Vikings

I've been perusing some of the national blogs about the Vikings chances this season. MOST agree that the Vikings defense will be much better this year. Most agree that Teddy Bridgewater does indeed have what it takes to excel at quarterback. AND they think that a healthy, focused Peterson will take some of the pressure off Bridgewater this season.

But the ADDED bonus is that many of those same commentators think the Vikings RECEIVERS will be much better this year, too. Especially speed-wise.

I don't have the insights for football that many of these observers have. I really think so much of how players perform is really up to the head coach, his game plan, and how smart he is at hiring the right assistants. Peterson has, for the most part, always been good as a running back for the Vikings, BUT he has never been used that well in most game situations.

How they USE him is AT LEAST as important as how good he still might or might not be.

I don't have a real opinion on our head coach yet, but I do know I like him more, right now, than any coach we've had since Denny Green. One year isn't much time to make a call. This year will determine how good he currently is or will be.

I'm more enthusiastic about the Vikings chances this season than previous years by having Mike Zimmer at the helm.

I still don't like or trust Adrian Peterson.

But he has paid all the penalties society and the league have determined were necessary. So I guess I'll move on, too. I look forward to the day where he will no longer be part of this team, or where he shows real remorse for what he did, until then, I'll just make sure I don't buy any Peterson merchandise.

Go Vikings!

Finally!

The Twins had another poor pitching start, this time by Hughes (5 runs in 5 innings), but Rosario just missed getting the cycle (he was robbed of a single late), and Dozier and Hicks both homered as well.

The offense was finally good enough to make up for poor starting pitching. They are still worth watching, but even with KC's loss, they are way too far back in the division. And even a chance at one of two wildcard spots is going to get tougher. They still have the second spot as of right now.

Still hoping, still caring, but with less enthusiasm.

The Twins STILL are saying they want to make a trade (probably for a shortstop and some bullpen help) by the trade deadline at noon today, I just don't want them to get rid of a GOOD prospect for half a year's rental. I don't think any trade will make us good enough to compete with the best teams this year, and I'd like us to take a longer view on getting better gradually.

We'll see what they have up their sleeves by noon today.

I saw the Astros picked up former Twin's centerfielder Carlos Gomez yesterday. They're serious about winning it all THIS year. Go Astros!

Twins Lose

I'm losing interest fast.

Rotten Ending

Here's something cooler than a Twin's loss:

Manute Bol has a 15 year-old son that's 6' 11" AND he has the skills of a guard...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWW26sb_-kU&app=desktop

KC Wins Again

Twins are now 8 games out of first. As the Nimble one mentioned yesterday, it's tough to be in the same division as the Royals...

Pitching

This weekend, baseball had some nice moments. Cole Hamels, one of baseball's best, tossed a no-hitter against the Cubs. What's interesting is that the Phillies are having such a bad season this year that Hamels is being actively talked about as trade bait. It's also kind of cool that the Cubs (the team that got no-hit) had not had a no-hitter pitched against them since 1965, when Sandy Koufax pitched a perfect game against them. That was the longest streak of not being no-hit in baseball history, over 7,000 games!

Also Zach Grienke had his 45 2/3 inning streak of no runs allowed streak snapped. His ERA this season is still a microscopic 1.37. Pitchers are so dominant this season.

Royals

While the Twins were busy getting beat by the Yankees, the Royals decided to acquire the ace of the Reds pitching staff, Johnny Cueto.

KC is setting themselves up as the World Series favorite. The Twins? Well, they're still having problems with the good teams.

I'm still enjoying the unexpectedly good season, but reality is starting to stare Twins fans in the face. They are pretty good this year. They just aren't great. Worth watching much of the time, but not a division leader.

I guess I'll have to settle.

Which is still way better than the last 5 years, so it's not all bad.

Bad Ending

Last night's game ended horribly. Perkins has now blown two save opportunities since the All-Star break. The last two years he developed arm trouble midway through the season. I hope this isn't the beginning of round three.

A-Rod showed once again last night that with or without enhancement he is one of the greatest players to ever play the game. Sometimes, that's all it takes to win the game.

