HPMLD: Lance Lynn, J.T. Chargois, and Janelle Monae

The Hosken Powell Memorial Link Dump is stretching out and rumored to be a dark horse candidate for this year’s rotation.

• TWINS WIN! Two teams that flat-out do not like each other, the Minnesota Twins and the Minnesota Gophers, faced off in the Twins’ first pretend game of the year. A bases-loaded wild pitch sent the Twins to a hard-earned 2-1 victory. LaMonte Wade scored the winning run. I don’t know who that is.
• LaVelle already has the lineup for today’s tilt against the Red Sox. BASEBALL’S BACK, BABY.
• Speaking of the Red Sox, they signed J.D. Martinez.
• You may have seen that the Twins let Cajun chef J.T. Chargois go on Thursday. We’ll miss him as one of the fireballing young arms who was supposed to turn the Minnesota bullpen into a force. It was nice while it lasted, and while we miss the comic possibilities of Sid Hartman pronouncing “Chargois” on AM radio, we look forward to the young man changing the world of Cajun cuisine with his bayou favorites.
• Cutting Chargois loose means the Twins have an opening on the 40-man roster. Fanrag Sports’ Jon Heyman says the Twins are in on free agent pitcher Lance Lynn. As Heyman notes, the Twins were also in on Yu Darvish and that didn’t mean dick, but they didn’t 86 Chargois for no good reason. Probably worth monitoring, and honestly, you’re burned out on the Olympics a little bit. Refreshing multiple social media accounts constantly sounds like a pretty good Friday to us.
• The new Janelle Monae song is a remarkable Prince tribute. Prince was from Minnesota. That qualifies for a link dump item.
• Also, I know SB Nation isn’t all that great a name, but geez louise, Fanrag Sports?
• MLB.com’s Twins guy Rhett Bollinger has a list of dark-horse candidates to make the Twins roster. I will never not be confused by there being another Minnesota athlete named Jake Reed, but he’s on the list.

If there is any fire to Heyman’s Lynn smoke, we’ll let you know. Drive carefully this morning, upper Midwesterners.