A week ago there was optimism. The Twins had taken two of three games from the Cleveland Indians, improved to 10 games under .500, moved as high as third place in the division, and facing a new month of games against division rivals, it appeared that maybe, just maybe, the Twins were ready to turn... Continue Reading »

Superman calls it kryptonite. The Minnesota Twins call it the New York Yankees. And the Yanks did what they always do when they play the Twins, they beat them, 8-4, on Tuesday before nearly 18,000 fans at Target Field. Moving on… I’m just about finished with Thom Henninger’s latest book on the Twins. It’s called... Continue Reading »

After a weekend of snow, this seems fitting: writing about a Twins’ opening day that nearly didn’t happen because of terrible spring weather. In the end, the Twins won in extra-innings over their arch-rival and would embark on a history-making season. MLB.com selected this game as one of the top five opening day games in... Continue Reading »

A recent check of social media showed that all was not well in Twins Territory. Twins fans, at least on Twitter, appeared to be coming unglued due to the lack of deal-making so far this offseason. As top free agents continued to come off the board and go elsewhere, such as reliever Kirby Yates and... Continue Reading »

As I have written before here, the 1973 Twins encountered a little bit of everything it seems. They swept the eventual World Series-winning Oakland A’s to start the season — and went 14-4 against the club the rest of the way — yet they had a losing record against the 91-loss Cleveland Indians, struggled as... Continue Reading »

It’s hard to imagine that 2020 could get any worse, but it has after losing some of the giants of the game. In a matter of weeks, it seems, we have lost Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Joe Morgan and longtime Yankees pitcher, Whitey Ford, the Chairman of the Board. Ford died last week... Continue Reading »

The Twins won Game 1 of the 1973 season and ended it at 81-81. In between, they shut out their opponents 18 times and were shut out 13 times as well. They also served up 11 walk-off losses, were 3-9 against the New York Yankees (of course) and yet they dominated the best team in... Continue Reading »

I’m not positive that major league baseball and its players truly settled their COVID-19 differences, but no matter: baseball is back. Summer training begins soon, followed by a 60-game season that gets underway later this month. At first glance, the shorter and geographically condensed season would appear to work in the Twins favor. Or does... Continue Reading »

I find simulated baseball to be a lousy substitution for the real thing. And though I’ve tried to ignore it, I have peeked at what Baseball-Reference.com has done by using a program called Out of the Park Baseball 21 to simulate the 2020 season. It’s hard to miss because the data can be found almost... Continue Reading »