Do We Need to Win the Central?

by MNPundit on Sep 10, 2006 6:42 PM EDT Comment 5 comments

I know there are still many games left, but you have to start looking ahead at some point. After checking out the Twins win today, I hopped over to ESPN's Hunt for October and was reminded that if the race ended today, the Tigers would face the A's and the Twins would for the third time in the last 4 years, face the New York Yankees. If the Twins win the Central they will play the As as the Wild Card team is likley to come from the Central Division. Both Boston and the Angels are 7 games behind us.

Let me remind you of the results of those previous meetings...

2002 - Twins win games 1,4,5 defeat Oakland and Joe Morgan announces "It's just goes to show the best team doesn't always win." Twins go on to win the first game against that year's champion, the Angels, and the bullpen collapses after game 1, Angels Win Series 4-1.

2003 - Twins win game 1 in NY, LaTroy Hawkins and rest of bullpen implode in game 4 and New York Wins Series 3-1.

2004 - Twins win game 1 in NY, Juan Rincon allows 3-run HR to tie game 4 and New York Wins Series 3-1.

I know the Twins have beaten the Yankees in the regular season at times (IIRC in 03 and 04 at the end of the season Gardy allowed his team to lose the series to rest his players making me charge him with momentum killing) but even for the players who weren't there like Bartlett that kind of thing has got to be in the back of your mind.

So, cut to the present day, once again the Twins have lost the series in New York though this time they don't have Radke. But in his two appearances against them, Scott Baker has owned the Yankees. And the team did do better against them in 2004 than in 2003, nearly winning game 2 and game 4. So it's possible that they could win and this team does have an experienced Mauer and Morneau. It has a couple of good relievers in Reyes and Neshek, it's got a solid reliever in Rincon and Nathan remains a lights-out closer blowing 2 saves this year of which the Twins won 1 game in extra innings. And a short series may very well favor us over the Yankees as opposed to a long one. But a part of me desperately hopes they Twins win the Central so they don't have to take on the Yankees right away.

Poll

Can the Twins beat the Yankees in the ALDS?

Easy, the Twins sweep the series

1 votes

Twins have a strong showing and win 3-1 or 3-2

30 votes

Twins fall short but just barely 2-3 or 1-3

9 votes

Twins collapse and are swept

1 votes

What are you talking about? It's too early to worry about this!

14 votes

55 votes | Poll has closed

0 recs | Comment 5 comments

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Comments

Damn Yankees

I hat ethe Yankees quite a lot, and I don' think they are baseball's best this year.

That being said, they still scare the hell out of me. They are definitly in my head. If we won teh centrel and it meant we wouldn't ahve to play the Yankees in teh first round, great, let someone else take them out. We'll deal with them later.

But maybe we'd rather face them in 5 instead of 7, because we'll have Santana nd Liriano combine for 3 or four starts in one series, a very high percentage.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Sep 10, 2006 9:30 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

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Let's worry about getting in the playoffs before we look ahead to who we might play. The playoffs are a crapshoot anyway, so I don't think it really matters who you play, just that you play well. With that said, with our rotation, I think our biggest advantage likely occurs in the first series where only 3 wins are needed instead of 4.

by MauerPower on Sep 10, 2006 10:05 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Actually...

the A's scare me much more than the Yankees. They're going to have Harden back by the playoffs, and will easily have the 2nd best 1-2-3 for the playoff rotation, as well as easily the 2nd best bullpen (both to us). Plus their offense is coming around.

The Yanks still don't scare me one bit with their group.

I still want to win the division though AND get homefield advantage. Giving Santana more starts in the Dome is just unfair to the competition!

by djskilbr on Sep 10, 2006 10:54 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs