Lucas Giolito up for the Sox. He’s one of the prospects received in the Adam Eaten trade last December and the apparently the Southsiders want to see what they got.
This will be featured in my upcoming Father Knows Best posting but the eldest now has a real job working for Guaranteed Rate Mortgage in Chicago, ironically enough 5 blocks from Wrigley Field. I am hoping that next year we can secure some sweet stadium sponsor tix and I will go down and check out “New Comisky.” Until then I will be enjoying the view of Guaranteed Rate Field from my Barcalounger.
Heading uphill in this roller coaster of a season, are the Twins still climbing or headed back down to another gully? First place Cleveland in town and Big Sexy on the mound. Should be fun.
It’s the second game of 2-game series against the Brew Crew. Then they all pack it up and head to Milwaukee and do the same thing for two more games. No word if they share a plane back to MKE. I’ve gone on the record against these two-and-two series against your other league rival. Back in the day, the weekend series against your rival was a blast. Mainly because it was on the weekend. It created excitement and memories, made fans out people not necessarily fans. Who knows, maybe they’d come back for another game sometime.
Now tonight is supposed to be gorgeous weather-wise and the crowd should be decent, but it’s really a lost opportunity. But then again, it’s MLB. What are you going to do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mejia against Matt Garza. Should be a fun game. I’ll be there in those trendy Catch seats, eating free Tapas and drinking free Summit bear with the boy. I may have to cancel Wednesday morning meetings.
Yikes, what a difference a week makes. Last week we were basking in the glow of the Jaime Garcia trade, wondering who were we're going to give up to get Sonny Gray or Yu Darvish and putting money under the mattress for playoff tix. Today we sardonically smile at Garcia's Mooch-like tenure with the Twins and welcome the Dillon Gee era of Twins baseball.
But not all is lost. The Twins are playing in a beautiful city and a beautiful ballpark and Jose Berrios on the moun and Byron Buxton roaming centerfield. Let's go show those Padres that (Hamms) bears really are cool.
Twins fall back to .500 and play the best team in Baseball. Good thing Jose Berrios on the mound for the Twins. Still no Buxton, so Granite of Zach in center. Kenta Maeda on the mound for The Dodgers. First pitch at 9:10p Central.
We all have to admit this Twins season has been better than expected. Forty-seven wins on July 17, while the 2016 version hadn’t won #47 until August 13th, team somewhat in the play-off mix in a bad division, good years from Sano, Santana, Berrios, Kintzler… we all know the facts. The Twins have been playing decent, fun baseball. When they get blown out, heck throw the back-up catcher out there for an inning. It’s fun and baseball is a game, meaning it should be fun.
That’s why the Twins signing Bartolo Colón and having him pitch against the Yankees is such a compelling story. It’s fun, it’s interesting. It has a bit of “hey check out this crazy thing.” Will Aaron Judge hit a massive homerun off of Colón? Likely. Will Bartolo dazzle the Yankees for 6 innings with 3-hit ball? Unlikely. Is this just a marketing ploy to get a few more tickets sold at Target Field or a few more eyeballs checking out DicknBert? Could be. Who knows what will happen tonight but isn’t that the compelling part? That it will be fun to see? That tomorrow you will see a bunch of memes or funny tweets? That at least for a little bit we were engaged by baseball?
Yankees pitcher is some guy named Luis Cessa. Game time at 7:10p. The big sexy thunderstorms earlier forecasted during game time seem to have dissapated so it looks like game on.
