Now that the free agency period has gotten underway with some Wednesday & Thursday signings the rumor mill is generating some well-educated guesses countered by some outright fairy tales – and not always in equal amounts. I only wish to stick to well-educated guesses…even though Joe Crede was not offered arbitration that does not mean he has fallen off the Twins radar. I’d expect the Twins to make Crede an offer similar to last year’s but there should be some significant differences. For instance he can’t expect to get any substantial pay raise – in fact he should probably be looking at signing for a slightly less annual salary but have increased incentives. If Crede (or his notoriously greedy agent Scott Boras) balks at this then the Twins should seriously consider making a run at Troy Glaus, a Type B free agent who was not offered arbitration. A one year contract is the only deal that Twins GM Bill Smith should be considering for either of these two. The Twins third baseman farm prospect Danny Valencia will almost certainly be moved to AAA Rochester at the start of 2010 and be ready to take the hot corner over in 2011. We don’t want someone blocking his way to the bigs – especially a player who both produces (as is predicted for Valencia) and has contract control for several more years.

All the rumors I’ve heard over the past two weeks concerning the Twins interest in pitcher Jarrod Washburn has me just a little concerned. I’m not a fan of Washburn in the least after his complete washout in Detroit. I think the Twins front office should more than a bit dubious about Washburn’s health status; a 36 y.o. pitcher returning from off-season knee surgery shouldn’t need a surface-to-air flare to get your attention. Reports say that Washburn has asked his agent to inquire the Twins and Brewers about their interest because he wants to play closer to home – he’s from La Crosse, Wisconsin. He’s probably someone that Brewer’s GM Doug Melvin would be generous enough to show interest in but Washburn isn’t likely to make the roster of either team – especially with so many younger & better pitchers available…I see a return to Seattle in his future.

Now, Carl Pavano, does interest me. I know the book on Pavano doesn’t exactly paint a pretty picture of him but he did a decent job for the Twins after being acquired in a trade with the Indians. He undeniably shored up the starting rotation and his veteran presence did provide a solid anchor to the young Minnesota rotation. A one year $6M contract, incentive laden deal should be an easy sell to him. To date Pavano has repeatedly said that he favors a return to Minnesota, he’s not really interested in finding himself on yet another new team and faced with a new challenge to ‘prove’ himself again, wants to play for a contender and besides he would be entering a free agent market where salaries are going to be considerably reduced from previous years he would have stood a chance to earn. There is an excellent article on Pavano’s value over at the blog Twinkie Town that I highly recommend you read.

Well, scratch Placido Polanco off your Twins free agents wish list if you had him there. Yesterday Polanco signed a three-year $18M contract with the Phillies. Polanco returns to the team he played for just prior to his trade to Detroit, and despite winning a pair of Gold Gloves as a second baseman while with the Tigers the Phillies are planning to have him play 3B. Pedro Feliz, the Phillies third baseman for the past two years, was not offered arbitration and is expected to be non-tendered. Polanco has played third base before – he played most of 2001 and 2002 as the Cardinals everyday third baseman. He’s seen relatively little service time there in the subsequent years but I don’t see him having any difficulties making the adjustment. And there was no way he was going to supplant Chase Utley at 2B. The signing of Polanco surprises some I’m sure as many sports writers predicted the Phillies to come hard after the Angels free agent Chone Figgins, or even Seattle’s free agent Adrian Beltre. It’s easy to understand the Philly fanbase advocating for the signing of either of these two as they each provide excellent defense; Beltre will offer you the kind of power numbers you’d expect from a third baseman, while Figgins hits for high average, maintains an excellent OPB and steals bases. Still, Polanco was the best fit for this team and he came a lot cheaper than either Figgins or Beltre are likely to sign for.

I read a story at the Yahoo! blog Big League Stew earlier today (Yankees core provides foundation for our all-decade team) and I had such a hard time agreeing with most of the choices I found it necessary to create one myself. The criteria they used for their selection process was a bit dubious and left room for more than a little skepticism. For comparison’s sake I will list their choices in column format and then list my own selection directly in line across from it.

