The Twins Are Afraid Of Everything

As you know, I am a die-hard Twins fan. Some people may read this blog entry and call me a bandwagon jumper, but honestly I'm still a Twins fan albeit a frustrated Twins fan. What am I frustrated about. Well, the Twins are afraid of everything.

Every year, there's something that the Twins just can't do. In the early years of the Twins rise to relevancy, they had the fear of defeating a big market team. In 2002, they made the ALCS, but they beat the small market Oakland Athletics to get there. They promptly beat the LA Angels in game 1, and then dropped 4 straight including Adam Kennedy smoking three bombs in game 5. I think he has 5 bombs in his career and they've all come against the Twins. Might want to check that.

In 2003 and 2004, it was defeating the mighty Yankees in the playoffs. The most crippling example of this was Game 2 of the 2004 ALDS vs. the Yankees. The Twins had already defeated the Yankees in Game 1 and they were looking for more. Torii Hunter bashed a solo home run in the 11th inning to give the Twins a one run lead and they could have went into a deafening Metrodome with a 2-0 lead. Instead Joe Nathan's arm turned into a wet noodle, and the Twins went on to lose the game and the series.

Last year was the most frustrating of them all. The Twins had MULTIPLE chances to pull away from the White Sox and just couldn't do it. It seemed like every time the Twins had an opportunity to pull 2 games ahead of the White Sox, they would fold and choke in some strange fashion. The bullpen would collapse, someone would burn themselves while ironing, THEY SCORE TWO @#$%ING RUNS AGAINST THE KANSAS CITY ROYALS!!! If you don't believe this, check Justin Morneau's stats in the last two weeks of the season. Morneau shrivled up quicker than a guy's @#$% looking at nude photos of Whoopi Goldberg. He was 4-5 hits away from a MVP award and he choked, just like his team. Oh yeah, they finished one run short of the playoffs too...in a 1-0 game where they got TWO hits.

This year's Twins team is afraid of being two games over .500. The Twins love mediocrity this season and even when they have a favorable matchup, they find some way to screw things up. The Milwaukee game last week was a perfect example. Up by a run, Blackburn on the hill, man on first, 2 outs, and 2 strikes on Jason Kendall. Kendall lines one into the gap and the game is tied. No big deal. But Kendall tries to go to third and Blackburn launches one towards Bernie's slide in right field. The winning run scores, Hells Bells in the 9th, game over. 

Last night was quite pathetic too. Delmon Young is obviously deaf because he can't communicate with any center fielder. The only player who did anything was Morneau hitting his 18th bomb of the year (To Team Crishad's delight!). I'm getting sick of this. In the 8th inning, I wanted to throw something. At least we're battling our tails off out there, because that's all our manager wants. Just battle your tails off and don't worry about the division.

Well, Ronny, July 1st is approaching and you are now 4 games back of the Detroit Tigers who have a skitzophrenic pitcher, an outfielder having the worst season of their life, and a bullpen who has a WHIP around 2 (but that bullpen is still better than yours by the way). Also, you are now tied with the White Sox, who might have a big fire sale at the end of the year.

Last season, after Game 163, I found some solace in the fact that the Twins had plenty of young players they could count on and would probably win the division this season. So far, most of those young players have fallen on their face and the Twins are a mediocre team with no shot of doing anything past winning the division. I would like for our goal to be more than just getting to the playoffs, but getting deep in the playoffs. Give me something to cheer about please. I know the Twins are a better team than how they're playing right now, but maybe when the lineup gets healthy, the Twins can make a run. I really hope they do.

Here are the next 5 games for the Twins, a run where they need to go 4-1 in my opinion to get something going.

Today: Twins (Baker 5-6 5.17 ERA [3-0 in last 5 starts]) vs. Kansas City (Bannister 5-5 4.17 ERA)

Thursday: Twins (Perkins 3-4 4.70 ERA) vs. Kansas City (Meche 4-7 4.27)

Friday: Detroit (French 0-0 0.00 ERA ML Debut) vs. Twins (Slowey 10-4 4.41 ERA)

Saturday: Detroit (Jackson 6-4 2.49) vs. Twins (Liriano 4-8 5.62)

Sunday: Detroit (Porcello 8-5 3.90) vs. Twins (Blackburn 6-4 3.10)

And your standings watch for the day...

Tigers 42-34 

Twins 39-39 4 GB

White Sox 38-38 4 GB