I'm Baaaaaack

... and so are the Twins! What a crazy week in baseball!

I apologize for my absence on this blog for awhile ... it's been a little hectic learning my new position at work on the fly and trying to catch up on a backlog of paperwork there. But I haven't forgotten about what's going on with our hometeam! This amazing stretch of baseball is one of the few things that's been keeping me sane.

I think that having my hopes and expectations about the postseason shattered back in August has given me a new appreciation for these final weeks. I'm trying to just enjoy this improbable run instead of getting too worked up about it, and I think that's been very helpful for my blood pressure. When we left Detroit having not made up any of the ground that we should have, I wasn't as amazingly crushed as I otherwise would have been thanks to having already dealt with my pessimism a month ago.

That being said, I was a little nonplussed to be seeing Pavano start tonight. I've appreciated what he's done for this team, but after his last outing and the fact that he's already greatly surpassed his innings pitched in a season since 2004 with the Marlins, bringing him back on short rest seemed like one of those "always trust your veteran too much" moves that Gardy so frequently loves.

I eat my words.

While Pavano's performance wasn't particularly dominant, he looked in control almost the whole time he was on the mound. Of course, having a huge cushion of runs to back him up probably doesn't hurt too much.

Thanks, you rock. I'll buy your jersey next.

I promised myself that if Ozzie and the White Sox would sweep the Tigers that I'd cut A.J. and the rest of my most hated enemies a little bit of slack in the future. Well, they came close to a sweep, but without their two wins we wouldn't have another Twins game to watch this year, so, I'll give a hat tip to the White Sox and not bash them too much this offseason (although a win today would have been spectacular; I'm not complaining though...).

This brings Porcello and the Tigers to Minnesota on Tuesday. Thankfully my boss is actually enjoying the Twins bringing this down to the wire ... as a Yankees fan he appreciates that regardless of who wins, our pitching staff won't have that much rest and we won't really be able to line up our starters how we otherwise might. I've been getting gleeful texts from him all weekend. But I love it too, and his appreciation of our streak means we'll have the game on at the office during the day so I'll at least be able to catch pieces of it if not the whole thing (we'll see how busy Tuesday is).

I was watching Saturday's game with Boston Dan, and he gave me some reassurance from an unbiased outsider's perspective. He said that in 2004, even when the Red Sox were 3 games up on the Cardinals, he and all his Boston fans were so nervous going into game 4 that something was going to mess up. But a San Francisco friend of theirs who was with them essentially just told them to relax because they were playing so well as opposed to the Cardinals that they were all but assured their World Series. He said that's how he sees the Twins and the Tigers this year in the Central ... the Tigers implosion just screams too much of wanting to lose, while the Twins are playing the best baseball of their season at exactly the right time.

I'm still not going to relax.

Neither will you, Mr. Leyland. Neither will you.

I would like to take this moment to take back every negative thing I've ever said about Orlando Cabrera, Matt Tolbert, Nick Punto, and especially Delmon Young.

You might be greatly increasing your trade value, but now I kind of want to keep you...

If it weren't for these guys, who I think most of us pick on all the time, we wouldn't be here. Their inspired play is making me ashamed of being so hard on them. At the same time, I think numbers don't lie, but there's something to be said for people performing when everything's on the line, and this handful of my usual whipping boys is doing it above and beyond what I could have imagined. If they can beat Detroit on Tuesday, maybe I'll have to cut them some more slack along with my offer I made to the White Sox.

-----

FYI, I've been pulling together a series of posts to get us through the long offseason. It's going to be called "Twins Bloggers: Get to Know 'Em", in conjunction with the old series of Twins ads before the "This Is Twins Territory" campaign:

By the way, I love Koskie's ZZ Top beard in this commercial...

This series was going to start last Friday and run every Friday of the offseason focusing on a different member of the Twins blogosphere every week. But since the Twins have improbably given people something to care about on the field recently, I'm going to delay these posts until at least this Friday.

Definitely check back for them once they start going up as it will give you a new perspective on some of the best Twins voices on the web. I've had the pleasure of already reading over the answers from my questionnaire from the first 5 bloggers I approached about this and it's been great getting to know their own unique reasons why they love the Twins, baseball in general, and other aspects of their fandom too.

Also, if you run a Twins blog and I haven't e-mailed you my questionnaire yet, I'm going to do so soon, be warned. It's going to be a long offseason so I'm sure I'm going to approach every Twins blogger out there. But a big thanks to Seth, Katie, Jack, Betsy and Josh for being my first experiments into this series.

Check back Friday probably for the first installment. But in the meantime, we're not through enjoying this for a little longer:

Let's go Twins!

*If you haven't been listening to the podcasts from Seth Stohs, you're missing out on a huge heap of Twins related talk from one of the most knowledgeable bloggers out there. It's great to have so much material from him so definitely go back and start listening to some if you haven't already.

Also, an interesting statistical observation from Twinkie Town. Just another reason to love what Delmon's been doing recently.

The Final Countdown

The Minnesota Twins are at least still making it interesting for us:

And so are the Tigers.

Hey, if the Vikings can make an amazing comeback, why can't our baseball team?

I've had a long, long, long week at work, and it's only going to get worse for a couple days (so the posting might get a little light until after the Detroit series), I promise, I'll make up for it with some good ones soon. But I must say, this weekend was perfect for watching Minnesota sports.

You could be of the opinion that the Twins didn't do themselves any favors by not winning on Sunday when the Tigers gave them an opportunity to get within 1 game.