Big League Stew

C – Jorge Posada, NYY                    C – Joe Mauer, Twins

1B – Albert Pujols, Cards                1B – Albert Pujols, Cards

2B – Jeff Kent, SF/HOU/LAD      2B - Chase Utley, Philly

3B – A-Rod, NYY                             3B – Chipper Jones, Braves

SS - Derek Jeter, NYY                    SS - Derek Jeter, NYY

LF - Barry Bonds, SF                      LF – Carl Crawford, Tampa Bay

CF - Ichiro, Seattle                          CF – Torii Hunter, Twins/Angels

RF – Vlad Guerrero, LAA               RF - Ichiro, Seattle

For their starting pitchers the BLS blog writers chose righthander Pedro Martinez (Boston/NYM/Philly) and lefthander Randy Johnson (Arizona/NYY/SF) and I find it difficult to have any grievance with those choices. Some other starters I considered were John Smoltz (Braves/Boston/Cards), Curt Schilling (Arizona/Boston), Roy Halladay (Toronto) and Johan Santana (Twins/NYM).

And now for an explanation: I chose Mauer over Posada due to Mauer’s superior offensive skills and also his dominant defensive skills. Posada may have had four more full years of service time but he didn’t come close to matching Mauer’s three batting titles, recent MVP award and also the fact that Mauer dots the landscape of just about every batting category there is.

Pujols is unquestionably the most dominant 1B of his era while 2B was a bit more of a race but I clearly believe that Utley was far more impressive over the stretch of years considered here than Jeff Kent or any other second basemen.

Go ahead and hate me and feel free to vilify me for my choice at 3B. A-Rod definitely is a significantly better hitter than Jones – but then Jones didn’t lie about steroid use. Cheaters shouldn’t prosper so A-Rod gets left off my list. Same goes for Bonds in left field…and Crawford isn’t a poor man’s anything by any means.

Why BLS has Ichiro in center is beyond my understanding as he only played one full season there in the years that are covered here. Hunter has dominated that position since the turn of the century and hasn’t slowed down at all. I put Ichiro in right field where he belongs which unfortunately leaves Guerrero off the list – Manny Ramirez was also left off in my selection for left field. Vlad is an awesome & feared hitter as of course is Manny, but both of them (especially Manny) have declined considerably over the past three or more years as defensive outfielders, while both Crawford & Ichiro remain superior fielders at their respective positions.

I’m assuming that nearly all of the arbitration offers that will be made have been sent to the players’ agents and then notified themselves by now. A few real surprises among the expected offers:

Catchers:

Rod Barajas came as a surprise to me – I fully expected the Jays to take a pass. Probably the lack of any real star quality catchers on the free agent market benefited him here. Bengie Molina is the lone free agent among any of them that will command any serious attention – and I still haven’t seen any word online about his arbitration status. The really big surprise here is the Rangers offering arbitration to Ivan Rodriguez. Considering the Rangers depth at the position this is not only surprising but a genuine curiosity.

First Basemen:

The Atlanta Braves declined to offer arbitration to Adam La Roche, apparently showing a willingness to either enter the 2010 season with a candidate from their minor league system or pickup a free agent. Unless the Braves sign an available veteran like Carlos Delgado they will definitely be missing the power production they need from the 1B position and it will hurt their chances to be serious contenders.

Second Basemen:

Two big surprises here. 1) The Cardinals offer arbitration to 35-y.o. Mark DeRosa and not Troy Glaus; DeRosa has demonstrated a tendency toward fragility the past few years and he didn’t perform well at all down the pennant stretch. DeRosa is versatile, being able to play 1B, 2B & 3B (not shortstop though, limited range) while Glaus, 33-y.o., returned from a long absence and acquitted himself very neatly. 2) The Dodgers didn’t offer arbitration to Orlando Hudson – who is guaranteed to draw a number of teams attention. The Dodgers are throwing away a chance to get something in return for O-Dog simply to avoid any risk that he would earn a substantial raise from them. True, Hudson faded fast in the final month and a half of 2009, but I wouldn’t be quick to toss him overboard – especially when the scuttlebutt is saying that the Dodgers prefer to hang on to Ronnie Belliard who finished strong for them down the stretch. I don’t figure Belliard to put up anything near the play he did in August & September for the course of a full season. But he’s probably cheaper and the Dodgers are a team in financial flux so they do need to mind the mint.

Third Basemen:

Other than the mention of Troy Glaus above there aren’t any real surprises – yet.

Shortstop:

No true surprises here, though I did think that the Astros were going to make an effort to hang onto Miguel Tejada. It’s being reported on several websites that Houston would like to move Tejada to 3B because of the skepticism surrounding his lack of range at the SS position. They could still re-sign him of course.

Leftfielder:

Johnny Damon did not receive an arbitration offer as many news services and sports writers had predicted. That of course does not mean that the Yankees don’t want him back – they just want him back at a cheaper cost. Damon’s defensive skills continued to decline even after the move to the new stadium, but his hitting ability didn’t suffer and he surprised many with his home run power. I see the Yanks making a honest try to bring him back.