The Twins are slowly sinking in the AL Central.

On the brighter side, the Vikings are officially in camp.

AND our vacation is going well. Batman: Year One, and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns where two incredible popcorn movies yesterday. I always find it interesting that the animated movies are always so much better than the live-action  ones and that most people never see them.

Everybody BOOOOOOOOOM!!!

It started  out great and just got even better by the finish. Hughes was sensational through seven. Four Twins hit home runs. Rosario had THREE doubles.

AND it was against the Yankees! Great game.

Santana and Plouffe BOOOOOM!

I guess if you shut out the other team, you at least have a chance of winning...

Vacation!

I'm sure glad the Twins are on the west coast for this losing streak. I get to miss those awful games entirely.

In the meantime, my wife and I are going to take a few days off to do nothing but shopping, eating, and marathon movie watching.

Life is better (sometimes) without the Twins.

I have to mention Adrain Peterson's restructured deal with the Vikings. The next two years are now guaranteed BUT the Vikes will be paying him about 30% less. That's a win for the good guys in my book.

Reports around the league are saying the Vikings have the best defense in the division this year, and considering how good the defense is in this division, that's saying quite a bit. Camp opens Saturday in Mankato. We'll be going today, to beat the rush...

Twins Start Expected Downward Spiral

KC looked great last night against the Pirates, though.

Who Is the Twins Best Starter?

First off, it's not Ervin Sanatana. Even if he pitches great the rest of the way and the Twins make the playoffs, because of his suspension for steroids, he won't be eligible for the playoffs.

(A side note: Why would a team be forced to pay a salary for guy who is not allowed to help them in the playoffs? What kind of stupid major league rule allows a player to play in the regular season but disqualifies him when they need him the most? Why not just have a longer suspension to start with? Why would a team want to even have a player like that on its roster? It makes no sense. END OF RANT.)

It's not Pelfrey.  At times he shines. At times it's like he doesn't even belong in the majors. And he's having more of those types of outings again.

Ditto for Milone.

Hughes still hasn't figured out where his fastball went, and when he tries to find it by throwing one down the middle of the plate, the ball often times end up in the upper deck.

I guess that leaves us with Kyle Gibson. IF the Twins needed a win in a one game playoff, I'd pitch Gibson, though Hughes would be my second choice. Actually, Trevor May is rested in the bullpen, I may even have him start over Hughes. He's got more to prove and a spot to earn again.

We've got a few games left before having to make that type of decision. Let's hope we have a chance to make THAT type of decision.

The Legend of Korra

I really don't want to talk sports today. After that loss yesterday, I might want to take a break from sports for awhile.

Instead, I'll talk about something I really enjoy. The Legend of Korra was a Nickelodeon animated series that ran for four seasons and ended early last year. My wife and I finally got around to finishing the series yesterday afternoon as an alternative to watching that awful game.

We still BUY TV shows and movies we truly enjoy rather than renting them or having Netflix, but we almost always wait until they are on sale, so it sometimes takes us awhile to get the ones we want to see. IF I had bought the series when it first came out, it would have cost me about $130. I patiently waited and bought each set as it went on same at Apple iTunes. We ended up getting all 52 episodes for about $1 each that way.

But I'm not here to tell you about my buying habits, I'm here to tell you how good the series is. The animation is top notch, by far the best animation ever done for an animated TV show. At times it rivaled even the best animation seen in movies from Disney.

The LOOK of the show is amazing, with settings combining a 1930's science fiction feel. And the stories are not your typical kids fare. Socialism, Nazi Facism, and political fanaticism, and intrigue are at the heart of involved plot lines. Kids won't know this, of course, but older adults will see the care the writers took to involve more than your usual skin-deep villains. If I'd compare the stories to anything, I'd say they are like the better Marvel movies, with more humor,

In short, the best animated show ever done. One of the best television shows, period. And since it was done FOR kids, you can actually watch it WITH your kids!

Even if for some reason you don't like it much, it was way better than yesterday's Twins game.

You'll have to trust me on that.

