I can’t remember an NFL team being so overmatched on both the offensive and defensive lines as were the Vikings in their Christmas Day loss to the New Orleans Saints. The Minnesota secondary wasn’t much better, either. The Vikings gave us 53 points, the most since 1963, and that number would have been higher had […]
The Twins have said goodbye, for the moment at least, to leftfielder Eddie Rosario, who led the team in rbi’s the last two or three years. It used to be thought that the rbi was the statistic that best indicated a team’s most productive hitter, but not only did the Twins show little uncertainty in […]
The better team, the Dodgers, won the World Series last night, but they got more than a little help from the manager of the Tampa Bay Rays and his adherence to a pet peeve of mine, “analytics.” This is the trend that has swept the Major Leagues the last half-dozen years, although it was introduced […]
It’s hard to be discouraged about the Twins at mid-season, given their 20-10 record, second-best in the Majors, a winning percentage that would result in 107 victories in a normal full season. But cracks are appearing, and not just in the two losses to weak-hitting Cleveland following the mid-year mark. The first I’ve alluded to […]
An undiscussed consequence of the tendency to overshift pull hitters is what it means for the scoring. In a game last night the Angels played their shortstop in short right field, in between the first and second basemen. I presume a ground ball hit to the shifted shortstop will be scored 6-3. But now, what […]
September 30: The Twins put on such a lifeless performance against Houston that I am surprisingly unemotional about their premature (based on their seeding) exit from the playoffs. In fact, I saw more life in Cleveland’s first three batters tonight against the Yankees, before rain halted play, than I did in 18 innings of at-bats […]
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The Minnesota Twins are coming off one of their best-ever regular seasons and a pretty darn good offseason, too. They added Josh Donaldson, their highest-paid free agent ever, with his 3rd-base defense and 36 homers, to their offense, which set a Major League record for home runs; […]
Boy, do I miss my baseball season! Where’s the box score I can peruse before going to bed each night? Where’s the split screen on my computer I can zoom in on when the Twins rally? Where’s the intellectual stimulation of thinking how I would have managed the game differently? Where’s the agony of seeing […]
On 4th and 1 inside the 49er 5-yard line, the Chiefs lined up with four men in the backfield, with the quarterback under center. Then, on cue, all four pirouetted(!) like synchronized swimmers and moved one step to the right. The ensuing snap then bypassed the quarterback and went directly to one of the running […]
Major League Baseball came down hard on the Astros’ GM and manager because of a perception problem and that’s whom they could punish. Jeffrey Luhnow and A.J. Hinch apparently didn’t instigate or even encourage their coaches or players to use the video-replay monitor to steal the opposing catcher’s signs, but it occurred on their watch, […]
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