The Rake Magazine

Holy Moses, this Liriano kid looks like he might be for real.

I'm going to be out of commission for a stretch, and I intend to spend some time during this hiatus trying to uncover another team in recent (or ancient memory) that had two such dominant lefties in its rotation. Ordinarily a handful of teams would come to mind, but I'm a bit brain-fogged at the moment and am drawing blanks.

Help me out if you feel so inclined, and spare me the arduous task of digging through my shelves full of baseball reference books.

Also, before I go, here's a plug for a virtuous event coming up at the Metrodome:

On Monday, July 31, as the Twins take on the Texas Rangers at the Dome, YouthCARE (Youth for Cultural Appreciation & Racial Equality) will be hosting a bit of a fundraising bash to honor and celebrate the kids that make YouthCARE's programs exceptional.

This event will take place at the Metrodome on Monday, with a pre-game celebration beginning at 4:30 p.m., and a 7:10 scheduled game time. Highlights of the evening include: appearances by Tony Oliva, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, and St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman; reserved lower level seats; a catered dinner; a silent auction, and more. Tickets are available for $40. All contributions up to $10,000 will be matched by the Thornburg Charitable Foundation.

YouthCARE is a Twin Cities based nonprofit organization with a successful thirty-two year history of directing leadership development, multi-cultural, and educational programs and services for urban youth, 7-18 years old. YouthCare programs are designed to help youth develop the skills necessary to succeed in a multicultural community; encourage understanding, self-respect, and appreciation and respect for others; help youth make a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood; and provide opportunities for disadvantaged youth and youth of color to gain leadership skills.

For more information, to purchase tickets, or to learn more about YouthCARE's programs, go to www.YouthCAREmn.org.

For the last several weeks I'd been staring at decidedly long odds and almost liking what I saw. The math didn't look very good, but it was starting to look like there was at least a possibility that it actually might eventually add up.

The Twins had played an unreal stretch of baseball. The pitching had come around (for the most part), the team was scoring runs, and there didn't seem to be much chance of any extended losing streaks with Johan Santana and Francisco Liriano anchoring the rotation.

Then outfielders starting dropping like Dome doubles, and all of a sudden guys like Rondell White, who supposedly has a bum shoulder and was hitting .235 in a rehab assignment in Rochester, and Jason Tyner and Josh Rabe, two other Rochester outfielders with little or no Major League experience, were being forced into duty.

The team has continued to win, but at this point the margin for error is mighty slim. Last week Terry Ryan was talking about bolstering the pitching staff for a second-half push, but now what will happen? What are the Twins going to be looking for on the trade market, and what do they have to offer? Anybody have any creative ideas?

One thing is for certain: Minnesota has to pretty much kick the shit out of its division rivals the rest of the way to have any chance at a wildcard spot. At this point splits aren't going to gain them any ground, and there's already that embarrassing 12-21 record against Central teams to consider. Throw out those numbers and the Twins have gone 39-19 against everybody else.

It also would help, of course, if the team could bottle a little of its home magic (where they're 34-11) for the road (17-29).

There have been so many amazing and gratifying things about the performance of the Twins over the last month. Most of them have been plenty well documented, but it's still pretty mindblowing (and mindboggling) all the same.

The truth, of course, is that the Twins really should have five All Stars --Francisco Liriano, Justin Morneau, and Joe Nathan should all be joining Joe Mauer and Johan Santana in Pittsburgh. Nathan is the only guy whose snub isn't a complete injustice.

And great as Mauer has been, and as wondrous as he is to watch, the offensive MVP of the team at this point has to be Morneau. It's hard to argue with twenty-two homeruns and seventy-one runs batted in. I'm too lazy to dig around for the stats myself, but I'd love to see the number of his homeruns and RBI that have given the Twins the lead or come with two outs.

Mauer, frankly, is something of a mystery to me. Maybe it's just a fluke, or maybe he needs to be moved to somewhere else in the batting order, but I can't for the life of me understand how a guy with a .391 batting average, .458 on base percentage, and .546 slugging percentage --hitting in the three hole every night-- is fourth on the team in RBI and tied for fourth (with Morneau) in runs scored.