State of Twindom

I have to say that one of my favorite parts of this season has been the National League wild card "race". I guess, if I was to be picky with my vocabulary choices, "race" might not be the best choice. Hence the quotation marks. It is less like a race and more like an election so far, where we choose to support the lesser of evils just to watch them get blown out in the general election, and in this case all the kooky party candidates are still in the running for the primary. The candidates that college kids snicker about and dare their friends to vote for. In the NL even Green Party candidates San Franscisco, and the Free People's Movement of Florida Marlins still have a chance, and they were 20 games under five hundred this year. Everytime Baseball Tonight throws up that NL wild card graphic on the screen I giggle just a little. And then make sure my roommate wasn't looking. By the way, I'm pretty sure the Chicago Cubs are the Hamas of the National League -- everybody loves them but they just can't get the job done.

Meanwhile far away in other part of town (Ruben Carter and a couple of friends are drivin' around), our beloved Twins seem to have a strangle-hold on the AL wild card, and it seems like only Mike Sweeney can pry our fingers off its neck. Maybe a couple of guys named Schilling and Beckett could factor into it too, but it seems as if they may have blew their emotional wad early just trying to be spoil sports for the MFY's. Baby Jeesus and his batting title hopes thank you. But seriously, I'm more frightened of that four gamer at home against the Royals than the prior two series at Boston and Baltimore. This version of the Twins has been SO plucky in difficult situations, in games they're not supposed to win, and in games against pitchers they've had a history of losing to, but then they go and blow a few of the "easy ones". The Royals series preceding a final homestand against the Sox seems like such an easy situation to be in "Let's just beat these chumps these four games easy and build an unsurmountable lead before the Sox get here" mode. Dangerous.

This stage of the season also brings another interesting debate to the forefront. The Ligers have a three-gamer against the Sox today, tomorrow, and Wednesday, raising one of my favorite debates...the "Who do we cheer for?" controversy. As if the sheer force of our mental fury could cause Pierzynski liners to take bad bounces over Brandon Inge's glove. Maybe this is what meditation is really all about, although the lack of Olympic gold medals in highly meditative countries probably belies that argument. And if it did work, I bet you would have seen an inordinate amount of yoga studios springing up in Boston prior to 2003. For my part, avoiding the Yankees in the first round seems like a sliced-bread level brilliant idea at this point, especially given the possibility of a Radke recovery and an A's matchup. When is winning the division something you want to ever avoid anyway? So I say we're looking for a 2-1 series win by the Sox -- good for them and good for us, but not TOO good for them. And we still get to play (crush) them the last three games at home where the Twinks have been the best team in baseball this year, Silva and Baker look surgent (as opposed to REsurgent), and Johan has been unbeatable, and looks like is in line to finish the series off. But would we rather have him start Game 1 of a playoff series?

To the Yankees, Tigers, White Sox, and A's I say...
Bring it.