The blog formerly about a daily dose of mostly Minnesota sports rants and raves with a sprinkling of general sports commentary and a pinch of jaded-malaise regarding the world around us

June 24, 2011

What does your favorite Twins player say about you (updated!)

Joe Mauer- You were born and raised in Minnesota. You are generally a good person. Listening to Twins game up at the cabin is heaven on earth. You want to win the right way in whatever sport it is. No steroids, no scandals and no punks. You drink Grain Belt.

Justin Morneau- You can never take the number 1 option, you always have to be slightly different but still main stream. You are on the other side of every argument. You think that Simon gave Garfunkel the shaft. You drink Labatts Blue.

Blackburn/ Baker/ Liriano- You like to be ahead of trends and you let people know what is going to be the next big thing. The problem is that you invested money in one of these jersey's and you are not willing to let that money go to waste, so you are just hanging on waiting for one of them to become a #1 starter. This is the same problem with your stock portfolio filled with internet stocks. You drink higher end local brews where ever you are: Fat Tire, James Page, Sweet Water 420...

Nishioka- You are Asian or Indian. You work at 3M or Honeywell. In your study is a trophy cabinet as well as a ribbons of shame monument. You drink Sapporo.

Valencia- You are more decisive than the Baker/Liriano/Blackburn crowd. You were part of that group but moved on. You are a high energy person. Your stock portfolio turns over regularly. Peroni is your favorite beer, replacing Stella Artois which replaced something else fancy.

Cuddyer- You see the good in everyone. You go to church on Sundays. You remember the times he carried this team instead of all the times he let you down. If Gopher football won 7 games, 6 against really crappy teams with 1 quality win, that would be good enough for you. You are a buy and hold investor. You drink Coors Light.

Span- You were a Tori Hunter fan and did not skip a beat moving to Span. You are an action junkie. You once jumped off a cliff and got hurt but it was so worth it. You drink red bull and vodka.

Young- You just want to win. You were a late bloomer yourself so you are willing to let go some youthful mistakes. You don't need the flash in the field just results at the plate. At work you are a bottom line guy, it does not matter how it gets done just as long as it gets done. You are a little too rough for everyone to like you but you are alright with that. You drink Budweiser.

Casillia- You are a douchebag and in general your opinion does not count. You drink Mikes Hard Lemonade. Not that there is anything that wrong with Mike's. It is good on a hot day don't get me wrong. But can you really drink more than 2 of these things without starting to feel like you want a beer?

Kubel- Above all else you like dingers. You like outliers and will argue those points like they are the norm. Back in your day if you went 3-4 with a couple of runs scored but the team lost, so be it, you did well. You like bars with very large beer selections and you go for micro brews.

Matt Capps- He nailed your wife in highschool and now much to her chagrin you brag about it anytime you get a couple of beers in you. You drink keg beer and lots of it.

Joe Nathan- You never think the good times are going to end. You make a lot but spend just as much. You are way under water on your house wondering what you are going to do next while driving your leased Mercedes to work. You have no stock portfolio. You drink expensive wine.

Carl Pavano- You are really a Yankee hater and picked up on Pavano when he was stealing their money while on the DL. You are not from Minnesota and the Twins are your second favorite team behind the team from wherever it is you are originally from. You drink Sam Adams.

Jose Mijares (courtesy of Jan)- You are an imposter of a person. People confuse you with someone else from a bygone era but you will never measure up to fill anyone's shoes (or fedora, as the case may be.) You are also slovenly and somewhat slow and infuriatingly inconsistent. People want to like you but when they peel back the layer of your "personality onion" they find there was just the one layer - dim. Your portfolio is the $50 bond your grandma gave you for your golden birthday when you turned 10. You face a long, uphill climb. You drink Tecate.

Duensing- You are DTK. You live in Jan's basement where there may or may not be someone chained to a radiator. You drink piss warm beer.

Glenn Perkins- You used to be the man. From 16-21 you were tagging chicks left and right. Now, not so much. You are bitter. People tell you you could be the man again if you lost your crappy attitude. You hate those people. You drink Pabst Blue Ribbon, most likely alone.

Thome- There is no way you are a Twins fan. He is just too much of a hired gun. It is okay to like him him but he can not be your favorite. You drink Old Style.

Anyone else- They are your relative. You drink Miller Lite.

June 23, 2011

Twins v. Gigantes - Running Diary?

Just thought I would note two things: one, Joe fucking Mauer isn't playing today which leads me to two, our lineup:

1. Ben Revere, CF
2. Alexi Casilla, 2B
3. Michael Cuddyer, RF
4. Delmon Young, LF
5. Danny Valencia, 3B
6. Luke Hughes, 1B
7. Rene Rivera, C
8. Matt Tolbert, SS
9. Brian Duensing, LHP

They just might make Tim Lincecum look like Tim Lincecum

June 19, 2011

Change I Can Believe In: Let Them Throw! *****(Oh, and also Reduce Spending on Wasteful Govt Programs, but that's for FTLOSBW Financial Blog)

I think this may be the best and biggest change that has happened in the Gardy era. I am not for killing pitchers, but Gardy's overmanaging the pitch count and matchup strategy has been as taxing on our guys arms as letting starters throw deep into the game, and letting relievers stay in when they are on.

How many leads have we blown by taking guys out of the game who are doing well and letting some douche from the pen serve up a loss? I'd rather have a hot pitcher who's been getting guys out for seven innings try to finish off an opposite hitting batter than go through four guys in the bullpen to throw five pitches each to make sure we get lefty versus lefty or preserve some percentage rule that black haired pitchers on two days rest throw best against right handed batters with jewish names. I hope to god this could be the beginning of the scaling back of his four trips to a mound in one inning routine, that has become part of the ticket price at Target Field.

As a wise man once told Jan, if what you're doing is working, think about continuing it.

I really believe this has been part of the problem for years, and is partly why they are winning now (also, the general horseshit nature of the teams over the last three weeks). But I'd like to see this play out against the East when some of our guys are actually back, before they get hurt again.

June 14, 2011

The Disabled List and You

See this? Name a Twins starter that hasn't been on the DL? I guess Valencia, Cuddy, and Casillas would be the only 3, right?

Come on people.

June 10, 2011

Happy Birthday to F'ing Me

1. Yup, my birthday. Happy Birthday to me, I am awesome.

2. It's amazing that one of the reasons the Twins have sucked is now being touted as a revolutionary playmaker.

June 7, 2011

5-game winning streak!

I know this should not excite me, but I am pleased with the Twins' 5-game winning streak. They swept KC, who seems better than they've been in recent years. Cleveland is backsliding, but they are still in first place, so a couple more wins means we gain a couple more games in the standings. It's very encouraging to see the AAA guys stepping up...and make no mistake, a AAA lineup is what we're fielding right now. When Morneau, Kubel, Young, Mauer and Span are all out of the lineup, you can easily see why we have the worst record in baseball. Repko, Revere, Tolbert and Butera should not be playing right now, though I'm glad guys like Revere and Repko are indeed getting some experience.

Strib is breaking down the four major factors in the Twins' precipitous collapse in a four-part series. Kudos to Father BG for sending the articles along. Day one broke down the mismanagement of the catcher position outside of Mauer. Granted, we pretty much had to make the Capps trade last year, but giving up Wilson Ramos was tough. Part 2 detailed the demise of the bullpen, which has the worst ERA in MLB this year. Yikes. Anxious to see where they go in parts 3 and 4.

June 2, 2011

Rubio

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=6617479

Rubio to join Twolves? This is positive right. I really do not care but I will take anything positive right now.