#0: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2). I'm being too generous. They dropped two-of-three games in their final regular-season series against Illinois at Siebert Field. But the one they won, the last game of the season on Saturday, clinched the Gophers a spot in the Big Ten Conference Tournament, which will be held at Target Field.
It would be kind of embarrassing if the host school doesn't even get to participate in the tournament it's hosting. But the Goofs were playing their way down the conference standings and out of that tourney by losing six of their last seven games. By the break of dawn Saturday, Minnesota, Michigan and Michigan St. were vying for the last two open spots in the six-team field. The Spartans would lose the tie-breaker under most scenarios, but they managed to defeat Penn St. (who was the worst team in the Big Ten this year but beat Minnesota for one of its three conference victories on May 5) in State College. As they finished, the Wolverines were introducing Nebraska to a little bit of prison sex in Lincoln, but the Gophers were still in a scoreless tie in a tense, tight game against the Illini after six.
I had my tablet with me and I was looking all over cyberspace for Big Ten playoff scenarios, but the Big Ten Network site had nothing on that. You would think a network that can give $20+ million to member schools could hire someone to put those what-ifs on a webpage on BTN.com. Stupid me. Anyway, it was this tweet by Michigan St. baseball providing updates of the relevant scores just after the Spartans' 2-1 win over the Nittany Lions that proved my suspicion: A loss by the U. coupled with victories by both Michigan teams would mean the Goofs would be out.
So I knew that the U. likely would have needed to win to get in. That didn't seem likely to happen, even if they managed to keep Illinois off the board. Their starting pitcher, John Kravetz, was perfect through five; Third Baseman Ryan Abrahamson's grounder through the left side ended that, thank God. Then in the top of the eighth, the Illini loaded the bases with one out. Somehow, Gophers starter D.J. Snelten (named conference Pitcher Of The Week for the second time this season) induced Michael Hurwitz into a 4-6-3 double play to end the threat.
Minnesota finally broke through in the ensuing half-inning. Even though they still only managed two hits against Kravetz, Michael Handel started the inning off with a single through the left side. Then Abrahamson, who ran himself into an out a little after ending Kravetz's perfect game by trying to advance to third right in front of the Shortstop fielding a ground ball, lifted a double that was inches from the Right Field line. Handel ran all the way from first to draw first blood. Abrahamson was driven in on a J.D. Schlangen lifter to left in the same inning from a pitch thrown by reliever Drasen Johnson. Closer Billy Soule replaced Snelten after one batter in the top of the ninth and subsequently went 1-2-3 to seal the victory and a conference playoff berth (bumping Michigan St., the first time in three years they won't make the tourney). What a way to end the first season of The New Siebert Field.
It remains an uphill climb for the Gophers to continue on this season. In Baseball America's latest Bracketology (which came out exactly a week ago, before this weekend's games), Minnesota still isn't even considered to be an actual tournament team. So it looks like they'll need to win the Big Ten Tournament to get into the NCAA Tournament. Good news is is that the U. went from almost not getting in to, somehow, getting the fourth seed based on conference record. (Canceling an entire three-game series against Michigan St. really fucks up the win-loss comparisons.) And they will kick off the tournament which they host Wednesday at noon when they face the 5-seed -- which just happens to be Illinois.
I wish I could go to this tournament. Since my job ended, I would have the time, and all-tournament tickets are only $40. Too bad I had to use my Southwest credit to take a trip to Kansas City this week. More on that later, but it looks like I have to hope for a final between the last two teams standing with one loss apiece in order to see a game on Sunday. Either that or a rainout, and that's not in the forecast.
#-Infinity: Twins (Last Week: -1). Hey, have you guys heard of a movie called The Sandlot? I may have read about it in Entertainment Weekly, and the name's vaguely familiar, but it doesn't register with me. Apparently, however, a lot of people have heard of it because the Twinks "commemorated" the 20th anniversary of that movie by planning to screen it after Sunday afternoon's series finale against Boston and flying out two of the kids-now-grown-men. Seriously, what is this film?
But there was a huge rain delay near the end of the game. It ran so long (almost 2 1/2 hours I think) that the organization decided to show The Sandlot right then instead of waiting till after the game was over. During the game -- and don't quote me on this, but I think it's right -- those two actors came out to play catch. I'm hoping that when one of them caught the ball, a fan would go, "Hey, you can play for the Twins!"
My Grandmother can play for the Twins right now, and she has dementia. Right now, after going through a putrid 0-6 screening week, this team is what we thought it was: sucky. They have slipped well below .500 after being up there last week, and after a 5-1 loss in Atlanta they could be playing the worst ball in Major League Baseball right now, even worse than Miami and Houston. What happened to them? Who gives a shit, they weren't going anywhere this year anyway.
BTW, thanks, Twinks for not automatically loading up the current month. I click on "Regular Season Schedule" and they still take me to April, so I have to click onto the next month. We all wish you guys were back in April; that would've meant you didn't go through a week without winning any fucking games!!! I really hope they fix this before we get into fucking June, this is a pain in the ass.
They are in the middle of a nine-game road trip because, remember, they've ceded Tarzhay to the Gophers and the B1G Baseball Tournament. They travel to Detroit and Milwaukee after playing The Bastard Boston-By-Way-Of-Milwaukee Braves.
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