Late Inning Heroics

The Twins took the lead in the top of the ninth.

Oakland tied it in the bottom of the ninth...

...and then won it in the bottom of the tenth.

That's the real advantage of home games as the Twins found out on their recent home stand.

sigh

And KC won again as well. The Twins are now FIVE games back.

sigh

Santana. Plouffe, Dozier

Ervin Santana is still the wild card in the Twins revamped rotation. Last time out, he failed miserably. Last night, he was spectacular.

And Brian Dozier hit yet another homer.

And Trevor Plouffe hit another grand slam.

And those homers were against the A's all-star pitcher, Sonny Gray.

A nice start to the second half of the season.

Pitching

To tell you the truth, I'm absolutely stunned by the Twins starting rotation this year, but oddly enough, it seems that nearly every team has a great staff of starters this year.

Doing some research, I've discovered that from 1904 until 1954, teams that had their batters struck out a total of 15 times or more in a game WON the game anyway total of 14 times.

This season alone, that has already happened 15 times! You see, the other team also had a great starter, and they managed to pull out a close score win. That tells me there's an awful lot of great starting pitching in the major leagues this season. More than any other time in our lifetimes.

So when guys like Bryce Harper and Mike Trout are hitting the ball out of parks at a nice clip, it also tells me guys like Trout and Harper are better than home run hitters from previous eras.

Baseball is a mind-boggling precise stat game. What's happening this season is absolutely off the charts in so many ways. The Twins are part of that.

I'm looking forward to seeing if they can continue to impress us.

The Dozier Blast

I was chastised by my better half yesterday for only hinting that Dozier hit a home run in the All-Star game. Here's the photographic proof:

Nice job, Brian.

It's Not History If It's Not On Video

When the "Franchise Four" fan vote was announced this spring, I figured the results would suffer from what I call "ESPN Syndrome" -- the belief, fostered by the Worldwide Leader, that nothing in sports history counts unless it's on video.

And that's what happened. The Giants list, for example, was entirely players from the San Francisco era, ignoring the likes of Christy Mathewson and Mel Ott in favor of Buster Posey, a fine player but necessarily lacking the long-term stature of Master Melvin and Big Six. Neither the Athletics nor the White Sox claimed Eddie Collins, but the Sox list included Harold Baines and Paul Konerko. 

I've grown to expect such historical ignorance, but I decline to accept it.

The eight-man Twins ballot featured seven players from the Minnesota years. Only Walter Johnson from the long-ago Washington Senators era was on the ballot. Fellow Hall of Famers Goose Goslin, Joe Cronin and Sam Rice were excluded. And when the results were announced, the winning four were Harmon Killebrew, Kirby Puckett, Rod Carew and Tony Oliva.

Nothing against Oliva, but Johnson was by any measure the greater player, with a good case as the greatest pitcher ever.

Of course, the Twins have spent decades pretending that the Washington era never happened. When they talk about the team's career leaders, they talk about the Twinscareer leaders.

But Johnson deserves to be attached to somebody's history. Four hundred seventeen career wins. One hundred ten shutouts. A career ERA of 2.17 (in 5,917 innings). Twelve times the league leader in strikeouts. On and on.

He didn't pitch in Minnesota, but the Twins should still embrace him as part of their history. Acknowledging him as one of the eight greatest was at least a start.

Trout BOOOOM!

Well, Mike Trout showed everybody why he's everyone's next big thing in baseball. He led off the game with a home run and won his 2nd All-Star MVP award in two years.

And he's only 23.

Dozier made the most of his one at-bat. A hit, an RBI, and a run scored. Perkins pitched an inning giving up one run.

A good game. And the right team won. Twins will now have home field advantage in the World Series.

Home Runs

I didn't think I'd watch the home run hitting contest this year, but the new format made it so much more enjoyable to watch that I found myself sucked in. The time clock addition ( instead of the "outs" of previous years) made all the difference.

Todd Frazier's win in OT was great television. Keep the new format. It's a winner. And head to head competition is way more fun than total homers hit.