Centerfielder:

Went just I thought it would so far.

Rightfielder:

The Angels passed on giving an offer to Vlad Guerrero who is only a Type B free agent and will get lots of attention from teams looking for a DH. The Angels simply couldn’t afford to find themselves in a position to give Guerrero a fat raise along with trying to hang onto to both their Type A free agents Chone Figgins & John Lackey – who they did offer arbitration to.

Pitchers:

The only ones that came as a surprise to me here were 1) the Marlins passing on reliever Kiko Calero – though the Marlins have historically shown an aversion to giving players a raise in salary; 2) ineffective closer but decent reliever Brandon Lyon receiving an arbitration offer from suddenly cost-conscious Detroit. The Tigers could get just as good mileage out of another available free agent reliever – and very likely at a cheaper cost. I don’t get that one at all. A few others worth mentioning: the Astros declining to arbitrate with reliever LaTroy Hawkins but choosing to do so with erratic closer Jose Valverde was somewhat of a surprise too. And if Bobby Jenks does find himself out of a closers job with the White Sox come Opening Day 2010 (as has been rumored) then Chicago will have been real fools to let Octavio Dotel get away from them by declining arbitration. Dotel is sure to get plenty of worthwhile, if not substantial, offers from serious contenders looking to shore up their bullpen.

There’s still more to come I’m sure…

• Bengie Molina (A) – No
• Billy Wagner (A) – Yes
• Chone Figgins (A) – Yes
• Darren Oliver (A) – Yes
• Jason Bay (A) – Yes
• Jermaine Dye (A) – No
• John Lackey (A) – Yes
• Johnny Damon (A) – No
• Jose Valverde (A) – No
• Kevin Gregg (A) – No
• LaTroy Hawkins (A) – Yes
• Marco Scutaro (A) – Yes
• Matt Holliday (A) – Yes
• Miguel Tejada (A) – No
• Mike Gonzalez (A) – Yes
• Octavio Dotel (A) – Yes
• Orlando Cabrera (A) – No
• Orlando Hudson (A) – No
• Placido Polanco (A) – No
• Rafael Betancourt (A) - Yes
• Rafael Soriano (A) - Yes
• Randy Wolf (A) – Yes
• Adam LaRoche (B) – Yes
• Adrian Beltre (B) – No
• Andy Pettitte (B) - No
• Bob Howry (B) – No
• Braden Looper (B) – No
• Brandon Lyon (B) – Yes
• Brian Giles (B) – No
• Brian Shouse (B) – No
• Carl Pavano (B) – Yes
• Carlos Delgado (B) – No
• Chan Ho Park (B) - Yes
• David Weathers (B) – No
• Doug Brocail (B) – No
• Doug Davis (B) – No
• Erik Bedard (B) – No
• Felipe Lopez (B) - Yes
• Fernando Rodney (B) – Yes
• Fernando Tatis (B) – No
• Garret Anderson (B) – No
• Gregg Zaun (B) – No
• Guillermo Mota (B) – No
• Ivan Rodriguez (B) - No
• Jason Kendall (B) – No
• Jason Marquis (B) – No
• Joe Beimel (B) – No
• Joel Pineiro (B) – Yes
• Jon Garland (B) – No
• Justin Duchscherer (B) - No
• Kiko Calero (B) – Yes
• Mark DeRosa (B) – No
• Marlon Byrd (B) – Yes
• Melvin Mora (B) – No
• Miguel Olivo (B) – No
• Mike Cameron (B) – No
• Nick Johnson (B) – No
• Randy Johnson (B) – No
• Randy Winn (B) – No
• Rich Harden (B) – No
• Rod Barajas (B) – No
• Ronnie Belliard (B) – Yes
• Russ Springer (B) – No
• Scott Eyre (B) – No
• Troy Glaus (B) – No
• Vicente Padilla (B) – No
• Vladimir Guerrero (B) – No
• Will Ohman (B) – No
• Xavier Nady (B) – No
• Yorvit Torrealba (B) – No

Let me know if you think I’m wrong on any of these…

The fiasco surrounding the two Northwest pilots who overshot the Minneapolis International Airport by 150 miles has the beginnings of a final resolution this morning but I’m still not buying it. As everyone knows by now the pilots claim they were going over monthly flight crew schedules on their laptops and that they “lost track of time and place.” Originally they had said they were having an arguement over airline policy - a story that likely couldn’t hold up under the intense questioning I’m sure they endured.  ‘What airline policy did you argue about?’, ‘Have you had other arguements about airline policy?’, ‘How did the arguement start?’, etc. That house of cards would collapse quickly under even the least cursory investigation. I have a better theory of what actually transpired.

