RandBalls Stu

The team’s most glaring flaw deserves thorough, careful analysis. I have no intention of providing it, but how about some jokes? Image courtesy of D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports The Minnesota Twins are on pace to set the record for most strikeouts in one season. If there is one thing that’s been keeping them from separating from the rest of their lousy division, it’s this. Even some pop flies and groundouts are going to move a runner over, get mishandled, etc. Put the ball in play for the love of Tom Kelly. As for why this is happening, I have some theories: Distracted by Joe Ryan’s good looks. He’s a handsome fella. Looks like he should be teaching a yoga class and aligning chakras at an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean. Says things like, “You’re not the wave, you’re the water.” Smells like coconut oil and an old-growth forest. Distracted by Joe Ryan’s entrance music. Most of the walk-up music is hip-hop, contemporary Christian music, and country. Joe’s is “Fire On the Mountain” by your burnout uncle Dean’s favorite band, the Grateful Dead. It confuses them. Where’s the sick beats? Where’s the vague references to spirituality? Where’s the blue jeans? Is this a Weird Al thing? Hard to focus on the 99 mph heater at the knees. Confused by preseason fundraiser. There was probably some sort of charity drive in Fort Myers about “Striking Out Plaque Psoriasis” and the players took it very literally. Plaque psoriasis stinks but not like this, man. Not like this. Worried Taylor Swift will write a song about them. If you’re a relatively noteworthy man, you don’t want to get sideways with her and be the subject of her next song. Not just because she’s a sharp writer and holds a grudge, but also because a legion of Swifties will burn you to the ground. Why does Joey Gallo whiff at an insane rate? What if “No Body No Crime” is about him? All it takes is one person in one group chat to say, “I heard that’s about Joey Gallo” and you wouldn’t even leave your house. He’s showing up to the ballpark every day and trying his best. Cut him a break between swinging strikes. You’ll have a lot of chances. Dollar Dog Night. You go overboard on cheap hot dogs every Tuesday at Target Field, you end up with a tummy ache. So do the players. Hard to concentrate on simple tasks, much less pick up the ball out of an MLB pitcher’s hand. The recovery takes a bit, and next thing you know it’s Tuesday again and the cycle repeats. The heat. Folks, it’s just too hot outside. I don’t want to work outside. I definitely don’t want to run at full speed outside. They don’t either. Walk to the plate, either hit a dinger or strike out. Trot around the bases or walk back to the cool comfort of the dugout. Either one’s preferable to running out a grounder. View full article

The Twins have a new Ed. We celebrate him, the Eds that came before, and the Eds yet to come. Image courtesy of Matt Blewett-USA TODAY Sports Edouard Julien has made his case. Batting over .500 for weeks will do that. Fielding questions notwithstanding, it’s safe to declare that not only is he a borderline Rookie of the Year candidate, he’s very much our team’s new Ed. Longtime fans remember the golden days of 2016, when not one, not two, but three Eds provided Edheads with all the Ed they could handle and then some. Eduardo Escobar, Eddie Rosario, and Eduardo Nunez, on the same team, sometimes in the same lineup. We didn’t know how good we had it. Were we ever so young? One by one, those Eds went away, until the Twins were left Ed-less. Since Eddie Rosario departed after the 2020 season, the Twins have not made the playoffs. They haven’t even finished above .500. Correlation doesn’t equal causation? Yeah, right. No Eds, no postseason. The facts speak for themselves. [NOTE FROM STU: It’s true that pitcher Edgar Garcia appeared in six games for the Twins in 2021. But, as we all know, Edgars don’t contribute to your team’s Ed count. You can argue it’s unfair but you’re arguing with the wrong person. I just work here.] But in 2023, a new Ed has appeared. A Canadian Ed if you can believe such an absurd thing. Does Gord Julien capture our hearts and minds? Of course not, he’s playing hockey in some raccoon-infested Toronto suburb, wasting that beautiful swing on slapshots and wristers. Fortunately, his folks named him Ed. The rest is a story still being told. Does the appearance of this new Ed mean an Ed-aissance for the Twins? A quick look at their minor league system shows a cupboard bare of prospective Eds. Daunting as that might seem, the current Twins regime has proven capable of moving prospects for veterans when they think it’s necessary. There’s some Eds out there. Dare to dream. Dare to compete. Dare to win. With Ed. Until then, we celebrate you, Ed Julien. Thank you for letting us believe again. View full article

