The Minnesota Twins Say They'll Rally Come 2012

The Minnesota Twins sent out an email to season ticket holders this past weekend.

The email summarized what every Twins fan agonized through this past season; the email summarized everything that we already knew. The Twins were terrible this year and could claim few positive events: Liriano's no-no, Revere's 'web gem' of a catch as highlighted by ESPN, Thome's 600 HR, Blyleven's HOF recognition and Nathan's 255th record save. Yes, all were incredible, but we would be lying to ourselves if we said it wasn't easier to focus on the 99 losses.

To be frank, the email upset me in a pissed-off kind of way. It was too soon. I'm still too mad and too disappointed. Some would say I'm overly competitive and some would say I need to learn to let go. I'm not saying those people are right because I consider my competitiveness and keen memory to be assets, but perhaps I should be focusing on next year.

Unfortunately, the injuries were too much and the losses too heartbreaking. I was disappointed beyond words, making this post tough to formulate. Our sights were high heading in and so blocked by the end, it seemed as though the whole organization was drowning.

Twins fans deserve better. We deserve the commitment during the offseason in order to prevent injuries. We deserve honesty from players about their conditions. We deserve more than disappointment. We deserve Division Champs.

The Twins will rally? They damn well better.

LiriaNo-No

Liriano, who just so happened to throw his first professional complete game also threw his first no-hitter.

I watched this game and saw for myself how the men in blue helped Liriano achieve such a feat - they helped him in a big way.

It has been dubbed 'the out that wasn't'.

With pinch-runner Brent Lillibridge (White Sox) on first and only one out in the eight, Gordon Beckham (White Sox) jumped on the first pitch and hit a one-hopper to Danny Valencia. Valencia cleanly handled the ball and executed a perfect throw to Alexi Casilla, who was manning second base.

Casilla, wanting a perfect throw to Morneau, took his time making the toss and, unfortunately the throw pulled Morneau off the bag down the first base line toward the catcher... and Beckham. Morneau took a swipe at Beckham and clearly missed him (this was apparent to viewers at home who were provided a slow replay), but first-base umpire Paul Emmel called Beckham out to end the inning and to keep the no-hitter alive!

The out that wasn't.

In this amazing win, Liriano threw 123 pitches to catcher Drew Butera.

Now a game with the White Sox would be more than disappointing, even if it is a Twins no-hitter, if we weren't privy to an outburst by Ozzie Guillen. Lucky for us, the Morneau-Beckham play resulted in Ozzie storming the field in protest... Guillen made it as far as the third-base line before turning around and walking back in to the dugout.

Looks like our man Guillen has grown somewhat of an expert as to when arguing is appropriate - he is learning to pick is battles instead of battling all the time. I know I'm disappointed and I was disappointed that night too when I saw Guillen emerge from the dugout. I hopped right on Twitter to see what he would have to say... That lesson appears to be learned as well.

Ozzie Guillen needs to revert back to his old ways before I lose interest and start following Kobe Bryant's outbursts instead - now he knows how to start a media frenzy.

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.

Lefty Liriano Rebounds with Phils

After Liriano's first official start of the spring on Wednesday against the Orioles, he was not pleased with his mechanics and felt nothing was going right.

His feelings and performance seemed to pull a 180 shirt on Sunday in a start against the Phillies. Liriano pitched three scoreless innings, scattering four hits and walking two batters. While the outing wasn't picture perfect, it was an improvement in L's mind.

All of the balls put in play by the Phillies during L's start were ground balls, which is very good and, although his command was not spot on, he seemed to possess better movement on his pitches than against the Orioles.

There was mild speculation that Liriano was attempting to 'catch-up' after missing the early parts of spring training from shoulder soreness. I think Liriano just has high standards annnnd I can respect that - keep up the good work... dawg.