I was in the military for 10 years and I did many a shift of guard duty during that time. More often than not I did these tours of duty with at least one other person, sometimes even three or four. It depended on the situation. In the instances where there were at least two of us there would be an agreement: “I’m gonna get some shuteye. Wake me in a few hours and then you can catch some Zs too.” This is what I believe happened on that flight.

One of the pilots tells the other that he needs to get some sleep and asks him to keep an eye on things and to wake him when it becomes necessary. Well, the other pilot falls asleep too and now both of them are ‘unavailable’ to whoever is trying to communicate with them. Keep in mind that one – or possibly both – of them most likely have headsets on which I imagine are designed to keep out any outside noise.

When it became apparent to the flight attendants (and some passengers) that the plane had passed the Twin Cities one of the attendants tried to reach them by phone – no answer. Then they knocked on the cabin door to the cockpit – again no answer. Finally, in a desperate attempt to contact them, the attendant spoke to them over the plane’s intercom system. This time they got an answer.

I find it absolutely impossible to believe that the pilots were not aware of either of the two previous attempts by the attendants to get their attention or that they failed to notice the attempts at contact by the air traffic controllers at Denver and Minneapolis airports. It just doesn’t seem very likely that all these efforts could have went by unnoticed.

It’s far more plausible that they both fell asleep, woke up at the point during the initial effort by the flight attendants to reach them by phone, and, realizing their mistake knew they had to come up with a story. Neither of the pilots had tuned the plane’s radio frequency to the Minneapolis airport who would have been trying to reach them so that likely explains why they were out of communication for an hour.

So, here’s what I’m saying happened. The pilots are both asleep, the phone in the cockpit rings and awakes one or both of them. They realize they’ve made a horrible error and know that an explanation will be necessary. Then there’s a knock on the cockpit’s door. “Don’t answer that! We’ve still got to get our story straight.” When the attendant speaks to them directly over the intercom the pilots know that a panic will happen if they don’t answer. That’s what I believe happened.

What do you think?

MVPs

AL – ‘Baby Jesus’ Joe Mauer, Minnesota; runner-up – Derek Jeter (NYY). Kendry Morales (LAA) deserves a lot more respect than he’s getting though in these post-season polls. He virtually carried the Angel’s offense singlehandedly when the big bats were out with injuries for lengthy periods.

NL – Albert Pujols, St. Louis; runner-up Hanley Ramirez (Florida). Pablo Sandoval (San Francisco) should get plenty of votes too…he’ll most likely wind up third in the voting.

Cy Young

AL – Zack Greinke, Kansas City; runner-up Felix Hernandez (Seattle) who’s a very strong dark horse candidate but can’t circumvent the voters (and the media’s) season-long ‘love affair’ with Greinke. 

NL – Chris Carpenter, St. Louis; runner-up Adam Wainwright. One of these two Cardinals pitchers had better win the award!

Manager of the Year

AL – Joe Girardi, NYY, because he did turn the Yanks around after a disasterous opening month and a half. Mike Scoscia of the Angels will get consideration here for dealing with the death of future ace Nick Adenhart and winning the division title but Girardi really deserves it.

NL – Jim Tracy, Colorado. He took over the Rockies who were far out of contention and rallied them to an unbelievable wild-card finish. I can think of no one that should even challenge him for the award.    

ROY

AL – Andrew Bailey, Oakland; Gordon Beckham (CWS) didn’t earn it statistically IMO and Rick Porcello (Detroit), Ricky Romero (Toronto) & especially Jeff Neimann (Tampa Bay) were all quite good - just not as good as Bailey was though.

NL – Chris Coghlan, Florida; this guy earned it with his terrific season! Martin Prado (Atlanta) was also very good – just not great. Tommy Hanson (Atlanta) and J.A. Happ (Philadelphia) were both very impressive and I guess I wouldn’t be surprised to see Happ somehow get enough votes to sneak past Coghlan…but it shouldn’t happen!

The recession continues to accrue casualties and our neighborhood wasn’t spared. Sometime during the past week the long and storied era of the San Antonio Grill & Bar officially came to a close. I say that in jest of course – oh, the restaurant did close but it did not have a ‘long and storied era’.