“Typical Twins,” said the bozo. Image courtesy of KEN BLEVINS/STARNEWS / USA TODAY NETWORK Unlike the NFL or NBA drafts, where players spend time in the national spotlight in college (and even high school for some basketball standouts), the Major League Baseball draft centers prospects from high school and the less glamorous college baseball ranks. It’s fair to say that unless you’re a diehard amateur baseball fan or related to one of the players, you’ve never heard of a single person in the 2023 MLB Draft. That’s not stopping Drew Barber from losing his mind. “I can’t believe the Twins lucked into the fifth pick of the draft and took a teenager,” said Barber, who has watched Skip Bayless on purpose more than once. “They are an unserious team. Heads need to roll.” That teenager is North Carolina high school outfielder Walker Jenkins. He was a consensus top five pick per multiple scouting organizations and the choice was almost universally praised. If anything, this has made Barber angrier. “This is just baseball guys covering for (Derek) Falvey and (Thad) Levine,” said the 35-year-old day trader. “They keep them as sources, so they’ll say, ‘Great pick, love this guy, you the man.’ It’s BS.” Barber didn’t know until last week that there was a College World Series, or that it was held in Omaha, or that Omaha was in Nebraska. Still, he has some suggestions for how the Twins could have had a successful draft. “This team needs a guy who can step in right away and hold down the middle of the order,” said Barber. “Take someone from Alabama or USC and roll ‘em out there before Labor Day. Done and dusted.” When told that this is incredibly rare in baseball, and that neither Alabama nor USC are as prospect-rich in baseball as they are on the gridiron, Barber shifted focus. “You can probably get high school kids on the cheap compared to some SEC stud,” speculated the lifelong Blaine resident, who could not name any SEC baseball player from this year or any year. “Typical Twins. The Patriots got Touchdown Tom (Tom Brady) in the sixth-round and we're out here getting high schoolers. Fire everyone.” Barber concluded by saying the Twins should trade Byron Buxton for Shohei Ohtani. View full article

Joyless Hopkins man wants to remind you about a couple things. Image courtesy of Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports Twins starting pitcher Pablo Lopez was dialed in on Wednesday night, striking out 12 and allowing four meager hits in a complete game, 100-pitch shutout victory. Lifelong Twins fan Ethan Sudbury couldn’t be angrier. “It was against the Royals,” he said friendlessly. “How did it take him 100 pitches to do that? A true ace could do that in 85-90, tops.” The decisive 5-0 win over Kansas City featured one of the best performances by a Minnesota pitcher in recent memory. But the sad Hopkins man wants you to know how costly it was. “We traded a .400 hitter for a guy who is .500 at the All-Star Break,” said Sudbury, who has a face you dream about punching. “We have a quote-unquote ace with an ERA barely under 4. That’s why he’s staying home next week and Arraez is going to Seattle.” The Twins acquired Lopez from the Miami Marlins for 2023 All-Star Luis Arraez. Beloved by fans, Arraez has flirted with .400 most of the season, with a minor recent slump sending him into the .380s. As noted by the dreary Sudbury, Arraez is going to the All-Star Game in Seattle while Lopez is staying home with a 5-5 record and a 3.89 ERA, although his advanced stats show that he’s been much better than those numbers indicate. The impossibly lonely Sudbury asks that you ignore them. “The Twins traded an All-Star second baseman for a middle-of-the-rotation guy,” said the 24-year-old systems analyst. “Their current second baseman is a Canadian who can’t play defense. I will die on this hill alone if I have to.” Sudbury’s family confirms he is single and would in fact die alone on that hill or anywhere else. “He’s deeply unpleasant,” said Amy Sudbury, Ethan’s disappointed mother. “He gets that from his father.” View full article