Oh, thanks Chicago. We thought it was fun too!

However, the Twins have been on an extended road trip and they've shaved a game off the Tigers lead. Sunday they faced the guy who by all accounts should win the Cy Young

Yeah, you Zack! Smile!

Despite Kubel's bat becoming nonexistent, they managed to peel of 8 wins in a row until running into Mr. Cy Young. As long as they break out the bats again tomorrow against Porcello, this team still has a very realistic shot. It's coming down to the wire.

This is going to be a very interesting 4 days of baseball. I like the Twins chances, even in Comerica. The Tigers just seem to be imploding and the Twins are picking each other up at exactly the right times. All season long I've never had this much confidence that we'd find a way to eke out a win when watching games.

OK, so again, I'll try to post if I find time in the next few days, but expect me back towards the end of the week at the very least. Check out the Twins blogs on the lefthand bar for your daily dose of Twins news though.

I know, Nick, it's getting exciting! Hold on!

Wave those homer hankies! Let's get some optimism flowing!

3 Things to be Thankful For

To be completely honest, it was a major let-down to not sweep the Tigers this weekend. That would have effectively put the nail in the coffin despite the fact that we still would have been 1 game behind. Regardless, a series win is a series win, and the Twins could have done a lot worse. 

What did this show Bill Smith, however? No clue. At times the Twins were firing on all cylinders, and at other times they looked utterly futile. I think it's safe to say that no reinforcements will be coming of any kind, and the current roster will have to continue to exceed expectations these next two weeks for us to have any chance. If you haven't yet read this article at Twins Fix though, do so and it will give you an interesting take on why we can take heart in the product we're currently putting on the field.

Still, this weekend showed us at least three things that we can take away and be thankful for going down the stretch:

1. Brian Duensing is amazing.

I don't know if anyone remembers this, but Duensing was essentially given up on earlier this year by everyone following this team. He did OK in Spring Training and made the team out of the bullpen due to the fact that Scott Baker needed some time to rehab from an injury. During his cup-of-coffee in the bigs at the beginning of the year he made a lone appearance against the White Sox in Chicago, where he pitched three innings and gave up two runs (via homer). He didn't see any more action with the big league club until July.

After a handful of appearances out of the pen to start July, he was forced to make a spot start against the White Sox (thanks to Glen Perkins and the omnipresent "shoulder injury"), where he pitched 5 solid innings to earn a no decision, although the Twins got a much needed win later in the game.

Due to all the upheaval in our starting pitching, Duensing finally joined the rotation full-time on August 22 in Kansas City, and since then he's rattled off 4 wins over 6 starts, lasting 7 innings in half of those starts, and blanking the A's over 7 innings and the Tigers over 6.1 innings in his past two.

Most likely, all the attention going into Friday night's game was focused on Porcello and the solid rookie season he's put together, but Duensing deserves special recognition for being so dependable after nearly being written off by an entire fan base. 

Some might forget that Duensing was actually selected to the Olympic team in Beijing to represent the United States, and although he only played in one game (out of the pen), he pitched 3.1 scoreless frames for the win against Canada.

It's hard to tell if his rockstar performance will continue for the duration (or into next year), but who would have predicted Denard Span to defy his minor league career numbers and become one of our most dependable players? Duensing's peripherals don't indicate that he's winning by smoke and mirrors -- his good numbers have been legitimate (and consequently I've added him to my fantasy roster for the final week just to try to capture some of this magic...)

2. Michael Cuddyer is a beast.

Michael Cuddyer's defensive and offensive proficiency while in the infield has always been a huge concern; thus his move to right field where he flourished. I'll admit, when I heard that Morneau was out for the season and Brock Peterson was not joining the team, I figured Cuddyer at 1B spelled doom for our chances. In truth, he's been more than adequate and I'll gently remove my foot from my mouth and take this opportunity to apologize for anything negative I've said about him.

Cuddyer is the glue holding this team together, and it's not just the magic tricks:

In fact, in the past 7 days he's hit .350/.350/1.050 with 4 HR and 11 RBI. Those are Mauer-like numbers. Those are Pujols-like numbers. Those are better than anything that even Morneau has shown us for a stretch in September.

Not to hype up my fantasy team, but I got a text in the middle of a game this weekend from the person I'm facing in the semi-finals, and he was clearly in awe of the numbers that Cuddyer's been posting (for my fantasy team...) this past week. He's turning heads, and at the right time of the season too. Perhaps it's because he was rewarded with his favorite candy.

For all the concentration Mauer, Morneau and Kubel get for this offense, Cuddyer is easily overlooked, including by me, and I'm glad he's finally enjoying the spotlight.

3. At least we're not the Tigers.

Yeah, OK, so they're in first place. I've seen this before. The Twins are clearly playing the best baseball of their season and they've saved it for the right time. The Tigers are struggling and scraping for every win right now, and I can't point to anyone on their team who I think will carry them to the post-season.

Sure, Ordonez has been doing well recently. Miguel Cabrera has been putting up typical numbers for himself as well. Verlander is as dominant as ever. But Ordonez and Cabrera were kept relatively silent this weekend, and the Twins eventually got to Verlander before he left on Saturday as well. The Twins are still 9-5 against the Tigers this year, and if you watch either of these teams play you can tell that the Twins are clicking and the Tigers look like they're struggling to stay relevant.

In some sense, for inconsistent and underperforming teams like the AL Central, it might almost be better to have something to chase after than to have something to hold on to, and as long as the Twins are still gaining ground, I think they have the upper hand.