The fact of the matter is it never opened.

The building it occupied – or wanted to – was the site of a former Chi Chi’s which closed it doors well over six years ago. The Coyote Grille opened on the location for a brief period but it was one of many restaurants in the Twin Cities that suffered a loss of clientele when the Clean Air Policy was initiated and eventually closed it’s doors – September, 2005 to be exact.

Since then the place had been vacant but late in 2007 there was quite a bit of activity inside and outside the place. Soon the marquees, that had for so long been empty shells, displayed the signage of San Antonio Grill & Bar with the lettering on the marquee pad exclaiming COMING SOON! But, it didn’t…oh well.

I’m not sure why the efforts to open the San Antonio Grill & Bar succumbed but maybe the newest tenant, Chilito’s will make a more promising candidate. I’m guessing that it will feature Mexican cuisine with that name and I did not see any postings on the doors announcing a date for opening. The roadside marquee on Shingle Creek Parkway reads simply CHILITO’S. Perhaps wisely considering what happened to the previous restaurant venture there.

FYI – I googled for information on the closing of San Antonio Grill & Bar but it didn’t return any hits other directions to the location, nothing on why they just gave up…and I doubt they were victims of the Clean Air Policy.

UPDATE: 10/14/09 – At some point over the past two months the new owners added the words COMING SOON to the marquee. I would suggest this to be the ‘kiss of death’ but there are visual signs of life about the place. For instance, the same single car is usually parked in the lot in a different location each day and there is a length of yellow warning  tape across a small area of the sidewalk near the front entry where I believe some cement may have been repaired…or needs repairing. Maybe, just maybe, this time the restaurant actually opens!

NFL analysts and sportscasters have apparently lost their minds now that Brett Favre has come out of retirement for…what?…the tenth or twelfth time? Honestly, I’ve lost count – not that I care. I haven’t been a fan of Favre for the past several years as he became a nuisance with all of his announcements concerning “his final season” as well as the continuing demands he made on the Packers front office to ‘draft this player’, ’sign this free agent’ or ‘trade this player’, etc. As a Packers fan I could not have been happier when they dealt him to the NY Jets last year – goodbye & good riddance! The Aaron Rodgers era officially began, and it’s about time!

Well, Favre went on to distinguish himself in the early games with the Jets making one play after another and keep them in contention for a division title. And then Favre regressed into what he (unfortunately) seems to do best, and that’s launch one interception after another. His own teammates from last season spoke harshly about him after missing the playoffs. I recall seeing RB Thomas Jones on ESPN say that Favre’s poor play and untimely interceptions singlehandedly sunk their playoff hopes. Many other Jets came forward to support Jones in his statement; contrariwise only a few came forward to defend Favre.

But we don’t really need Jones to tell us what was so painfully obvious to everyone: Favre is over the hill. Everyone except the Vikings and every ‘talking head’ on the ESPN or NFL network that is.

It seems that the Vikings are on the fast track to the Super Bowl with the addition of Favre. Really? And who is he going to be throwing all those passes to – I mean besides everyone in a uniform other than the Vikings? The great pass catching tandem of Bernard Berrian & Bobby Wade? And no talk of Percy Harvin please. He’s an untested rookie who has much to prove before being considered any kind of real threat.  Which reminds me – how many Super Bowls did the Vikings win with Randy Moss?

I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but all of this talk about Minnesota becoming the favored team to win the Super Bowl is completely over the top and downright ludicrous. This is the same team that struggled to beat the lowly, no respect Detroit Lions (twice!) and surrendered 48 points in one game to the offensively challenged Chicago Bears this past season. Where does the reasoning come from that puts the Vikings in the driver’s seat to the Super Bowl?

No matter. With Favre in at quarterback for the Vikings that’s a sure two wins for the Pack along with between 6 – 10 interceptions. You know it’ll happen. Favre has a chip on his shoulder that is exactly the size of Green Bay. We’ll see it all on Monday night, October 5th. He’ll over compensate and have the type of offensive collapse he’s had far too many of in the recent past.  Additionally one of my dreams will most certainly materialize: Seeing Favre dressed in a Vikings uniform getting mauled by the Packers defense - which will of course cause him to launch a few of those off-target passes in retaliation.

In case you haven’t had a TV or radio on or been to any site on the internet in the past week, then you probably did not hear about a pair of North Jersey police officers who failed to recognize the singer and song writing legend Bob Dylan. Nearly everyone who has a website or blog has reported this incident ad nausea since the story first broke and, naturally, added their own remarks. Most of the accounts I read online couldn’t seem to resist pointing out the painfully apparent parallel to Dylan’s classic ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ which becomes especially obvious when you read the narrative that took place between the police and Dylan.

