Cup of Coffee: August 27, 2008
Posted by SBG on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 7:34 am
I think I've mentioned it before, but we kind of have to beat teams like Seattle.
This entry was posted by SBG on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 7:34 am and is filed under Cup of Coffee. It is one of 2388 entries by the author. Feel free to write a letter to the editor if you are a registered SBG Nation Citizen. If you are not a Citizen, you can register here.
Loading ...
I'm sure ubelmann would tell us that today's game is not really a "must-win" game, and logically, he'd be exactly right. Emotionally, however, it sure feels like a must-win game. it's going to be really hard to have much faith in this team if they get swept by the Mariners.
We can only lose so many of these "well, at least it was close" sort of games before they become "we can't win close games" sort of games.
I changed my avatar to begin the road stand. It was wrong of me to stray from the Buffalo. Hopefully, this will return us to our winning ways.
"Logically" though, I doubt that it will help at all.
Do not doubt the power of the mighty bison.
If the Twins win today, that would leave them 5-4 against the M's, which would be their only winning record against an AL team outside of their division. The Twins are 10-8 this month against these teams, so they have gotten better of late.
This problem is nothing new for them and isn't specific to the Mariners. It has just been more noticeable against the M's since the Twins have played a bunch of games against them in the last three weeks, and also because of how they have lost three of those games.
Fortunately, after this road trip, the Twins play 15 of their final 22 games against the Central, in which they are 36-21. If the Twins get to the playoffs, it will be because of their record against their own division and the NL. If they don't , it will be because they failed to figure out how to beat the other AL teams.
It's also more noticeable against the M's because Seattle is the worst team in the AL.
True dat, although the A's have been even worse since trading away Harden and Blanton.
And it's not like the Twins haven't struggled against bad teams in division-winning years. In 2004, the Twins were 4-5 against the Devil Rays and in 2003, the Twins were 10-9 against Cleveland, and all but four of those games came during the magical run during the second half and the final victory to win the season series came after the Twins had clinched the title.
I think many fans need to rein in their expectations against bad teams. You should never expect a sweep no matter how bad the team is, especially on the road. That's just setting yourself up for a lot of disappointment and frustration. You should be disappointed with a series loss to a team as bad as the M's, but even a sweep isn't the end of the world and I don't think one or two bad series should destroy expectations for a team. Temper them, yes, but not totally destroy.
I thank you, SoCal, for putting last night’s game into a better perspective for me. I work up this morning with a feeling that the Twins had let me down, that my expectations were to great and they'd finally regressed to the mean. But in reality the Twins have met and exceeded my original expectations ----> a 73+ win season with some exciting new / young players.
The 2002-04 Twins absolutely pounded the bad teams as a whole. They may not have had a winning record against all of them, but pound they did. I'm not sure what the Twins have done this year against bad teams. Sounds like I should do some research.
2002: the Twins were 14-4 against Detroit, outscoring them 107-58 (5.9-3.2), 14-5 against KC, outscoring them only 94-91.
additionally, they were 6-1 against Toronto (42-30). And they pounded on Cleveland (121 RS vs 95 RA) but were only 11-8. They were 5-2 against Tampa, but only outscored them 32-31. They were 1-5 against Baltimore (outscored 28-19).
KC, Detroit, Baltimore and Tampa were gawd-awful that year; Cleveland was 74-88 and Toronto 78-84.
the rest I leave to SBG as
an exercisefeature-article worthy material.I wrote this and this a couple of years ago, which was one way of looking at the impact an easy schedule had on the Twins' success.
Nothing wrong with warming over some half-baked cr@p, Boss. It's a blog after all.
And they were widely panned for taking advantage of an easy schedule instead of being a really good team. What the championship teams under Gardy has done very well is beat up on the bad teams in the Central. This year, they are 10-5 against both Detroit and Cleveland and 9-3 against KC with 12 games left against those teams. The Twins' struggles againt the M's probably has more to do with their struggles on the road, considering they are 1-4 in Seattle, and 3-0 at home vs. the M's.
It's also more noticeable because it's happening right now. If we lose two games in a row at Seattle in the first week of the year, before the pennant race and before everyone knows how bad Seattle is, then it doesn't get the angst.
yea. We are all getting greedy. Before the season started, I suspect we all would have been fine with a 4-5 or 5-4 season series with the M's.
I didn't see the speech to which this line refers, so I have no idea if it's true or fair. However, I was tickled by it anyway. Theatlantic.com described Dennis Kucinich as having "hopped and screamed like a meth-addled Smurf."
Here is a link to the huffington post's webstie with the video.
I've been watching the convention every day. So far, it's been a snooze fest interrupted by a few good speeches during the prime time hours. Nancy Pelosi's opening of the convention was an absolute bomb (she honestly made McCain look like a great orator), and Warner's speech was pretty tepid. Kucinich's speech was the best of the convention so far, one that would have been a great opening speech if it weren't for the rest of the party regarding him just one step up from Mike Gravel. Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer's speech last night was a real barn-burner toward the end and would have been a massive improvement over Warner's keynote. Obviously the speeches by Michelle Obama and HRC were the big draws, but I'd say neither of them quite measured up to Kucinich's frantic elf-self hopping around at the podium.
Hopefully tonight BillJeff and Biden bring the goods, or I'm going to start wishing for Billy Mays to give all the speeches from here on out.
Yeah, at least you can tell Kucinich believes in something and wants to fight for it - as opposed to just wanting to lull you into an obedient yes-drone. I'd rather have goofy politics than boring, over-polished politics. Too bad he has been stuck cheerleading for a Democratic Party which has given him and his supporters almost nothing in the last eight years (the MN Kucinich delegation got snubbed pretty hard by the Dem big wigs in 2004).
Sad news: former Portland Trail Blazer Kevin Duckworth passed away.
Good news for us Greater Minnesota semi-Gopher fans!
Now, if only Charter would ad Channel 45 out of the Cities. I cant record the Vikings game tommorrow because I guess its on 45,