#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -3). Good thing I decided not to wait around for the resumption of Saturday night's game; even though it seemed like the rain stopped late in the night at one point, officials and representatives for both the Gophers and the Purdue Boilermakers decided to postpone the game until the following afternoon with two outs in the bottom of the eighth. Glad I decided to get my daily blog post in instead of milling about Siebert Field, even though it means I could not finish my first-ever use of the scorecard I bought at Oshman's Sports Store about two decades ago.
Unfortunately, when the game resumed at around 11 (?) in the following day, I missed one hell of an ending. In the top of the ninth inning, Purdue's Sean McHugh hit a three-run homer to give the Makers B a 5-3 lead. But in the bottom of the ninth, Tony Skjefte hit a two-run dong to tie the game. Minnesota's Bobby Juan led off the bottom half of the tenth by ending it, sending a ball over the wall to end the game, 6-5.
The actual game scheduled for Sunday might have been stranger. Purdue got out to a 3-0 lead, but no surprise to the team that is dead last in the Big Ten, the Boilermakers failed to hold the lead. In the bottom of the ninth, Connor Schaefbauer hit an infield single with the bases loaded to tie the game, then Dan Olinger may have -- may have -- been hit in the sleeve to bring in the winning run with a Hit By Pitch. And don't forget Friday's 5-4 win, where Purdue, just like on Sunday, scored all its run first and then proceeded to choke it away. No game-ending heroics in the first game of the series, however; Matt Fielder brought home the go-ahead run in the eighth inning, not the ninth.
I believe that with their 12-9 record, the Gophers have secured a spot in next week's Big Ten Baseball Tournament in Omaha, Neb. In the meantime they finish the regular season this Thursday through Saturday with a series at conference-leading, Top 10-in-the-nation Indiana in Bloomington, Ind.
#-2: Twins (Last Week: -2). A 3-4 screening week. It started off with two more losses in Cleveland, resulting in a sweep. But over the weekend they took two of three at division-leading Detroit. They beat Boston Tuesday at Target Field on a game-ending (I hate saying walk-off; I don't know why, it describes it perfectly, but I always thought coining the term "walk-off" was unnecessary since I have been able to say "game-ending" to describe game-ending plays for as long as I could remember) home run by Chris Parmalee, but Kevin Correia got shelled Wednesday evening and lost to the BoSox 9-4, thus depriving the Twinks a chance to get to .500, kind of like how the Timberwolves never were able to stay at .500 this past NBA season.
They finish up their series against the defending champions Thursday afternoon, then play three at The Bullseye against Robinson Cano and the Seattle Mariners. One day off, then they begin the annual two-game mid-week series, this time in San Diego.
#-Infinity: Wild (Last Week: -1). Apparently my body needed to catch up on its sleep, because I decided to stop computering and lie down in my bed while listening to the first period of the Wild-Chicago Blackhawks Game 6 Tuesday night, with Chicago up 1-0. That was around 8:30. I woke up around 3:30, then tried to go to sleep (and did) until my real wake-up time of 6:45.
I woke up one other time; amazingly (even though I seem to wake up at the most opportune times) I woke up just as Wild radio play-by-play man Bob Kurtz say, "... and the Wild's season comes to an end." I thought to myself, Well, shit, then reached out to turn the radio off, go back to sleep, and forget.
I still think that any season that ends short of a championship is a failure. By that measure, the Mild failed. But from what I hear about the weird set of circumstances that led up to Patrick Kane's game-winning, season-ending score for the Blackhawks almost midway through overtime in Game 6 (still can't bear to watch it), it was fucking weird. Brent Seabrook was just dumping it in so Chicago could get a line change, the puck hit off a stanchion and so it bounced in a way none of the players, especially the Wild, expected, and Kane retrieved the puck, which wound up in front of Wild Goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov, and backhanded it behind him. A lucky bounce, as I read it.
Saying that, I guess I can't be too unhappy with how they lost, even though they lost at home for the first time in six postseason games and, unfortunately, that particular defeat ended their season. And the ovation they got from the Xcel Energy Center faithful was genuine and well-earned. This is a team, after all, which battled back from a 2-games-to-none deficit and four one-goal deficits in the seventh and deciding game (on the road, no less) to beat the Central-Division champion Colorado Avalanche in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. And they were a much better team than the one that wimped out quickly against Chicago in the first round of last year's playoffs. Things are improving with this club. Zach Parise and Ryan Suter remain studs, but I'm more heartened by the maturity and growth of Mikael Granlund, Erik Haula, Jonas Brodin and Charlie Coyle. Those are the young players that form the core of what could be -- could; can't say they have the combined talent level of Chicago yet -- a Stanley Cup contender. Add more defense and a big-time Goalie, and that level of contention could be next year.
Yes, Tuesday night was a disappointment. And you never know what could come next season. But I cannot deny that the future looks bright. All of a sudden, the Wild is the best professional sports team in Minnesota.
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