#-1: Lynx (Last Week: -2). I will say this: They are putting the blip in their schedule, where they lost three in a row and four of five, as far behind them as possible. This past week was a lot easier than I may have let on, as they destroyed the New York Liberty in Manhattan by 26 and then routed Seattle at home by 23. That means the Jynx have won four in a row and are still the team with the best record in the WNBA, albeit by one game over hot Chicago, which has won six straight games. Watch the rest for best record: The last game Minnesota plays is home to Chicago.
In the meantime, however, the schedule winds down in an incredibly hinky way: Starting with their victory over the Storm Saturday, the Lynx play five games against two teams. The other is the Los Angeles Sparks, who sit only 1 1/2 games behind Minnesota for first place in the Western Conference. They play at Target Wednesday. They then play the Storm, this time in Seattle, Saturday. The Storm may have sewn up a spot, but they sit only a game behind Phoenix for third and a chance to avoid Minnesota in the first round of the WNBA Playoffs.
#-2: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -1). This has been a very good week for Twin Cities teams. Everybody except the last-place team in the WMNSS (and I think you can hazard a guess as to which team that is) had undefeated weeks, going a combined 9-0. So how do I rank four teams with perfect weeks? Well, it's hard to do, and I think I was a bit capricious. I put the Lynx on top because they have the best record in the league and their regular season is about to end. Then, I thought about the football team and, even though it's unfair to point out they only played one game, I had to differentiate that from the other two squads who played more than one.
So then what -- take the soccer team or the volleyball team? The volleyball team won more games this screening week, 4 to 2. But look closer. The volleyball club's in the beginning part of their schedule, which traditionally for volleyball is four weeks of tournaments played on (at least officially) neutral sites. Moreover, none of the four teams that U. program beat are that good. On other hand, I do not know the quality of Illinois St., whom the Gophers curb-stomped 4-0 Friday at Robbie Stadium. But they traveled down to play Iowa St. Sunday afternoon and won a pure road game ... even if the only goal in the match was an own-goal by the Cyclones' Alyssa Williamson off a Gophers corner kick. Minnesota Head Coach Stefanie Golan called it "one of the ugliest games I've been a part of" in the post-game press conference, but hey, I'm pretty sure she ain't giving the win back. I don't know how the NCAA's RPI is computing the team's 4-0 start, but I can't see how they could do any better.
This weekend they host their second tournament of the season, the Minnesota Gold Classic. It's a four-team tourney, but all of them play only two games. The Gophers play a pair of SEC opponents -- at least some SEC teams have the balls to play up north in the fall -- in LSU Friday night and Ole Miss Sunday afternoon. (The other team is my alma mater, who'll play the Rebels Friday and the Tigers Sunday. I should contact them to tell them that we're here. I've had plans that we could do something. ...)
#-3: Gopher volleyball (Re-Entry!). I'm just not impressed with the four teams they beat in the UAB/Samford Tourney played in Birmingham, Ala. last weekend. In fact, I'm scared that this hurts their RPI to the point that it means a lower seed and a tougher road against better clubs in the NCAA Tournament. I mean, neither Jacksonville St., UAB, Georgia St. nor Samford (UAB and Samford hosted the tourney, even though I assume these games are technically neutral site) are considered good teams. Nevertheless, sweeping all four matches is good, even if they were expected to do that.
As a result, Minnesota, which was ranked sixth in the preseason AVCA poll, rose to fourth. One of the teams they passed is preseason #1, Texas, went to a tournament hosted by Hawai'i and lost to the host Rainbow Wahine in four sets. I kind of prefer seeing my team challenge themselves and lose a game than wallop programs beneath them. The other squad is Washington. Those slackers won only three games and were pushed in that third game to the full five sets by Gonzaga.
They come home to host their annual Diet Coke Classic. Once again, none of the field is imposing. They play Ball St. Friday, Western Illinois the following evening and Duke later that day.