Also too many of the articles insisted on having to insert various lines from Dylan songs in each paragraph, some of which were embarrassing and others just awful in their attempts at humor. Many of the reports suggest a consensus agreement to point out that Dylan now knows what it feels like ‘to be a complete unknown.’ If you need that explained to you then you can stop reading this right now…

Actually, I’d say the more appropriate line from that same classic song would actually be the last line from the final verse where he sings, ‘You’re invisible now, you’ve got no secrets to conceal’.

While I doubt that identifying past & present cultural icons that transcend generations isn’t part of the course schedule at police academy, the one item that I could not find a definite answer for was if the two officers recognized the names of Willie Nelson & John Mellencamp who Dylan explained he was there in town to perform in concert with. But I assume that they did and this is the reason why they went directly to the hotel and got the staff there to vouch for him. But the tragedy here isn’t that Dylan wasn’t recognized – as unbelievable as that seems to many. No, the tragedy here is that the two police officers, both in their mid-20’s, could very, very likely tell you the names of all the current (and maybe many of the past) contestants on ‘American Idol’ and what they performed as well. Now, that is a tragedy!

Any thoughts the Twins (or fans) had of the team making the post-season can definitely be forgotten. Though it’s still ‘in fashion’ to read both local & national sports writers stating the team is only out of first place by four (no five, no – six!) games and can rebound that’s a really hard sell. If the 2009 Twins were in any other division with their current record, any talk of divisional hopes would have faded out of conversation long, long ago. But they’re in the miserably weak AL Central, with the division-leading Tigers just five games over .500 and barely maintaining a two-game lead over the White Sox. So the Twins, being led by MVP candidates Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer, with solid support from Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer who are each having breakout seasons, are still getting kind consideration from many to challenge for the title. Nonsense!

There are suggestions that the Twins can surge back into competition with a six to eight game win streak – not entirely impossible when you realize they have multiple games left to play with the depleted and stripped down Indians and the perennial basement dwelling Royals who lack any ability to generate run production. Unless they’re playing the Twins. Minnesota got their ass Royal-ly kicked by Kansas City in a recent series; Cleveland’s starting lineup can’t compare to the Twins but they easily managed to take two of three from us – at the Dome. You see, offense isn’t the problem for the Twins, it’s pitching that’s become the disaster for them.

Yes, the problem with the Twins this year is that the starting rotation has shown zero indication that they can string together those six to eight consecutive solid starts it would take to make such a win streak even plausible. The Twins longest winning streak in 2009 is four games – four games! – and the staff has yet to put together six consecutive starts during the second half without allowing double-digit runs. Yes, you read that right. The Twins have allowed 10 or more runs eight times already since the All-Star break.

Eight!

And not only to the Yankees, Angels or the Red Sox, the heavy hitters of the AL. The lowly Oakland A’s did it twice and the Royals did it once. To add further insult to injury the A’s had only turned that trick once before in the entire season, and the Royals now have done it four times in 2009—twice against the Twins no less. The starting five is clearly running on fumes, not even able to get past five innings. With the exception of Scott Baker, who has tossed back-to-back decent games for the first time in weeks, the rotation seems more ready to implode rather than ready to tap into reserves for a pennant race. And forget about the bullpen. Matt Gurrier and Joe Nathan continue to be strong down the stretch but the rest of them seem just as out of gas as the starters. Left-hander Jose Mijares has rebounded to become reliable, but he can’t bail us out of every situation. With no help on the foreseeable horizon it can be assumed that the Twins are just entering the early stages of a free fall.

The recent six-game homestand against the last-place Royals and fourth-place Tribe was supposed to rejuvenate the team and get them back into the thick of things. Instead, they dropped two of three to each team and have fallen six games behind the division leading Tigers. Minnesota now hasn’t won consecutive games since the four-game win streak July 26-29 – including an impressive three game sweep of the second-place White Sox. In their 11 losses since July 31, the pitching staff has surrendered an average of over 8 runs a game, and with 45 games left to play this certainly seems like a disaster in the making.

The Twins have a total of 13 games remaining to play against the Tigers and White Sox. Neither team is overwhelming and each has plenty of suspect positional problems like the Twins. But without any help for the pitching staff all indications are that Minnesota stands a very good chance of getting bounced to the cellar of the division. And that’s something I really don’t want to see come to happen.