Since the all-star break I have found it difficult to sit down and come up with something interesting to write about the Minnesota Twins. It is not the Twins fault, they have won two series (Indians and Angels) in a row and are 4-2 since the break but I am just stuck in rut. I don’t want to spend time writing about possible trade scenarios that have no chance of taking place, there are plenty of blogs writing about that. Fire Ron Gardenhire? I have been there and given my thoughts about that. I think the problem is that I know this team is not going anywhere and it frustrates me because I know this team is going to go through streaks of playing winning baseball when they are fun to watch and then they will play like crap for a series or two and drive me nuts. Yet I know and understand that is how young players play the game and learn to win.
But the Twins are not the only team playing inconsistent baseball. When the season started I had the Blue Jays, Tigers, and Angels winning their divisions with the Rays and Royals as wild cards in the AL. When I look at the American League standings now I see the Tigers, Red Sox, and A’s winning their divisions with the Rays, Orioles, and the Rangers in hot pursuit as possible wild card candidates. The Blue Jays have stunk and are playing .455 baseball, who would have predicted that? I thought that the Red Sox would suck again this year and they have 61 wins in the bank, better than any team in baseball. In the NL I had the Nationals, Reds, and Dodgers as division winners with the Braves and Pirates as wild card winners. The standings in the NL now show us that the Cards are going head-to-head with the Pirates, The Dodgers are battling with the D-Backs and the Braves are running away from the Phillies and the third place Nats. Heck, the Miami Marlins have won more games than the Astros and almost as many as the White Sox.
It just goes to show how unpredictable MLB baseball really is from year to year and why it is such an interesting and great game. A team can sign a slew of free agents or make a mega trade (hello Blue Jays) and all the baseball experts or talking heads as I like to call them jump on the bandwagon and predict great things and guarantee a cake walk to the playoffs. But when the season ends you find this teams players packing their bags and cleaning their golf clubs when game 162 is in the books. I had originally picked the Detroit Tigers and the Washington Nationals to play in World Series 2013 and for the Nats to win in six games. Now the Nationals will have to play some amazing baseball just to get in to the playoffs. Last time I looked, the Twins were 100 to 1 to win the World Series. Those are some long odds indeed but I remember back in 1987 when I made my annual February trip to Las Vegas and put $10 down on the Twins to win it all and I put $400 in my pocket later that year.