Yankees Sweep Twins, Win Game Three 6-1

Disappointing doesn't even begin to cover it.

There are some things I'm willing to grant. The Yankees were the better team in this series, for example. They out-pitched the Twins, and they definitely out-hit the Twins...especially where hits with runners in scoring position were concerned. New York came in and did what they had to do, and the took advantage of a team that wasn't playing well coming into the series and a team that was unable to shake off the doldrums of the end of the regular season.

But as far as the Twins are concerned: there are some changes that need to be made. Whether you want to point to the front office, the manager or his staff or the players, I'm not going to debate that at this point. There are plenty of fingers to be pointed, and that's enough for right now. I'm too disappointed, too tired and in too strong a state of disbelief to put together any coherent thoughts beyond that.

Coming into this series I believed that the front office had put together a group of talented ballplayers--guys who were definitely talented enough to compete with, and beat, the damned Yankees, no matter who else thought otherwise. I believed that the managers had done a great job with those players and keeping them on track, especially considering all the injuries this team dealt with over the summer. Even now I believe this group of players could have won, and to be fair, they actually were good enough to compete with the Yankees--they could have won games one and two, and had chances to close the gap in game three.

They just couldn't win.

I'm not sure why that is. A lot of it is mental by this point, no doubt. But beyond that, the players are good enough and the manager didn't do anything in this series that directly cost them a game. That, to me, is what makes "finding fault" so difficult. Sometimes, you just lose. Our Twins certainly did that in grand fashion in this series.

In the coming days I'm sure we'll talk some about the playoffs, some about the season past, and I know for a fact we'll start looking forward to 2011. That's what's great about baseball. No matter how you feel about what just went down...there's always next year.

Thanks for a fun year, Twins. And thanks to all the readers and supporters and contributors of Twinkie Town this season. Hopefully you'll stick with us over the winter, because it's going to be an active one.

I'll see you tomorrow.