"I have a coffee date on Saturday. My co-workers tell me I’m smiling again. Thank you, Royce.” Image courtesy of © Erik Williams-USA TODAY Sports One year after tearing his ACL for the second time, Twins top prospect Royce Lewis has returned with a vengeance, keying two major victories against division rivals Cleveland and defending champion Houston. Perhaps more importantly, he’s let a long-suffering, repressed, emotionally exhausted fanbase open its heart to the world of the possible. A world where good things happen to good people. Royce Lewis is teaching Minnesota how to love again. “I had given up on dating,” said Mathew Bell, an Apple Valley-based accountant. “The apps just did nothing for me. But now, seeing what Royce can do…I’m opening my heart up. I have a coffee date on Saturday. My co-workers tell me I’m smiling again. I’ve started running and I’ve lost five pounds without changing my diet. Thank you, Royce.” “I woke up today and the sun was shining on my face,” said Heather Cook, an Eden Prairie school teacher. “It’s the first day of summer vacation. My husband made breakfast before leaving for work and set up a playdate for our kindergartner, so I’d have the whole day to myself. We’d been going through a pretty rough patch this spring, but the last week feels like we’re turning a corner, much like Royce Lewis when he rounds third base during his home run trot. Thank you, Royce.” It doesn’t even have to be major life events. Even the smallest little grace notes are being credited to Lewis. “I forgot to put my Friday afternoon Coors Lights on ice,” said Twins Daily co-founder Parker Hageman. “I was stuck at work and knew there was nothing I could do about it. But my wife texted me and said the local convenience store was giving away free ice for some summer promotion, so she picked up a bag when she stopped for gas. She filled the cooler with ice and Silver Bullets. Does this happen without Royce? I don’t think so. “The mountains on the can turn blue when it’s cold,” added Hageman, who went to St. Cloud State. Even the most hardened cynics are open to the possibility that happiness is real, that joy is something mere humans can touch and feel, thanks to Lewis. “I’ve often said that nothing good will ever happen to Minnesota sports fans because we’ve been abandoned by an indifferent universe,” said Jon Marthaler, a firebrand local podcaster and soccer journalist. “I still believe that we’ll never see the light of God’s love. However, Royce Lewis makes me question that for a good 5-10 seconds before I get grumpy again. That hasn’t happened in years. Decades, even. Thank you, Royce.” The Twins play Cleveland at 7:10 pm Friday. View full article

The worst division in baseball leaves a wide berth for comparisons and metaphors. Twins Daily investigates the most apt ones. Image courtesy of © Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports Going into the season, the consensus was that the American League Central would be average at best and that only two or three teams had a realistic shot at clearing the very attainable bar of winning it. That negativity has, if anything, proven overly optimistic. The godless Chicago White Sox have joined Kansas City in the divisional toilet, with Detroit managing to look improved only by comparison to those two. That leaves a wildly boring Cleveland team, currently a half-game behind the Tigers, and a fun but flawed Minnesota Twins team once again being the best of a bad lot. Twins Daily is fortunate to have a lot of fellow bloggers, broadcasters, and weather-beaten sportswriters in its audience, and those folks need something with which to compare this ugly division. It’s our pleasure to provide this service to them and all of you: What is the AL Central Most Like? Not the worst thing in the world, but sorely lacking in aesthetics or ambition and the potential to really stink up the joint. A college student in his seventh year. He’s not dumb, but he likes to party, and there’s no real reason to rush as long as mom stays married to his well-off stepdad. His name is Sean or Max. He is majoring in poli sci, he thinks. His marijuana intake is remarkable. Indiana. You’re only going there if your job makes you or you watched Hoosiers at a vulnerable age. The fourth or fifth film in a movie franchise that no one really cares about anymore but enough people show up to keep it going. Transformers: Rise of the Bloodmoon or something like that. A used car with six figures on the odometer. You might be able to squeeze more miles out of it, but it’ll cost you. You called it your “work car” because that’s what you were going to use it for, but now it’s your “work car” in that it’s stuck in the work parking lot because the alternator is shot. A plain hamburger at a chain restaurant. The menu gives you the ol’ razzle dazzle for the Jalapeno Popper Butter Burger Bomb or Col. Saugatuck’s Old-Fashioned Double Bacon Patty Melt with Country Gravy but tucked away at the bottom is Plain Burger. They don’t even try to gussy it up with words like Angus or sizzling or traditional. If you want fries, the dishwasher with the strongest arm throws them at you and whatever you catch in your mouth, that’s it. The USA Network. If you’re a cord-cutter, you may not know that there’s a station that is no cable subscriber’s first, second, or even third choice for entertainment. But it’s always there, somewhere between Lifetime and TNT. You don’t even watch NCIS but you’ve somehow seen this episode. All the commercials are for reverse mortgages and laxatives for patriots. Maroon 5. Catchy enough, even played the Super Bowl, but they’re not anyone’s favorite band. Horny but in an annoying way, like they're coming on to you because they want to tell you about a time-share opportunity in Fort Myers. You can name two songs, but you're guessing on the second one's title (it's "This Love"). Nickelback fans make fun of them. Nickelback. A town where the biggest store is a Kohl’s. You really wish they had a Target, an Old Navy, or even a dumpy mall. But no. Kohl’s it is. Nice enough town, but none of the kids stay there after high school. Dutch elm disease killed the trees that the tornado didn't. The local newspaper went under in 2011, otherwise the lead story in this week’s edition would be the fire in the abandoned Pick 'n Save. We hope this helps. View full article

"We recognize that we should have done more in the recent series in Minnesota. It will not happen again." Image courtesy of © Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports In a rare move for Major League Baseball, the league issued a formal apology to the New York Yankees on Thursday. “We recognize that we should have done more in the recent series in Minnesota, and it will not happen again,” read the statement. “What’s done is done, and for that we’re culpable. We will learn and grow from this.” Despite shellacking the Twins by a score of 12-6 on Wednesday, the Yankees lost the season series to Minnesota four games to three. It’s the first time the Twins have done that since 2001. This unconventional result resonated throughout the baseball world. “Obviously it’s not what you want to see,” said Commissioner Rob Manfred. “We have umpires. We have a replay booth. We have the means to tilt the scales of baseball justice towards the necessary result. That didn’t happen this week. We own that.” After the Twins stunned the Yankees by taking the first two games of a 4-game road series in the Bronx earlier this month, New York starting pitcher Domingo German was allowed to pitch with an array of gunk on his hands in the third game of the series. The Yankees cruised to a 6-1 victory while the umpires ejected Twins manager Rocco Baldelli for being correct. After New York gained a split the following day, league sources say that many thought the message was sent. “(The Twins) had their fun, but enough is enough,” said a source with knowledge of the league’s thinking. “Party’s over, mom and dad are going to be home any minute.” Instead, the Twins cruised to victory in the first two games of their Target Field series versus the Bronx Bombers. Even with Wednesday’s blowout, the damage was done and left many looking for answers. “Total amateur hour,” said a source in the Yankees front office. “We’re banged up all over, which is when you expect the league to have your back. Juice the baseballs. Throw out the starting pitcher for being insolent. Postpone the game until September. There are solutions everywhere and it’s frankly stunning to me that MLB would let those two quote unquote ‘games’ happen without intervening. It’s unfair. The apology is too little, too late. Unprofessional.” It doesn’t get any easier for the Yankees, as they travel to Texas for a 4-game series against the Rangers. Due to the size of the Dallas market, the league says they have no plans to screw Texas over. View full article

“We like his raw stuff,” said a company spokesperson. “He brings a lot to the table.” Image courtesy of Craig Bailey/FLORIDA TODAY / USA TODAY NETWORK In the wake of another rough outing on Thursday, the Twins announced they were optioning struggling reliever Emilio Pagán to Elon Musk’s SpaceX spacecraft manufacturing business. The move took place mere hours after the SpaceX Starship blew up in the early stages of its first launch. “We think a change of scenery is what’s best for Emilio at this point in time,” said Twins manager Rocco Baldelli. “It’s a good fit and we’re all rooting for him.” After Kenta Maeda’s early injury exit on Thursday, Pagán was tagged for six runs on eight hits, recording only five outs as the Twins fell 11-5 to Boston. During Minnesota’s disappointing 2022 campaign, perhaps no other player was more disappointing than Pagán . Enticed by his alleged terrific arsenal of pitches, the team kept giving him opportunities in high leverage situations. They were rewarded with an explosive combination of blown leads and an overworked bullpen. SpaceX insiders say Pagán’s skill set aligns well with their volatile outlook. “We like his raw stuff,” said a company spokesperson. “He brings a lot to the table for SpaceX. He’s unpredictable, he works weird hours, and he hasn’t faced consequences for being bad at this job. Honestly, we thought he was already in upper management here.” While it’s not unusual for a slumping reliever to get designated for assignment, it’s very rare for a player to get moved to an entirely different industry. Per Baseball Prospectus, this is the first time it’s happened since the Chicago White Sox optioned slugger Greg Luzinski to a liquor warehouse in August of 1984 to help move some kegs around, wear mirrored sunglasses, and be gruff to new employees. To take Pagán’s place, the Twins are calling up a Tesla with a steering wheel that whiffs out the window while you’re driving. View full article

Against the Yankees? In New York? Come on. Image courtesy of Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports Trust nothing you see on the internet. Deep fakes and AI and unreliable sources are as common as water, as the air we breathe. Cable TV, if anything, is worse. I’m telling you this because you’ve no doubt already read stories and seen video about how the Minnesota Twins jumped all over the New York Yankees with a nine-run first inning and didn’t look back, flattening the Bronx Bombers 11-2 at Yankees Stadium. But are those accounts real? Think about it. Take a deep breath and think about it. Who stands to gain? Why would they do this? Why are we falling for it? First, confirmation bias. We all want to believe the Twins can beat the Yankees. Nothing would give a Minnesota baseball fan more satisfaction than finally breaking New York’s historic dominance over the hometown nine. The good guys won! The bad guys ground to dust under our Red Wing boots! Wouldn’t it be lovely if it was true? Like when they finally contract the godless Chicago White Sox and send their sausage-fingered fans into the ice-choked waters of Lake Michigan? But we know that hasn’t happened. Why would we think this alleged triumph happened? Second, the media loves a new storyline. “Yankees Stomp Twins for the Millionth Time” doesn’t drive traffic. “Twins Batter Yankees, Sun Shines On America, the World” does. It’s the clickbait-iest clickbait that ever clickbaited. No one cares if a beat writer catches a foul ball. But if he makes a three-course meal out of it with all the fixings? Fire up the emergency servers, nerds. This “win” is just another can of corn headed directly at Dan Hayes. Third, we’re Minnesota sports fans. God has abandoned us. The world is a vampire. We are Sisyphus. This is our rock. Our enemies delight in our futility. Our basketball team fights each other. Our hockey teams innovate in the exciting field of grievous playoff exits. Our football team is the MINNESOTA [EXPLETIVE] VIKINGS. Honestly, the Minnesota Aurora should move to Rapid City, just to have a puncher's chance. Nothing about a decisive Twins victory over the actual, real New York Yankees makes sense. Because it didn’t happen. We all know this. We need to accept it and move on. Misery loves company, yet we are alone, here. 'Twas ever thus. That said, if they did actually win, it would be pretty cool, right? Go Twins. View full article