#-1: United FC (Re-Entry!). Scheduling weirdness, Part 1 (even though I am repeating this from something I wrote in the WMNSS two weeks ago): Because there are an odd number of XIs in Major League Soccer this season, one team gets a de facto bye every Matchweek. The Loons were the odd team not playing two Weeks ago. They then played at Real Salt Lake Saturday, in which they trailed 1-0 for most of the Game until a bad clear by RSL Goalie Zac MacMath deflected off of MNUFC newcomer Nico Hansen and into the net. When you've been behind for 65 Minutes on the road, you'll take a tying Goal however you can, and you'll take the ensuing Point if it's offered.
So after starting their Year 0-4, they are now undefeated in their last three. And when compared to the other sorry teams representing the Twin Cities right now, United FC gets the top spot in this Week's survey. But here is where the schedule gets real weird: After playing for the first time in two Weeks, the side is off for the next three Weeks because of international fixtures. Four Loons will be busy playing for their countries in the interim.
#-2: Lynx (Re-Entry!). Scheduling weirdness, Part 2: As pointed out in an article by a Lynx "reporter" hired by the squad, the club has had a fucked-up early part of the schedule. Minnesota has played only five Games in the Year, tying with Los Angeles for fewest so far. They had eight Days between Games versus the Seattle Storm when a home-and-home would have been more normal to schedule. (Oh, on that second Game, played on Friday in Everett, Wash., the Storm blew out the Jynx by ten.) They played two Days later, where the club finally won their first Game of the season over Connecticut, 79-74. And after that they have to wait five more Days before getting back on the court to host Atlanta tonight/Friday night. Why the quirkiness. No reason, as far as I know.
After a lot of rest, this screening Week is going to be busy: They play the Dream at Target Center again Sunday night, then travel out to D. C. to play the Mystics Tuesday.
#-3: Twins (Last Week: -2). I don't know which company, but there was, like, a sabermetric company that published the percentage chance each team in Major League Baseball had in making the postseason. And there was some umbrage taken by some of the teams whose percentages were pretty much zero. The fans of those teams apparently did not understand that the team had free will in putting a lie to those percentages. So, this analytics company redid all the percentages so that every team had a 100% chance of making the playoffs ... except the Baltimore Orioles, which was, I think, the only team given a 0.0% chance of making the postseason before the change, and was still given a 0.0% chance of making the postseason after it. That's how bad these sabrematricians believed the O's will be in 2021.
And that is the team that just won a series versus our Twinks. They had lost 14 straight Games to Minnesota, but broke that losing streak Tuesday and started their own winning streak against the Twinks by winning Wednesday. Therefore, you can point to this series as the one that put the nail in the coffin of the 2021 season, one that showed so, so much promise.
Oh, they also lost two-of-three against Kansas City before the Baltimore series. And they started a series against the Royals in K. C. last/Thursday night with a 6-5 loss due directly by, and stop me if you've heard this one before, Errors by the Twinks. These motherfuckers were supposed to be better defensively! What the fuck?!
And this is the easy part of their schedule, the part in which they could finally get their season back together. It's not as if the Yankees, which they host for a three-Game series beginning Tuesday, are going gangbusters now; New York press is having a field day about how bad they look. But the Twins are the Yankees' bitches, so the dark days for this ballclub may just be dawning.
#-Infinity (tie): Wild and Gopher baseball (Last Week: -1 and -3, respectively). I have gone back and forth as to which sad franchise/program's obituary I would write first. But does it really fucking matter?
OK, the Mild first. I get all fuckin' hyped up after they come back from a 3-1 series hole and I'm thinking, genuinely thinking, that they have the momentum and will take the series over Las Vegas, a franchise that they historically have beaten with some regularity. But then Jonas Brodin gets injured, they're down to five Defensemen, and apparently the Golden Knights just killed them, ending the Mild's season in Game 7 by a score of 6-2. (For all my "confidence" Minnesota was going to win, I'm still a Minnesota sports fan; I knew not to watch lest I witness a massacre, and I was right in avoiding it.)
In the aftermath of yet another early-postseason dismissal, people on Twitter were looking on the bright side, saying that it wasn't supposed to be "our" year yet anyway, and that with Kirill Kaprizov in the fold and having one season under his belt, that club is going to start a maturation process that will lead to honest Stanley Cup contention. We fans have been down this road before; ex-General Manager Chuck Fletcher decided to build a rotation of players around stalwarts Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, and that led to one Second Round appearance before a teardown that was finally completed a season ago. This looking toward the future may be true, but goddammit, they came back from 3-1 down this season to force a Game 7. The future is not promised to any of us. Why couldn't they just fucking win this series and see where that takes all of us?
I'm just ... (shrug)
I have no more words for the Mild, so now to the Gopher baseball team/program, which, after a final weekend in West Lafayette, Ind., in which they had the first Game vs. Penn St. rained out, they lost the second Game to the Nittany Lions (and, as it turns out, the only Game this season played versus the Lions) 3-7, and then they split a Doubleheader with host Purdue in the final day of their season, finished 2021 with a record of 6-31, by far The Worst Season In Minnesota Golden Gopher Baseball Program History, a history that goes back, with spotty recording, all the way back to 1876.
It is sad that the last two contests this cursed team played may have been the most memorable. In the first Game, a 2-1 victory, Minnesota scored the winning Run in the top of the Second Inning on a throwing Error, although Starting Pitcher Jack Liffrig went eight Innings to get the Win and Drake Davis was able to lock the door to get his first (and only) Save of his Year. In the second, a 7-6 loss, the Goofers built up a 6-1 lead before getting shaken down for five Boilermakers Runs in the bottom of the Sixth, then gave up the winning Run in the Seventh. Those one-Run Games are actually highlights when compared to some of the blowouts they suffered: 16-1; 17-5; 18-0; 21-5 (this was to Michigan, at home, in a tilt broadcast on ESPNU); 23-1; and 17-4. This obviously points to shit-ass Pitching and, to a lesser extent, a dearth of players because, at least as it has been reported, Athletic Director Mark Coyle severely limited Head Coach John Anderson's ability to reach out and grab players from the transfer portal because it would look bad to do so when the university euthanized three programs.
I guess that's fine. Because let's be honest: If this were a blue-chip, money-making sport and program, John Anderson would at least be on the hot seat next Year and might have been fired already. But this is Minnesota baseball ... and you are talking about someone who has been HC for decades. As historically pathetic this season has been, there are easy ways to just neuralize it and speak of it only in whispers. And the powers that be will probably get away with doing just that.
No comments:
Post a Comment