Picture of the Week

This one showed up in a newsfeed this week. It looks like a normal photo until you realize that the SMALL guy in the picture is Minnesota's own Nikola Pekovic, who is basically 7 feet tall and around 300 pounds.

The kid standing next to him? I haven't found out yet, but it's safe to say that he is one BIG dude.

Update: This is Igor Vovkovinsky, the tallest man in the U.S. He's from Rochester, Minnesota. I guess I knew that from a few articles about 10 years ago, but I had forgotten. The picture was taken in 2012.

Twins

You almost hate to see the Twins have a break.

Another great game by Gibson. Sano with another home run, and the ability to string hits together just when you need them is making this year's Twins team a very enjoyable waste of three hours a day.

Twins Win

And Dozier made the All-Star Game.

Phil Hughes definitely didn't have it yesterday, but the Twins batters were playing with quite a bit of enthusiasm after the big comeback win Friday night collecting 16 hits!.

One more hot, humid game today before the break, with Gibson on the mound.

Go Twins!

BOOOOOOOOM!!!!!

Wow.

Just wow.

Like most fans, I missed the ending of last night's amazing comeback. I was tired. We were down 6-1, and let's face it, nobody saw that coming. Instead I had to read about it and catch the highlights this morning.

The one thing I like best is that Trevor May picked up the win in relief, after his replacement in the starting rotation did such a poor job in the role.

That and Brian Dozier having his second walk-off home run in less than a week.

GO TWINS!

wow

Tigers

No matter how poorly the Tigers have been playing, the Twins just don't seem to match up to them well. David Price has always been good against everyone, so that he was rock solid last night against the Twins wasn't really a surprise. The two runs we had against him were unearned so, for all practical purposes, the Tigers earned that win against the Twins last night as soon as they hit a homer against Palfrey in the first inning.

Pelfrey wasn't bad either, but those home run balls killed him and the Twins, We'll have to see if we fare any better against the Tigers this weekend when both the temperature and humidity will be in the 90s.

Mauer Power! Bull Dozier! Milone and Perkins!

BOOOM!!!

The Twins have the best home record in the AL. Sano played third base yesterday AND got on base three more times.

I can't believe that we're approaching the All-Star Game and that I'm still enjoying Twins baseball. It's kind of like being a kid again. The cold, hard reality may slap us all in the face all any day now, but until that happens, I'm going to enjoy great pitching, timely hitting, Dozier's all-around play, and Sano's incredible debut.

Go Twins!!

Sano Off To Fantastic Start

Nolasco is going to need surgery on his ankle. There's now a great chance that he's done for the year. With Trevor May going to the bullpen, the Twins have FIVE starters again.

The problem did take care of itself. Speaking of solving problems. Fans were saying the Twins needed to get a big strong power hitter. With Sano becoming our quite successful DH (so far) the Twins are looking good there too.

KC is winning again, taking both games of a double header last night. Catching them is going to be tough.

Former Twin Justin Morneau is back on the disabled list with a concussion. I think it's time he consider retiring. The mind is a terrible thing to lose.

Hughes Great! Dozier--BOOOOM!!

It was nice seeing the other side of a walk-off last night.

Dozier leads the league in both runs scored and extra base hits. He's having a league MVP-type season. No one else knows about him outside of Minnesota and a few metrics guys, but he is the primary reason we are still in the hunt.

Go Twins!

USA! USA!

The Twins lost another heartbreaker yesterday. We missed the ending because of a unique sporting event strategy.

Because the USA women's soccer squad was going against Japan yesterday, and we had no real interest in the game (it's just soccer after all) we decided to build our interest.

We bought Tora! Tora! Tora! (the movie about the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that got us involved in WWII) and watched that first.

By the time that movie was over we couldn't wait to see the U.S. destroy Japan in the World Cup.

It worked!

USA! USA! USA!

Mauer BOOOOM!!!

Joe Mauer looked like his old self last night. His four hits, including a two-run homer, led the Twins to a victory over KC. Plouffe had a single, double, and triple as well, while Perkins picked up his 27th save. Santana debuts for the Twins today. The season is half over and we're still in it.

Unbelievable.

