The One In Which k-bro Gives 'CCO the Stink-eye

So you might have heard by now that WCCO reported Monday that Joe Mauer and the Twins agreed to a 10-year contract. "Agreed." Well, that's what I saw yesterday at about 3:00 via Twitter.

You can imagine my glee. I immediately re-tweeted it and crossed my fingers in hopes that it was true. And then refreshed my BlackBerry about 80 bazillion times awaiting confirmation. I also fired up the web stream of XM Radio 175 Home Plate so I wouldn't miss the announcement when it finally came.

As expected, I was not the only one who was excited about this potential news. Home Plate had the tweet in their update within minutes. If they heard about it so quickly, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, FOX, StarTribune, Pioneer Press, and Gus's Bait Shop Newsletter heard about it too.

With that, I imagine that several phones started ringing off the hook -- Bill Smith's, Joe Mauer's, Ron Shapiro's, Dave St. Peter's, Twins staffers's, anyone's whose last name is Mauer, and probably anyone's whose last name is Smith. But after all those phone calls, the other sources did not do what fans were looking for and confirm the story. Nope. The information coming back kind of denied it. It was more like "things look good, but we're still talking and nothing's done yet." And the tweets of that nature rolled in like waves.

By the five o'clock newscast, Rosen had dialed back on the wording. He was then talking of a "basic framework" being in place and the negotiations were proceeding. I'm sorry? "Framework?" That's about 359 miles away from "agreed." To me, "agreed" means, well, agreed; the contract's all done but the signatures. On the other hand, "framework" is an outline, a plan, a beginning.

The tweet linked to this article, which also said "agreed," at least in the headline. For the record, the article has been changed since it first hit the web.

Tuesday, reports came out that Joe Mauer is surprised about the report and pretty much laughed off the whole thing.

Now, there's a very good chance that Rosen winds up being right, but we won't know for a while. He's very adamant that he trusts his source, and he is a respected journalist in the Twin Cities. Plus, this has happened to him before - he made a similar bold statement about Brett Favre coming out of retirement and joining the Vikings, and it turned out he was right. (I don't really remember how that shook out; I intentionally ignored all Brett Favre talk until I actually saw him in purple.)

All Twins fans hope something great happens. In fact, this whole kerfuffle kind of boosted optimism, because in all the phone calls they got, the Twins and Mauer did admit that talks continue and are going well.

Regardless of whether Joe does ink an extension soon, my beef is with 'CCO's wording and timing of that tweet and the article attached to it. I can't say if Rosen himself wrote any of it - probably not actually. But I really wish that whoever wrote it would have used that "framework" word from the start. And I wish they would have waited. They get the stink-eye from me for making me do all that fretting.

Be sure to read Nick Nelson's much more positive, and more interesting, blog post about the same topic.

Get Away Day Blues

Saturday (1) Twins 12 - O's 2
Saturday (2) Twins 12 - O's 6
Sunday Twins 3 - O's 7

Twins take series 2-1

Another opportunity to sweep a team we should sweep, and another loss. As I was marching around the house and grumbling about the game, Dick-n-Bert were talking about the upcoming Cleveland series. Which got me thinking that it seems like they lose a lot of games where they have to head out to another city after they're done (known as "Get Away" days).

So I decided I'd figure it out to see if I was right. I've got nothing else to do between loads of laundry on a rainy, crappy Sunday afternoon.

First of all, I define Get Aways as games when the team travels right after them. And, I've read/heard from the newspaper and radio/TV guys that they travel right after the game even if the following day is an off-day, so I counted those too.

Here's what I came up with:



Ouch. It's worse than I thought.

So what's up with that? Are they too busy thinking of their next series to concentrate on their current game? Are they worrying if they forgot to pack their iPods? Are they suffering a collective bout of agoraphobia? Who knows?

The good news is that there are only two Get Away days left in the regular season (well, three if you count the last day of the season, which we may have to do if they need to play a tie-breaker). The bad news is that if they should happen to make the playoffs, Get Away days happen like every other game. They really, really, really need to reverse this trend if they make the playoffs.

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And, adding to the feeling of someone sneezing in our face, it looks like the Bad Guys are going to win both their games today, putting the Good Guys 1 1/2 games back. Ick.

[Edit] I, currently, at this moment, ♥ Marcus Thames for tying the White Sox - Tigers game with a fat grand slam. It's a whole new ball game. Go Tigers!

[Edit 2] Scratch that. Dewayne Wise just hit a fat grand slam to go ahead again.

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High-Five Goes To... Carlos Zambrano for tossing a no-hitter against the Houston Astros. Oddly, he did it in Milwaukee (thanks to Ike), so it must have felt more like a home game even though the Cubs were the visiting team.

Digging Through My Kitchen Drawer

Friday: Twins 10 - Tigers 2 (Yay!)
Saturday: Twins 4 - Tigers 6
Sunday: Twins 5 - Tigers 7
Tigers win series 2 of 3

Ok, I'm not quite ready to stick a fork in the Twins, but I am looking for the fork.



I know that they're not out of the running mathmatically, but it sure doesn't seem like they're playing like champions. We really needed to sweep the Tigers, and there's no reason that we couldn't do that at home, but that didn't happen. Add that to the fact that the Angels let the White Sox have two games, and the slipping has begun.

I know, I know, there are still a lot games left, and anything can happen. But I just don't like the trend I'm seeing lately, especially with the bullpen. This recent habit of coughing up leads must end now if we're to have any hope at all.

Where have you gone, Pat Neshek,
Our territory turns it's lonely eyes to you.
What's that you say, Mr. Anderson?
Sidearm Pat has left and gone away,Hey hey hey.
[apologies to Simon & Garfunkel]

Boy, do we miss Pat-Pat or what? Twins fans aren't used to watching the wheels fall off the bullpen game after game. And I think I can speak for all of Twins Territory when I say that we don't like it. We want the good old days when we could actually rely on the bullpen, when we knew that a lead in the seventh was as good as a win, and when being behind by a couple in the seventh wasn't a problem.

So, guys, for tomorrow's off-day, I want you to sleep in, relax, go fishing or golfing or whatever you like, watch the Vikings game (but don't take it too seriously), then come back with renewed champion attitudes that I know you have, and knock off a bunch of wins in a row. I can't find my fork in that messy drawer; I don't want to need it.

Someone Hold My Hands Down...

so I don't scratch out my eyeballs out of frustration.

Twins 0 - Jays 9
Jays sweep in 3, and the season series in 6

I blame myself for this mess. You see, I have these ratty old Twins jammies. I've learned over the years that if I don't wear those jammies on Sunday nights, the Twins have a bad week. On weeks when I failed to wear them that Sunday, the following bad things happened:

• Corey Koskie signed with the Blue Jays (I was on a flight home from Germany)
• All of 2005 (thinking they were getting too ratty to wear anymore, I failed to believe the their powers)
• Francisco Liriano blew his elbow (too busy to do laundry on that Sunday)
• Torii signed with the Angels (again with the too busy to do laundry thing)
• This week (I failed to properly plan for the Labor Day weekend at the lake)

Who can argue with results like this? When I realized that I may have messed up this week, I tried reasoning that because the Twins had Monday off, it would be ok. Apparently I was wrong. And, because it's a weekly thing, I can't make amends until this coming Sunday night.

I don't know what to do. About three weeks ago, I thought I would be ok settling for the "well, at least they did way better than I thought they would" attitude. I was wrong.

I Want The Division Championship, Dammit!