Minnesota Twins Cleveland Indians Tickets

The Cleveland Indians will be making their way to Target Field tonight. The Twins host the Indians tonight and Tuesday for a short two-game series. Kick your week off right and be there to catch the AL Central battle between the Indians and Twins. Both games start at 7:10.

Twins Indians 

Monday, 5/14 

Twins Indians 

Tuesday, 5/15

Jim Thome Full Circle

Jim Thome has come full circle as he returns to Cleveland to finish out the season with a team he hit over 300 home runs for. Thome will wear an Indians cap, as he once used to, before it appears on his Hall of Fame plaque.

I only hope the Indians, 6 1/2 games behind the Detroit Tigers, aren't too far out of the AL Central race. Thome deserves one last shot at a shiny World Series ring and it appears that the Indians are the team trying to give it to him.

Personally, he had a better shot with the Phillies, but I also estimated the Twins would win the AL Central instead of holding a personal race for last with the Kansas City Royals... so what do I know?

Good luck to Jim Thome and the Cleveland Indians. If the Twins aren't going to win the division, the Indians better (and not because I hate every other team besides the Royals). Now, back to shopping for an old-school Thome No. 25 Indians jersey... I'm looking for the cutoff version; so far the cheapest I've found on ebay is $22.

Justin Morneau Returns to the Twins Lineup

I would like to extend a big "welcome back" to Justin Morneau in regards to his return to the field in tonight's Twins-Indians matchup at Cleveland. Despite the 2-8 record in the last 10 games (which really is the only thing that does matter), the Twins have had a decent week...

Joe Nathan topped the Twins' all-time Saves leader board. Jim Thome, while still two away from the coveted 600 mark, has remained effective in the lineup knocking in RBI after RBI. Alexi Casilla has been lifted off the DL. And bringing up the rear as last but not least, Morneau will return after more than two months of recovery after neck surgery.

To illustrate how important Morneau's return will be tonight, think about how many games the heavy-hitting duo of Morneau and Mauer have played together... I'll give you a hint: you can count them on one hand... if you have 9 fingers on that one hand. My point being, Mauer and Morneau have only been in the lineup together in nine of the last 198 games this season.

No wonder we are 10 games back.

The word on the field is that Morneau is back to his former self while hitting down in Triple A. While this is encouraging, I will wait to see it to believe it. Triple A, from my experience (which is none) is completely different than the Majors. If Morneau can come in tonight and hit yard, he will have my vote of confidence. I realize that may be asking a lot from a man with many previous health issues, but desperate times call for desperate goals?

Besides, Morneau was one of the main advocates for the removal of the Target Field trees in center field. He needs to make up for the poor call in my mind. The trees made it harder for hitters to hit? Right. Because the hitters hit so much worse last year with the vision-imparing evergreens than they have this year with an open-range view. You won't convince me.

Back to the main point - I am glad to have Morneau back in the lineup because of his leadership skills, but I'll wait until around 10pm tonight to see if I am just as happy about his return to the lineup.

By the way, Cuddyer and Valencia are the only two Twins regulars that have yet to miss a game due to injury. Happy season. (CORRECTION AS OF 3:53 on 08/12: Cuddyer is out of the lineup due to a neck strain incident that arose out of Friday's batting practice.)

Also, did you know that Justin Morneau is the proud owner of The Graves hotel in Minneapolis? I just learned that yesterday and thought it to be interesting.

Minnesota Twins Face a Rough Month of August

That was a hyper-disappointing series for the Twins. When I say 'hyper' you know its bad. Think hyper-inflation, hyper child and hypertension. With Blackburn's pitch count skyrocketing faster than space shuttle Atlantis, we knew that the stock market wasn't the only thing in trouble this weekend. Heading in to the Twins-Oakland series, I thought the Twins would have a nice 'break' in playing a team that was 3rd in their AL West Division with an even greater deficit than the Twins. Wrong.

Nick Blackburn, known as a sinkballer, could make his sinker sink and without his go-to pitch, the Twins floundered.