Pitching Great. Loss Disappointing

The Twins starters have proven themselves again and again over the last couple of months. Even though the last two weeks have not been particularly easy to watch, it certainly hasn't been the starting pitching's fault.

Which brings us to last night. Absolutely solid start. Horrible extra-inning loss.

What is wrong with the Twins, won't be fixed by pitching.

But the Twins now have eighty games under their belt this season which means that Ervin Santana is going to be back in the rotation. That gives us six starters. A six man rotation isn't going to be beneficial to two of them because their split seam fastball (sinker) sharpness requires regular work. And the other guys aren't that well suited for bullpen work because they are more finesse pitchers that take an inning or two to find their spots.

Palfrey could probably go to the bullpen and be effective, but since he's been our best starter all year, I'd hate to see that. And he wouldn't want to do that either.

Thankfully, Ricky Nolasco's ankle is taking longer to heal than expected, so we don't have to worry about making room for a SEVENTH starter.

I've been warning people that this was going to happen. The only REAL solution is to trade somebody. But who wants to do that? Who would you ship? I suppose an injury could occur in the next couple of days, but who wants that either?

Great pitching with more than we can handle. Poor hitting with no end in sight.

That's your 2015 Minnesota Twins.

That ending last night was so hard to watch.

Gibson!

The Twins got a game closer to the Royals last night and Kyle Gibson is the primary reason.

The only hits they got off him were bunts.

Miguel Sano got one hit and two strikeouts in three at-bats. So it was a lot like Vargas had never left. Speaking of Sano, the Twins signed a 16-year old international player yesterday to a $4 million contract. That breaks the previous signing record had Sano held. The player? Wander Xavier, a Dominican shortstop.

Twins Extra

I don't usually post twice a day, but I'll make an exception today. Sano is playing tonight (and from now on) as the Twins new DH. Vargas has been shipped back to the minors again.

Smart move! I didn't see that one coming.

This series with KC is huge. And it just got a lot more interesting!

Moving Day

Another great pitching performance, another loss.

Yada, Yada...

I'd rather talk about something I'm much more apprehensive and excited about. We're getting a brand new 5K iMac today and I'm busy copying off stuff from my old one to have available for my new one.

I honestly thought Time Capsule would take care of it for me BUT my system software is so old it's not compatible with the latest Mac operating system. As a result, I've had to burn off  a whole truckload worth of stuff onto DVDs just to be safe.


I kept the old system software just so it would be compatible with CS 3. I didn't want to buy it again for $2000 just to have the latest and greatest system.

But now that Photoshop from CS 6 is the last one anyone is allowed to buy, we thought it best to bite the bullet and buy it and the computer at the same time. Any longer and we would have to RENT CS for $600 a year. We simply don't want to do that.

Anyway, everything is ready. Setting it up and making sure everything is working is never easy. But getting that new Mac with that kind of resolution is certainly exciting.

We get it this afternoon. Then we have to move everything over.

We think this will be the last major Mac we will buy. Without Photoshop, the next one won't be that big a deal.

We keep waiting for some other company to put out software that is better and cheaper, but it never happens. Photoshop is king.

I dread the day that CS 6 won't be compatible with a newer Mac operating system.

The DH

I don't know how other American League fans feel, but I can no longer watch the Twins play in National League ballparks.

Last night was the best example I could think of. Phil Hughes came up to bat in the top of the fourth and the top of the sixth with runners at second and third.

And he grounded out weakly both times leaving men FOUR runners stranded.

Gay marriage was illegal in the all 50 states as little as 10 years ago. Now it's the law of the land in all 50 states. IF something that controversial can get enough support to become law in so little time, how is it that the National League has not adopted the DH scenario yet? The American League, as well as most of the free world, has had the DH for over FORTY years.

At least allow it for inter-league play and the World Series. If you National League clubs want your weak-kneed pitchers to stifle rallies every third inning or so when you're playing amongst yourselves, that's up to you. But when it starts affecting how the rest of us live are lives, that's another thing. Forcing what you think is right on us and making us watch just isn't right.

I'm still talking about baseball, by the way.