MNTwins Blog

Yeah! The Twins are playing their first game of the year! That is my first observation.

So… it’s a new year of Twins baseball. I’m excited. I get to watch in anticipation of my favorite team possibly doing something to get in the playoffs again. Hard to say what it is, but following baseball is just fun.

Ok, so I’m about 3/4 of the way through my first 40oz beer of the season and here’s a few observations I’m wanting to type out to publish on the web.

• Mike Redmond looks old. But he’s playing hard, and hit a double.
• Gomez can’t pick balls out of the seats like Puckett.
• It’s fun to see at least 3 guys in a row in the Twins lineup that can put the ball over the fence on any given night.

I also like these throwback clips on TV of the ‘82 team with the old-school jerseys that these new outfits mimick. Good times.

So I haven’t really been paying too much attention to the Twins during spring training yet. I did manage to catch a little bit of a game between Boston and the Twins on Sunday that was on the big screen at a local bar and grill. That was good stuff. I had just said to the girlfriend “I don’t really like going to that place unless the Twins are on or something”, knowing that it was early spring training and games aren’t televised yet. Well, the bar and grill happened to have some sort of MLB package and there actually was a Twins game on the screen, which was surprising and ironic after I had made a big comment about it all.

I really don’t put to much stock into player performance in spring training, but it’s fun to watch and follow nonetheless. I had better start paying attention quickly, so I can get a preview of what’s in store for the upcoming season.

Let’s just get the team off the road and get back home to the dome.

This road trip just flat out sucked.

After about the 6th inning of the Twins/Blue Jays final game today, it looked like the Twins confidence was just shot. These guys need to get back home in from of the home crowd of the dome and try to play some good baseball against the Tigers.

Losing 0-9 to the Blue Jays in the final game of the road trip? Well, that was just pretty much the worst way to end the road trip. It’s gonna be a long trip home.

At least the White Sox have been playing just about as bad and it’s actually still a tight race between the two teams. If either the Twins or the White Sox had gone on a year over the last few games there could easily be a gap of a few games between the two.

Let’s get home, play the Tigers hard. Get some confidence back in this team. Hopefully the September call-ups that have been added to the bullpen can provide a little rest for some of the heavily worn pitchers as of late. Guys like Humber and Korecky could provide some valuable releif time to give the bullpen a little rest and a boost.

Hopefully Humber doesn’t let this first Twins appearance get to him and can keep his stuff together and help out the Twins. The same goes for the rest of the new guys (including Everyday Eddie!, who is starting to remind me more of Terry Mullholland than the Eddie I remember of they early part of the decade.

Holy smokes. I can’t believe I just typed the words “holy smokes”.

Is it just me, or is it getting harder and harder to watch the Twins games beyond the 6th and 7th innings? Wow. The White Sox have been basically just asking us to gain a 3 game lead on them over the last couple weeks, but the Twins just cannot get it done.

There’s been a lot of good moments. Close games. Good ball play. But the Twins are just getting squeaked out of wins in the late innings.

And to make it worse it’s against teams like the Mariners and the A’s. It seems like those two team just like to take it to the Twins when they play.

Let’s hope that the upcoming home games plus September call-ups breath a little exhuberance into this struggling Twins team. I guess for as bad as it has been it could be a lot worse. The Twins and White Sox are still in a dead race to the finish.

And the Twins get the play the White Sox at the end of the season at the dome. Wow, the dome is gonna be crazy if the division race is still this tight at during that series.

How about that. Punto bobbles the ball one play. The next play the Twins let a runner score while handing out a slick double play. Trade ya 2 outs for a run? Sure.

Game tied. Lead gone. Game will continue.

Just another Twins/Mariners game.

I wonder if there was any chance at all to nail Beltre at the plate? Probably not.

Either way. Nathan knocks out the next hitter and we’re off to small-ball our way into a 1 run lead for the 10th inning. That’s the way it goes.

I probably wouldn’t bet money on anything I just rambled about here.

Haha, not sure why I laughed at that comment about Sean Green, relief pitcher for the Mariners

Imagine that? With the track record these two teams have playing against each other this year, it’s amazing to see that it’s only 1-1 going into the 6th inning.

In the 6 games this year so far:

Twins Lose   6-11
Twins Lose   7-8
Twins Win   7-3
Twins Win   9-3
Twins Win   7-6
Twins Win  11-8

Not a lot of low scoring ball games there. Who woulda thought Liriano get’s into a late season pitchers duel with Miguel Batista?

So I guess the Twins have gone out and got Eddie Guardado. “Everyday Eddie” is what I remember him being called during his last stint with the Twins. Great to have him back, he should shore up a struggline bullpen quite nicely.

This season Eddie has had a 3.65 ERA in 55 appearances with the Rangers. Not too shabby. I’ll take that from a lefty in our bullpen.

The Twins sent to the Rangers Mark Hamburger.

It’ll be interesting to see if that guy ever turns into something. Everything in Minnesota is clouded by the shroud of Everyday Eddie. At the moment. Yeah.