My other main man, Carl Pavano didn't do much better. After the Twins jumped off to a 3-0 lead, Pavano continued his winless post-break streak by losing his fourth in as many starts by giving up 9 hits and striking out only one. No good, boys. I expect better of my hottie-patotties.

We win some, we lose some. What concerns me are the Twins' upcoming opponents (all except for the White Sox). We have the Angels who have been closing the slim gap that exists between them and the Rangers, Boston who has overcoming their disappointing start, the Indians and Tigers who are both leading the Twins and have slowed very little topped off by the Yankees who are the Twins' post-season nightmare. Not only does that schedule look terrible on paper, its even worse that the Twins travel from away to home every two series. That's a lot of traveling.

Today is the first of August and the Twins need to pull it together. Today. Because tomorrow we start a series against Tori Hunter and the recently-hot Angels in Anaheim. In a month that starts and ends with the White Sox, the perpetual door mat of the Twins, we have to believe the Twins can turn this around and climb in to the AL Central lead. Right?

Like Congress, its do or die time for the Twins. Crunch time, baby.

Twins-Angels Collaboration

With a win over Texas last night and a Santana no-hitter Angel win over the Indians, it seems as though the Angels and Twins have a sort of 'I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine' collaboration in place. And I like it.

Both teams are trailing the division leaders Texas and Detroit and Cleveland, yet have managed to reduce that deficit due to the losing of their counterparts. Los Angeles downed the Indians when Erwin Santana hurled a no-hitter, giving up only one run. Likewise, the Twins beat the Rangers last night in a nail-biter.

I would like to see this collaboration go further throughout the month of August where the Angels play the White Sox... and the Yankees (even though they are AL East), but since the Twins play at LA in the first week of August, we might need to take a break.

Until then, Angels. If you can't knock down the Tigers, might as well go after the next best thing. Thanks for the relative boost!

As of 07/27 here are the standings:

Its weird how the Yankees are blacked out.

Post All-Star Break Crucial for MN Twins

You will be hard pressed to find a more crucial homestand for the Minnesota Twins than the 12 upcoming games.

Think about the magnitude of the Royals 4-game series, Indians 3-game series and the Tigers 4-game series that will happen at Target Field following the All-Star Break.

On June 1st, the Minnesota Twins were a staggering 16.5 games back behind the Cleveland Indians. Fast forward to July 11th and the Twins are in fourth place, 6.5 games back behind the first place Detroit Tigers. Our next 12 games include only AL Central rivals and the Twins are coming off a 3-4 series win over the White Sox. We are heading in to the All-Star Break on a run of 24-11 over the last 35 games.

While there is always the risk of losing momentum over the break, I think for the Twins it will be quite the opposite as the Twins will have time to fully recharge and get healthy. Delmon Young, Jason Kubel and Denard Span can use the time to gear up for another divisional crown.

Not to mention Alex Rodriguez will be out 4-6 weeks with knee surgery, which puts a smile on my face and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I guess we will know more after July 24th.

Minnesota Twins Poised for AL Central Lead?

After the first inning of last night's Minnesota Twins game against the World Series Champs San Francisco Giants, we were on trend to score 72 runs after scoring 8 in the first with at least 8 more innings to play. However, that seemed unlikely and didn't happen. Know what did happen? We won our eighth game in a row. Eat it Cleveland.

The first eight batters scored, which hasn't happened since the Yankees in 1990. San Francisco's pitcher didn't get an out until Carl Pavano came to the plate. Not much of an accomplishment getting Pavano out either, he hacks like a lumberjack. A blind lumberjack. I like to think of it as getting back to those Paul Bunyan roots.

We are only 6.5 games back and have upcoming series against the White Sox, Royals, Indians and Tigers in July. I bet the Twins will be at .500 before the All-Star break if not shortly after.

As for Division leaders? Clearly it would be nice if we were poised to take the AL Central by the time we take on Boston, the Indians, Tigers and Yankees in the beginning of August as that is a tough stretch of teams with half being on the road. Bottom line is we are now talking about winning the AL Central. Two weeks ago we were talking about dumping players before the trade deadline to prepare for next year. The Minnesota Twins never die.

