Positive Numbers: Twins (Last Week: -2). OK, I'll give props. A week after I and many other people left the Twinks for dead after a three-game sweep at the hands of the Yankees, they march into Baltimore, a fellow Wild Card aspirant, and swept a four-game sweep of the Orioles, three of them by a run, one and maybe two of them of the come-from-behind variety. And then they went into cavernous Tropicana Field and have taken the first two games of a three-game series from the Tampa Bay Rays. Therefore they are on a season-high six-game winning streak. It's the first time they've won six in a row on the road in seven seasons. And most important, as of right now, they have reassumed American League Wild Card 2, a 1/2-game up on The Other Washington Senators.
Two things stand out from their perfect 6-0 screening week. First of all, they have impressed with the variety of ways they've won. The three one-run victories over the Os stand out. But in their first game at Camden Yards they blasted The Bastard St. Louis Browns 15-2. On Tuesday they overcame yet another shitty performance from the busted Ervin Santana (who didn't make it out of the third inning) to outhit and outrun the Bay Rays 11-7. Then yesterday (Wednesday) they overcame a 12-strikeout performance from Bay Rays budding ace Chris Archer and scratched out enough runs (including two solo Home Runs from Eddie Rosario, who also gunned down a runner trying for Third Base to end the Tampa inning) to hang Archer for the 5-3 loss. They currently have allowed more runs than scored, which has proven to be a prime indicator for success. So I guess they're in ALWC2 based on things sabermetrics can't analyze, like guts and clutch!
The other thing standing out is how the really young players on the Twins roster are starting to assert themselves. You have to start with Miguel Sano, who is well into the teens in homers. Rosario I've already told you about. Byron Buxton continues to excel in the outfield and on the basepaths, and he's no longer an embarrassment at the plate. Even Aaron Hicks has proven he can be competent in the Major Leagues. Add in veterans coming into their prime like Brian Dozier and Trevor Plouffe and veterans still gutting it out like Torii Hunter and Joe Mauer and you have a lineup that has gotten back off the mat for now and could be very, very good in the near future. Like I say, avoiding 90 losses is the goal for this year; if they can contend for a playoff spot -- not necessarily win, just contend -- that's gravy.
They go for the sweep of the Bay Rays tonight (Thursday night), then come home from their long road trip to face arguably the best team in Major League Baseball right now (and the template for what the Twins want to do), the Houston Astros for a weekend trio. After a day off, they host three with the Chicago White Sox.
#0: Gopher soccer (Re-Entry!). They open their 2015 campaign with a decisive 3-0 over North Dakota St. Friday, followed by a scoreless draw with Kansas Sunday. Because of her pair of clean sheets (totaling eight saves for both matches), Goalkeeper Tarah Hobbs was named B1G Defensive Player Of The Week.
I was there for their 0-0 game against the Jayhawks, a team that is ranked around the same area as the Gophers in last week's and this week's fully comprehensive rankings from this site I just heard about, Hero Sports (one of whose writers is the founder of All White Kit, the only blog I know dedicated to women's soccer). For much of the first half Kansas was by far the dominant team, while Minnesota looked listless whenever they looked overwhelmed. But things slowly turned after that, and despite getting outshot, they looked much more like the team predicted to finish sixth in the conference and just out of the projected NCAA Tournament. (I really don't mean that as faint praise.)
The club goes on the road for the next two non-conference weekends. This weekend they will be in Baton Rouge, La., to take part in the Battle Of The Bayou Tournament. They play Stephen F. Austin Friday and host LSU Sunday (Western Kentucky is the fourth team which does not play the Gophs).
#-1: Lynx (Last Week: -3). This squad is still in deep shit. They followed up their beating of San Antonio in San Antonio with an offensive brownout at Phoenix, who are 2 1/2 games behind them in the West yet still look like the much better team. Meanwhile they technically remain behind New York for best record in the WNBA. Head Coach Cheryl Reeve said they're just going through a bad stretch of bad ball. I say Seimone Augustus still isn't fully healed and may never be fully healed. Regardless, they need to get their shit together for two extremely important games this weekend: At the Liberty in Madison Square Garden Friday, then home to the Mercury Sunday evening.
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