#-4: Gopher football (Re-Entry!). I kind of feel bad for giving the U. gridiron club the shaft. I really thought the team would have trouble against UNLV; the Runnin' Rebels are not a good squad, but neither are the Gophers. But they managed to do the runnin' over the Rebels by a 51-23 score. Don't know what else to say besides that I did not know that Defensive Lineman Ra'Shede Hageman might be a very good player on the team this year. Let's see if they can continue this when they visit New Mexico St., a team that got ruined in Texas 56-7 last week (and a team who I say play to start the 2001 season, a loss to a ranked Oregon St. squad), Saturday evening.
#-5: Twins (Last Week: -3). Does winning two out of three over the weekend in Arlington, Tex. against a Texas Rangers club fighting for the playoffs, and a come-from-behind win Labor Afternoon over the Houston Astros (courtesy of Chris Collabello's second home run of the game, a grand slam in the top of then ninth) despite a boneheaded baserunning mistake that cost them the chance to take a lead earlier in the game make up for the fact that the Twinks embarrassingly got swept at home by the Kansas City Royals? I'm ashamed to admit this, but because the road wins happened more recently than the sweep, I feel a bit better about the team than I did than when the sweep was completed Thursday.
The big news, of course, is the trade of Justin Morneau Saturday to the Pittsburgh Pirates. The 2006 American League Most Valuable Player, a man who was drafted, grew up in and played for this organizaion all 11 years of his career, and second only to Joe Mauer as a face of the team, Morneau was never the same after that concussion he suffered a few years back. And although he's been concussion-free since and has been hitting home runs at a rate much better than I've remembered recently, the Twinks were in danger of losing him over the offseason without getting anything of substance in return. It did not help that Morneau reacted with tempered frustration after the Non-Waiver Trade Deadline passed without him being moved.
Situations like this are always tricky. Morneau probably thinks he should get more money in his next contract (he's playing out the final year of his current one) than the Twins probably think he should get. There's a good chance that he will have moved somewhere else, and that would mean an end of an era, namely the M&M Boys of Mauer and Morneau, two guys who came up with the organization together and largely helped the team achieve its recent success. Unfortunately, a franchise can have, at most, one sacred cow, the one player fans grow up with. Two is a luxury that the Twinks, a non-lucrative club in the unfair salary deregulation of Major League Baseball, cannot afford. And you cannot place Morneau ahead of a Minnesota son who is an AL MVP, has won the batting title twice and can still hit for average with the best of them.
Nevertheless, in a season, in fact a cycle where the team simply isn't good enough to attract fans because they're winning, people come around for the stars, or at least the players they are familiar with and like the most. There is a sizable contingent who have turned their backs on Morneau, and I will admit from time to time I am one of them. But you have to understand that he is also a face of the franchise, and I really do believe a baseball team does big damage to fan relations if they trade away all their good, or at least name, players in an effort to hasten the rebuilding process and collect prospects that might help them eventually win the World Series several years down the line. Besides, the Twinks haven't had a good recent record of the future players they traded fan favorites for. Trading him away could backfire as badly as keeping him for the rest of the year could. The bottom line is that Saturday marked a very, very sad day in Twinks history.
The other thing I need to point out is that the team has officially changed its identity 180 degrees. A lineup that used to preach Moneyball, specifically taking pitches and drawing walks, is now digging the long ball. The Twinks hit four homers in the win over The Bastard Houston Colt .45s, and last week they broke the team record for most strikeouts in a season with just about a month left to go. You know, a lot of people were bitching that this team was playing too much small ball, that they have to stop bunting and trying to steal and just fucking hit. Well, they're doing that now (probably due to necessity) -- is this any better, or even more entertaining?
After finishing the rest of their three-game series in Houston, they come home for ten straight days of baseball. They start that homestand Friday with a weekend trio against Toronto, then play a make-up date against the Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim Angels Of Los Angeles Of Anaheim Angels Of ... Monday, a make-up of another postponement from April (specifically the 17th). With Monday now a workday, Thursday is the last rest day of the regular season for the Twins; once they start against the Blue Jays Friday, they play every day until the regular season is over.
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