#-1: Twins (Last Week: -1). Well hell's bells, break up the Twins! After they got swept in their two-game series at home to Cleveland, they went on the road and have been rude guests. With Saturday's 5-4 11th-inning win over Milwaukee (which I heard on satellite radio, at least the call where Burton gave up that two-run home run to, I think, Aramis Ramirez in the 6th), they have now won four in a row. I think they're still the worst team in Major League Baseball, but at least they now have 14 wins.
What's changed? Well, for one thing, their bats have heated up; they scored 11 runs twice in this winning streak. Also, minor league pitching prospects, namely Scott Diamond and P.J. Walters, have immediately stepped in and have become the best players in the starting rotation. There is no way that keeps up, so enjoy this before they regress back to the mean.
This week: They go for the sweep in Milwaukee this (Sunday) afternoon, then have a day off in transit to Chicago, then have a three-game set against the White Sox, and then immediately fly home to the Bullseye and play against Detroit, the team they swept in their two-fer the middle of last week.
#-Infinity: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2). They won yesterday (Saturday), at Illinois, in the final game of the regular season, 8-3. But that snapped a five-game losing streak, a slump that pushed them out of the Big Ten Tournament for the first time in ... I don't know.
In the conference, the top six teams advance to next week's tournament, which is being held this year in Columbus. The Goofs actually finished in a tie for sixth place with Illinois and Ohio St., but the tiebreaker is record against common opponents, and the Buckeyes claim that spot and thus the right to play at home. And once again, I don't remember the last time Minnesota didn't make the conference tournament.
And so ends a dynamic year for Manager John Anderson and the team. They finally closed down Siebert Field in the middle of the season so they can build a brand new stadium. And although I don't know what the preseason predictions were, I don't think the Gophers were picked to win the league. And they didn't, far from it. So another season of falling short of claiming their fourth NCAA title (but first in 48 years) is in the books. And once again, we wonder why the B1G continues to fund baseball when a) no one here cares and b) the power conference are from the Sun Belt and points south.
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