#-1: Swarm (Last Week: -1). Saturday I was actually contemplating changing my initial plan of going all the way out to St. Paul to see the Swarm. There was the documentary I Am playing closer by, the Uptown, and the two night screenings had an after-movie Q&A with its director, Tom Shadyac, the same guy who helmed Liar Liar and Bruce Almighty. How many times do hotshot directors drop by Minnesota?
But the short running time dissuaded me from going to something that would give me so much time in the evening to hit myself over the head that I decided to change my plans to watch what may have been an indulgent, lazily liberal doc. And I'm glad I stuck to my original plan. The Swarm won, 16-8 (I swear I have never seen a blowout game in the National Lacrosse League. All the games I've intended, the margin of victory was never more than three goals. Guess that's a good thing) to overtake Washington for second place in the Western Conference, and thus a home playoff game, their first in three years and only their second in franchise history, tonight (Saturday night) against the aforementioned Stealth. Win this, and they'd be in the Western Conference Final match for the first time ever.
The Smarm looked incredibly shaky in the first half of the first quarter -- blown defensive assignments, Goalie Nick Patterson letting in easy shots, stuff like that. But the team managed to rip off eight goals in a row from early in the second period to the very start of the fourth. If this balance keeps up, the Minnesota sports scene might finally have an actual, legitimate team to be proud of. But if they lose Saturday ... ah, well, indoor lacrosse is just a gimmick like pro wrestling, right?
Just win, Swarm, please?
#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -3). A 4-1 week. That loss, however, is an embarrassing one: 9-6 at lower-division South Dakota St. That's the back half of a scheduled home-and-home, but Tuesday's game at Siebert Field was cancelled due to rain, the sixth game cancelled this season and the tenth otherwise altered because of weather.
Now, can a week be that great if you lose to a lower-division school? I don't think so. But I do have to give the Gophers props. They swept Indiana in Bloomington last weekend (including a doubleheader sweep Saturday by a combined score of 17-3 -- they're the anti-Twins!), and started a home series against Iowa with a 1-0 win ... where they had only one hit, a triple by Troy Larson who came home on a Justin Gominsky sacrifice fly to right field. T. J. Oakes, Billy Soule and Scott Matyas did the rest; although the Hoosiers got eight hits, they failed to score. Damn impressive. Oh, and LHP Tom Windle was named Big Ten Freshman Of The Week for winning the first game of the Indiana doubleheader Saturday afternoon in relief.
Maybe this commences a turnaround for a team projected to win the Big Ten. They finish their series against the Hawkeyes this weekend -- I plan on taking in the Sunday afternoon game at Target Field with a friend -- then go play a midweek one-off at North Dakota St., then start a three-game series at Michigan.
#-3: Wild (Re-Entry!). Why is a team that was eliminated from playoff contention on this list? Because of the Nashville Predators. What the fuck has that got to do with anything?
Well, remember that at around the turn of the millennium, the Wild were one of four expansion teams in the NHL; the Predators and the Atlanta Thrashers were born the year before the Mild and the Columbus Blue Jackets. But of those four, only the Wild were able to say that they won a playoff series. In fact, they won two on their way to that scintillating run to the Western Conference Finals. That's gone as of this week, as the Preds were able to defeat the Anaheim Ducks in their first-round series. The only thing this franchise has against its "brothers" is now gone. Another record lost in a season full of them.
#-4: Vikings (Re-Entry!). I wonder how the draft grades are going to go for the ViQueens, but I know they won't be kind. Look, it's not just, "Christian Ponder?!?!" It's not as if they passed up what will be their surefire Quarterback Of The Future, because there is no QB Of The Future here. What I'm wondering is why they took a quarterback at all. This team has so many needs -- offensive line, cornerback, maybe even wide receiver -- that the available players at those positions must be better than Ponder, who many believe is no better than a second-rounder. You have Joe Webb. You also have little chance of making the playoffs next season, even if you are talking about the parity-stricken NFL. If you can't find the next Sam Bradford or Joe Flacco this year, why try for one? Roll the dice with Webb, maybe get someone like Donovan McNabb (hell, bring back Brett Favre -- I'm telling you he's not ready to retire yet), and try to cobble something together. And if you suck, well, the odds of being in place to get next year's great QB prospect, one without the questions from this year's edition, are much greater.
In later draft news, the Vikes' second-round pick is Tight End Kyle Rudolph out of Notre Dame. Some touts had him going in the first round. This smells like a Best Player Available kind of a thing, but I'm happy with Visanthe Shiancoe. Their next five players I've never heard of.
#-5: Twins (Last Week: -2). Fuck this team. They won the two games they played against American League Central Division-leading Cleveland at home last weekend ... then were swept at Target midweek by the Tampa Bay Rays, including a doubleheader sweep on Thursday where they got the shit kicked out of them in the first game, 15-3. They also wound up the screening week by blowing a lead in the seventh inning and losing at Kansas City Friday.
Apparently there were a lot of bad mental errors that led to the Twinks' loss last (Friday) night. Oh, sure, Alex Burnett failed to hold the lead they scratched out in the sixth. But there was a stupid baserunning error by Danny Valencia in that inning, plus a couple throwing errors that allowed the Royals to scratch in runs in the seventh and eighth. This was a come-from-behind win by the fucking Royals, guys.
We're not out of April yet, and there is plenty of time to turn things around. But fuck it, I'll stick a fork in 'em. Joe Mauer's going to be out for some time, Delmon Young's got some lingering issues, Jim Thome's been out, and Francisco Liriano's time with the team is fast running out. They can't hit, they can't pitch, and now their defense sucks. Worst of all, it looks like this team is harkening back to the years where they surged in the second half of the season, so they're just biding their time and trying to get healthy for the run that they believe they'll just turn it on. Guys, the law of averages says you're bound to suck. And if this goddamn team doesn't show signs of life soon, the payback will happen this year, and it will happen with a vengeance. After they finish in K.C. this weekend they have yet another two-game series -- isn't there only one a year? -- at Chicago, another team with high expectations that have yet to pan out. Then they start a three-game series against the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park.
No comments:
Post a Comment