Thursday, July 30, 2009

The Twins start their second home series of the week tomorrow against the Los Angeles Angels. With the up and down record that the Twins have been posting so far this season, this is one Twins fan who is very hopeful that the Metrodome Magic does its thing.

The Los Angeles Angels have had a pretty strong season and with Bobby Abreu turning out to be a white-hot second half hitter, the Twins are going to need to put all of their past pitching issues aside and pull out some real tricks.

Although he has not on the active roster, the Los Angles Angels coming also means that Torii Hunter former Twins player will be back in town which means that this game is sure to be a busy one, Twins Tickets will go fast for the whole series so buy them now!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Minnesota Twins vs. Oakland A's is a total let down


For the first time in a long time, I have to say that I am embarrassed to be a Twins fan. While most of the time I can find the good in the ugly but after this week's series with the Oakland A's I just do not have it in me to be positive.


The bottom of this downward spiral came on Wednesday when the Twins lost to the A's 16-1... seriously, SIXTEEN to ONE. While I am upset with our batting which could have been better, many teams struggle to hit well on the road. What gets me is that we gave up 16 runs. And although the difference was not nearly as big on Monday, we gave up 14 runs.


It leads me to wonder, What were the pitchers doing?Clearly not their jobs, that is for sure. We could not even shut out one of the worst offenses in the league. Before this series the A's were ranked last in the American League in extra-base hits, home runs and slugging percentage. They had scored the 3rd fewest runs in the league and had been totally shut out 7 times.


But in 28 innings against the Twins the team that couldn't against everyone else, did against us...32 times. So today, I have nothing encouraging to say other than, What were they thinking. If the Twins don't pull the pitching together soon we can kiss any chance of postseason play good-bye and Twins Tickets are about to get a lot more affordable because what will be the point of going?

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Minnesota Twins add pitcher #12 to the roster

Twins Pitcher Kevin Mulvey
With the baseball season just passing the half way mark, the Twins did some evaluating this week and made changes to the roster that most Twins fans thought were necessary for quite some time. Unlike most of the other ball clubs in the league for the past month the Twins have been playing with only 11 pitchers on the roster... which had proven not to be enough. Most fans and couch coaches would say that the bullpen looks tired and without any consistent depth the starters have been playing well into the game.


Yesterday, the Twins announced however that they would be sending catcher Jose Morales to Triple A-Rochester to make room on the 25 man roster for Kevin Mulvey. Twins general manager Bill Smith said, "This will be a long-relief role. So we need someone who can pitch multiple innings and he's certainly done that." In Rochester Mulvey has been 3-6 with a 3.93 ERA in 17 starts. He also has struck out 81 batters and walked only 31 in 103 innings.


This Twins fan is hopeful that with the addition of a pitcher some of the problems that plagued us early in the season will be behind us and going into the second half and hitting the road the extra depth in the bullpen for the pitchers will mean that not only will we have strong starts we will be able to pull it through to the 8th and 9th inning.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Twins vs. Yankees disappoints but Gomez steps up

Although the Twins have had a rough series against the New York Yankees this week, losing 2-10 on Wednesday and 3-4 last night, there may be a bright spot on the Twins roster. Carlos Gomez, the centerfielder who replaced Torii Hunter in 2008 seems to be finding his place in the outfield at the Metrodome. After a season of watching him hit the wall over and over again, many Twins fans, myself included, were begging for Torii back. But in an interview with first base coach Jerry White, Gomez may be just working out the kinks.


White has been working with Gomez to move around in the outfield, trying to help him find where the wall is and how far he can go. "We had to do the same thing with Torii, he went through the same process trying to get him to move here" White said.

Twins fans may be starting to see the fruits of that labor. On Tuesday with the bases loaded, Gomez caught a deep fly over the fence that kept the Yankees from scoring a grand slam. And even though the game ended badly, it is encouraging to hear that Torii Hunter, the beloved former Twins centerfield, told Gomez that he has what it takes to win the Golden Glove Award. With all of the heartbreak we have had to endure, this may be exactly what we as Twins fans need to hear... there is hope.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Is their Mojo back?

With the season not even at the half way point, Twins fans have already been through the roller-coaster of ups and downs that true fans have come to associate with Twins baseball. With some pre-season success in the exhibition games I was hoping that this would be our season, and then spring rolled in and we had pitching issue after pitching issue and we couldn't seem to pull it together at all on the road starting the season with a 4-14 record on the road.


But times may be changing again, our Twins have managed to win 6 of the last 9 road games and are heading into a 4th of July weekend series at the Metrodome against the Detroit Tigers who lost their last on the road series against Houston. Leaving this Twins fan to wonder, have we gotten our Road Mojo back?

I think that the combination of winning last week, the smell of domedogs, and the roar of the home-town crowd will be enough to pull out another winning series, something that the team and fans both need! With the record over the .500 mark (41-39) I certainly hope that the next set of games in the Dome will only help that number climb!


Tune in between 4th of July BBQ's this weekend to watch the Twins at home:
July 3rd @ 7:10, Twins vs. Detroit
July 4th @ 3:10, Twins vs. Detroit
July 5th @1:10, Twins vs. Detroit