The record for a deficit made up by a postseason team is 15 though no one reading this has first-hand records of this because it happened in 1914. The Indians are on the pace to win 88 games this season. We would have to go 56-35 the rest of the way to win that same 88. That is a .615 pace. .615 is hardly impossible considering the Phillies have player .622 ball this whole year, but the last Twins team to maintain a pace like that happened in 1965.

There are ZERO pictures of "Carl Pavano batting" on google. This lumberjack picture was the closest I could find and, though the facial hair is inaccurate, it does the job.

AL Central Division Standings

After the walk-off hit by Alexi Casilla, who is no stranger to walk-offs having 5 in his career, I began to think 'what if?' The Twins are 11 games back with Cleveland leading the AL Central Division. Detroit, Chicago and Kansas hold the 2nd, 3rd and 4th places respectively.


What if? I don't want to get ahead of myself, so let's crunch some numbers and talk hypothetically.

After this series with Texas, which could be a prime opportunity to pick up some games on Cleveland seeing as the Indians are heading to the Bronx to take on the Yankees and we are, in recent history a difficult team for Texas to beat. We can't hope to take all four games of the series -- Texas is leading the AL West after all, but I don't think two games are out of the question, especially with one already under our belts.

After the Twins-Chicago series next week, we won't face another Central Division opponent until we see Chicago again in the second week of July. Then we have back to back series against the Central Division throughout July looking something like this: White Sox - All Star Break - Royals - Indians - Detroit.

We need to win 3 out of the 4 series AT LEAST... at the very minimum we need 3/4. During this 3-week stretch, our fellow division-mates have the following schedules:

Cleveland
Blue Jays
Orioles
Twins
White Sox

Analysis: we clearly need to win this series. Whether or not the Indians are maintaining their control of the division, we need to overcome the Indians in order to climb to the top. Additionally, if the Indians aren't games ahead, Detroit will be and nothing causes anxiety like seeing the Twins topple your division rivals (think game 163- AL Central Tiebreaker in 2009). It would be best if Cleveland split the series with the White Sox, but if not, the White Sox would be a better winner.

Detroit
Royals
White Sox
Athletics
Twins

Analysis: Similar to the Indian-Twins series, this is a must. The Tigers are on the verge of overcoming the Indians and we need to win at least 3/4 games of this series. No ifs ands or buts. It would be ideal if the Royals could take this series without a loss, but hey we can only ask for so much.

Chicago
Twins
Tigers
Royals
Indians

Analysis: much to my dismay, the White Sox hold an eerily similar schedule to ours. Wannabes. Basically, Chicago can only win 2 out of the 4 series to keep them from pulling ahead too far. One series they must lose would be to the Twins. Ideally, I would like them to beat the Royals so the Twins can fly to Chicago to visit a beaten-up team.

Kansas City
White Sox
Tigers
Twins
White Sox

Analysis: Just like years before, we need to enlist the Royals as allies and hope they can help us beat out the other AL Central Teams, while letting us cruise ahead to first. Kansas should be viewed as a pawn of sorts. Sorry guys! So, I would like Kansas to win every series in these three weeks except for the one against the Twins. If we don't beat Kansas, it seems hard to believe we would meet our goal of 3/4 series wins. Kansas is our stepping stone to bigger and better things.


I tried to be realistic in my observations, whether or not I did so, we will know in a little over a month. Obviously, the Twins need to perform better at home. The game last night against Texas was a good starting-point, but we need more. We need to win 75% of our games at home at least and those wins need to increase against the Central Division.

There are my thoughts. Have at 'em Twins.

Twins BEAT the Indians!

I guess it takes just a bit of reverse psychology to kick the Twins in to gear. For those of you who read regularly, you may have seen my post a couple of posts ago stating the Twins are basically out of it.


While I'm not saying I was wrong before, I still think there is little chance we will make the playoffs, I am extremely happy about the effect my post seems to have had.

