Twins...DEAD!

With 55% of precincts reporting, Loserville is ready to declare a winner in the AL Central race, and not surprisingly, it won't be the local squad.  Not sure which of team will end up at the top of the standings between the White Sox and Tigers, but I can guarantee that the Minnesota Twins will not see the postseason this year.

The baseball gods must be laughing in the face of Minnesota fans right now.  After all our years of clamoring for more power in the lineup, for free agent moves and increased payrolls, our team is now getting buried by two teams built around the twin pillars of our disdain: Pitching and defense.

The chickens are now coming home to roost after all those years we scoffed at White Sox teams that made errors in the field and on the basepaths, waiting around for 3-run homers while the Twins dinked-n-dunked them to death.  Watching those two teams square off last night, the reversal of fortune couldn't be clearer, the Whities executed one hit-and-run after another, laid down key bunts, did all the little things that the Twins used to be know for and now seem incapable of. 

(And don't even get me started on the pitching, which is reasons 1-3 that this team is going nowhere, as in 1.Blackburn, 2.Slowey, 3.Baker.  They showed the 3 Stooges in the dugout last night, wearing their typical befuddled expressions.  Bad enough that they're conspiring to sink the team this season, then they compound it by seeming utterly shocked that things went the way they did.  If I have to hear Scott Baker sit at his locker with a confused look on his face and talk about making good pitches one more time after getting shelled, I'm going to lose it.  I hope he hires a guy to come out and remove a tree at his house this summer, then when the tree falls, it crushes his deck.  Then tree-removal guy can look at him and say "I made a good cut, not sure what happened there", because that would be poetic justice.)

The Twins traded defense for power and plunked down huge money to lock up our best player this season, just like we all begged them to, so it might be still more poetic justice that it's blowing up in our faces.  Where have you gone Nick Punto?  The scrappiness seems to have vanished, the pitching is vomit-inducing, nobody has any answers, and things just keep getting worse.  They can't win, they won't win, they're dead.

Vikings training camp is only two weeks away.