#-1: Twins (Last Week: -2). When the Twins dropped three-of-four at the White Sox last week, I thought it was over for them -- not just for their aim to win the division, but also to show that they can still be a formidable squad as the postseason began. Well, I guess I jumped the gun, because a 4-2 screening week plus Chicago backing up has Minnesota only a half-Game behind them for the American League Central Division as of press time. Not a bad demonstration of resilience -- and it's more than enough to grab the top spot in this week's WMNSS.
While it's important to look at who's better than them, it's also important to look behind, and this past week has also offered green shoots for home-field advantage for the Wild Card Round, the only round where teams can play at home. Along the same time they lost the series to the White Sox, the (teeth chattering) New York Yankees was storming ahead to surge past the Twins. With second place the best Minnesota seemingly could do, and Tampa far ahead of the Yankees in the A. L. East, it looked as though the Twins' Wild Card foe would be those goddamn Yankees. Again.
And you know what? Maybe it has to work out this way. The Minnesota Twins franchise, I am convinced, has an inferiority complex of the Yanks. And as much as people think the best way to progress through the postseason is to avoid your bugaboo, maybe the only way is through. Maybe the only way to truly be a championship club is to banish your demons. You can't banish them if you avoid them. So maybe a postseason tilt vs. the Yankees is exactly what the Twins, and the Twins fanbase, need, even though it may not be what they want. If they can finally cast away the team that has bedeviled them for so long, that might be a sign that they're going to win the World Series. It's kind of like the Boston Red Sox when they suffered under The Curse Of The Babe. They won that long-awaited World Series the year when they went down three Games to none in the American League Championship Series to their sworn enemy, the Yanks, only to become the first team in Major League Baseball History to win a series after being down 3-0. Once they did that, winning the World Series was cake. Maybe that can also happen with the Twins ... although I would prefer having such a three-Game series at Target Field than at Yankee Stadium.
Meanwhile this squad has the end of the regular season, entirely at home, to attend to. They have the back end of a quick two-Game series against Detroit to finish tonight/Wednesday night, then finish up this strange and unprecedented 2020 regular season with three over the weekend versus Cincinnati after taking Thursday off.
#-2: Lynx (Last Week: -1). The Lynx precede the Twins in local representation in playoffs. The team began the postseason staving off the Phoenix Mercury Thursday night in an 80-79 nail-biter. The Fourth Quarter was absolutely fucking nuts. Diana Taurasi got not one but two four-Point plays, and the Merc had a chance to tie it up at the end because Damiris Dantas missed not one but both of her free throws with 6.1 Seconds left. Luckily for the Lynx, Skylar Diggins-Smith's three-Point heave at the buzzer was no good. They earned that victory, but they gave Phoenix way too many chances.
Surviving that contest didn't instill in me any confidence Minnesota could make their Semifinal best-of-five series against Seattle competitive. But they did, even though they lost. In last/Tuesday night's Game 1 (which was delayed from Sunday because a few Storm players test inconclusively for COVID-19) the squad kept it close. However, the buzzer-beating hijinks went against the Lynx's fortunes; the Storm's Alysha Clark grabbed an offensive Rebound and laid the ball in at the gun to give Seattle the 88-86 win. You know who's good at collecting Rebounds? Sylvia Fowles. Unfortunately, even though it was of many people's belief she would play, she did not, even though she had an extra two Days to rest her calf.
The optimist in me is heartened the Lynx were in it till the end. The pessimist in me thinks they'll never have as good a shot to steal a Game in this series than they did last/Tuesday night. They try again tomorrow/Thursday night for Game 2. By this time next week, this series could go four Games; we'll see if that many Games is even necessary.
#-3: United FC (Last Week: -3). Only one Match this screening week, a 2-all Draw versus the Dynamo in Houston on Saturday (after being down there only 17 Days before). I have a rule when it comes to Draws like this: I look at the team that scored last. In this case, the Dynamo not only had the equalizer, they came back from a 2-0 Halftime deficit. Too many capitulations by the Loons for my taste.
This week they traded for journeyman Striker Kei Kamara, who now is on his eighth squad. I appreciate the exhaustive search for better talent. But hasn't MNUFC traded for, like, 90 players this season? I swear the side's roster is that long.
Anyway, after flirting with first place, the team currently sits in a tie for fourth. Eight teams in the Western Conference will make it to the playoffs for Pandemic 2020, but the team is only three Points clear of ninth place.
Tonight/Wednesday night they are playing in Columbus; they then return to Allianz to play Real Salt Lake on Sunday. And that's not all! Major League Soccer yesterday/Tuesday released the remaining revamped regular season schedule for all teams, and MNUFC have nine more (and final) Games before the playoff begin in earnest. This journey is long and it ain't over. As opposed to ...
#-4: Vikings (Last Week: -4). ... who, with the possible exception of the New York Jets, may be The Worst Team In The National Football League. I blogged that I had some regrets over going out on Sunday when I didn't need to, but then I remembered that I thought The Bastard Baltimore Colts were going to kill the Vikes, and when I heard in my car radio in the Second Half that they were, I didn't feel so bad. I was dreading a loss because the Offense, and in particular Quarterback Kirk Cousins, was so out of sync vs. Green Bay and the Defense, in particular the porous Defensive Line, would be no match for the robust Colts Offensive Line. And those twin curses haunted the ViQueens yet again on Sunday.
It is only two Games, but the same mistakes repeated themselves, and they deepened. That should tell you something -- namely that this is a lost, terrible team. And right now, I don't know where or how they will improve. I thought this team would go 5-11 this year. I was being wildly optimistic. This organization is staring into the abyss that is 0-16. I'm fucking serious.
This Sunday they're at home to play The Bastard Houston Oilers, another team with a great Offensive Line. Expect nothing less than carnage, familiar and stultifying carnage.
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