Some readers seemed disgruntled and I did receive backlash (hey no one likes facing reality), but the best reaction I received came from the Twins as they downed the Tribe to take the series.

How can, as said by analysts, the worst team in baseball beat the best team in baseball? That's a little Twins magic for you folks. You betcha I love that they won. We are the Twins and we will go out fighting...

Looking at the current standings, Detroit is only half a game out of first. We did some real damage to the Indians, making them look like garbage, while the Tigers are coming off as the 'new' best team in the AL Central. What are the Twins going to have to do to get through to these knuckleheads? We may not have the best record, but we will always be the best team in baseball.

MLB and DUIs

Six active players have been cited, just this year, for driving under the influence. I have already addressed one of these players, the notable Miguel Crabrera (Detroit Tigers), but among him are: Derek Lowe (Atlanta), Shin-Soo Choo (Cleveland), Austin Kearns (Cleveland), Coco Crisp (Oakland) and Adam Kennedy (Seattle).

Wow, Cleveland seems fun.

With all these party animals within the league, as part of the new collective bargaining agreement, the MLB is seeking the ability for the commissioner to discipline players who are involved in such alcohol-related incidents. Somebody is jealous - if Bud Selig can't party nobody can. (With a name like Bud, you'd think he would punish those who DON'T have a beer in the center counsel)

None of the aforementioned players have been suspended by their respective teams and the current CBA does not grant the power for Bud Selig to suspend players for partying behind the wheel.

Timeline:

Kennedy was charged in January
Cabrera was arrested in February
Kearns was arrested in February
Crisp was arrested in March
Lowe was arrested in April
Choo was arrested in May

Looks like we've got this year covered so far, boys. Somebody is going to have to step up for the remainder of the year... if not, I'm sure Cabrera will do the honors. Again.

I can't quite put a finger on why two guys from Cleveland have gotten busted boozing behind the wheel, but one could venture they are already celebrating their successful season. Or, perhaps they are trying to numb their impending demise to the Minnesota Twins.

This is Twins Territory, baby. Stay sober guys.

Nishioka and Mauer on Disabled List

The normally passive Minnesota Twin fan base is getting restless. Want to know why?

Joe Nathan, fresh off tommy-john surgery, is blowing saves... Justin Morneau has a .619 OPS... Tsuyoshi Nishioka was making errors left and right, until he broke his leg... and Joe Mauer has just been put on the disabled list due to 'bilateral leg weakness'... Additionally, the Minnesota Twins are at the bottom of the AL Central Division... a division we share with the Kansas City Royals and the Cleveland Indians. What... a good joke.

If you are anything like myself, when you heard about Joe Mauer's inability to play, you fired up the Mac and headed in to the cyber world in search of 'bilateral leg weakness' because, frankly, it sounds made up. Here is what I found: an individual suffering from bilateral leg weakness has muscle weakness in both legs that could be caused by a malfunction of the brain, spinal cord, or nerves.



GREAT! Joe Mauer is broken... so broken in fact that he is TOO sick with the flu to even see the doctor about his brain/spinal cord/nerves. This injury could be classified as the most-apocalyptic one to date. Mauer is in the first season of a contract that pays him $23 million a season until 2018. At the time of his injury, Mauer was batting a lowly .235/.289/.265.

Given the aforementioned injuries, the Twins are close to cardiac arrest. With Nishioka out, second base has been manned by Michael Cuddyer (one of my faves) and with Casilla playing the opposite of impressive, the Twins are forced to consider the unlikely double-play combination of Luke Hughes at short and Michael Cuddyer at second. If you had told me this in February, I would have laughed so hard, I may have fallen off my dinosaur. (Step Bros reference)

Finally, there is the ace left-hander Francisco Liriano who... basically can't get anyone out. He has been pitching for contact all year. Liriano has a 9.42 ERA in three starts. How are we 4-8?

Let's cross our fingers Mauer receives more of an informed diagnosis when he sees the doctor. Actually, let's cross our fingers Mauer even makes it to a doctor.