Spoiler?

The Royals made the playoffs last night, but only the "sudden death" version that wild card teams make. They'd prefer to win two more games and for the Twins to beat Detroit a couple of more times to give them the division title.

I'd like to see that as well.

IF Detroit and the Royals tie for the division title, I think they'll have a one game play-off to see who wins the division, the loser will then have a one-game playoff in the wild card game.

That means the team that wins THAT game will have to pitch their THIRD best starter in the regular play-offs against a rested division winner. I've always said that system seems incredibly unfair to to the wild card team. Especially since, in some cases, that team may have a better record than some division winners.

All the teams that make the playoffs should be on equal footing. Home field advantage being the only exception.

You know what I hate? It's baseball season and ESPN has today's soccer matches listed on their main web page scoreboard instead of last night's baseball scores. They could have easily had today's college football match-ups listed too. Why soccer? Those European team can't possibly be as interesting to their regular readers, can they? Idiots.

The Twins bats came to life last night. Dozier hit his 22nd dinger of the season and Arcia got number 20. When was the last time TWO Twins had at least 20 home runs in a season?

Stat for stat, the Twins have the thirteenth best batting average in baseball. That means there are 17 teams WORSE than the Twins. They are SIXTH in runs scored. Offensively, it has been a pretty good season. Considering the hodgepodge of players we've had, some would say we had a great season on offense.

Defensively the Twins are 12th in fielding percentage. That stat surprised me. Our outfield alone is so suspect. But the infield has improved dramatically this season, especially Trevor Plouffe. Plouffe has been solid at the plate and in the field this season. If you ignore the homerun totals, you could argue this has been his best season as a Twin.

So WHY are we so bad? We finished 29th out of 30 teams in ERA. You can't win with a pitching staff that gives up that many runs.

What's the most important thing in baseball? Pitching.

What's the second most important? Pitching.

The teams with the best pitching win the most playoff games. They also have the best records.

The Twins need pitching.

I don't know if Gardy will be around again next season, but with or without him, the Twins won't be winners until we get better pitching.