Positive Numbers: Vikings (Last Week: 0). OK, now that the Vikes marched into Charlotte and knocked off the defending National Football Conference Champion Carolina Panthers, and by a comfortable 22-10 score, maybe, just maybe, these guys are for real.
What stands out is, like the victories over the Titans and Packers the first two weeks, this team came back from behind to win. Also, it was the Vikes' defense that kept them in this game; only once has Cam Newton ever been sacked more times in a game than the eight provided by Minnesota Sunday afternoon. Three of them came courtesy of Defensive End (and Trojan alum) Everson Griffen, who, for those efforts, was named conference Defensive Player Of The Week. And one of those sacks was a Safety, which finally put the Vikings on the board after Carolina started the game with a 10-0 lead in the first quarter.
And the Panthers didn't score for the rest of the game. The club intercepted Newton three times in the game. Meanwhile, the special teams got into the action, as the steadfast but lightly-heralded Marcus Sherels took a punt 54 yards to the house. (How long has Sherels been the team's Punt Returner? How long has he been with the Vikes?) And the offense remains, uh, efficient, as Sam Bradford connected with Kyle Rudolph for a Touchdown for a second week in a row. And Blair Walsh hit two Field Goals, although he missed yet another Extra Point. The squad's O could be a lot more potent, but it's the defense that's clicking right now, and if they can keep this up and stay off the injury list, the team will be a force to be reckoned with all season.
And they play on national TV again because they host the Monday Night game against the New York Giants, a team who, mysteriously, are the Vikes' bitches. I wonder if there's going to be a regression to the mean, but frankly, I kind of think the chances Minnesota goes 4-0 after Week 4 is pretty good.
#0: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -1). Started off B1G play last weekend with a pair of home wins, sweeping Maryland and beating then-#17 Ohio St. in four sets. Outside Hitter and Eden Prairie native Sarah Wilhite was named Big Ten Player Of The Week for the second time this year for racking up 30 kills in both games. The Gophers are on a nine-game winning streak. And the U. is now ranked third in the Hero Sports poll and second in the AVCA Top 25. They now hit the road to the state of Indiana. Friday they play the Hoosiers, but the greater challenge is Sunday afternoon's matchup against Purdue, which is ranked 14th in the AVCA but 6th in Hero.
#-1: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -2). The volleyball team is going to the state the soccer team is coming from. And even though the opponents weren't exactly world-beaters, the side comes back to Robbie with a pair of clean sheets over the weekend, 3-0 at Indiana Friday and 2-0 at Purdue Sunday. Goalie Tarah Hobbs goes back-to-back as conference Defensive Player Of The Week for keeping her sheet clean. (See what I did there?) They remain a step ahead of Penn St. for the top of the B1G. And the IX is now in the Top X. (See what I did there?)
The Gophers now begin a three-match homestand. Wisconsin comes to St. Paul Saturday; Iowa visits Thursday.
#-2: Gopher football (Re-Entry!). Again, I wish it were Alabama, but Colorado St. is ... a school with a name, and they beat them, albeit at home (where they have yet to leave -- kind of like me!), by a score of 31-24. Remember that this team has been as nondescript a team as I've lived with all my life in Minnesota. There have been several times this program has started a season 3-0, buoyed with a rigged schedule where they have all their non-conference games at home. But it beats being winless.
We will finally have some indication of how good this team actually is now that they finally have to start conference play. And they finally hit the road, too -- Penn St., Saturday afternoon. If they aren't complete paper tigers, the Gophers should win this game. Right?
#-Infinity (tie): Twins and Saints (Last Week: -Infinity and Re-Entry!, respectively). I'm so glad that it's starting to feel like fall, because my God, the boys of summer absolutely suck.
I think it's fair to throw in the local minor league baseball team, but first we have to talk about the (at least in theory) major league baseball team, which is on the brink of the most humiliating of records a franchise can set. After this screening week's four losses (against just two wins), the Twinks now have, as of press time, 102 losses, which ties the execrable 1982 team as The Worst Team In Minnesota Twins History. (Applause!) Weeks like this week's 2-4 contributes to that. Losing streaks like the seven-game skid they finally broke Saturday also contributes to that. But, of course, it comes down to pitching and offense, two things that were in seriously short supply this season.
Which makes the season Brian Dozier is having all the more remarkable. He now has 42 Home Runs, the most hit by a Second Baseman in the American League. The Major League record is 43, by Davey Johnson. Unfortunately, Dozier's last Homer was on the afternoon of Thursday, September 22, and he has three games left, at the White Sox, to beat the record and end this annus horribilis with some value. Fuck the record; the Twinks are going to lose at least one more game and go down in history with awful notoriety. Just throw some softballs Dozier's way, please!
Now to the Saints. I have to write (and ridicule them) because, for a second year in a row, they finished the regular season with a great record and finished first in the North Division ... and lost in the Division Series. Last year they got upset by the Sioux City Explorers in four games. This year may be more excruciating because they had a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series and lost the last two games -- and since they won their division, they played, and lost, Game 5 at home.
Maybe I shouldn't bitch about the on-field play of minor league baseball squads -- Bill Murray, who has pulled the wool over everyone's eyes, would flip his shit if he knew I was bitching about the team he co-owns -- but let's face facts. For all the success this franchise has enjoyed (parlaying it into a beautiful ballpark that anchors the east side of downtown St. Paul), the Saints last won a league title in 2004. Independent baseball leaves it up to individual clubs to find and sign their own players. You would think that the Saints would get the pick of the litter because of the support from ownership down to the fans. So why in the fuckety-fuck have they not won a championship in a dozen goddamn years? It's about time, for God's sake.
OK, rant over.
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