Minnesota Update, 20230602
Jun 1, 2023
The Twins win, the Lynx can’t quite get over the hump, and the MNUFC squad shrinks again. That and more, in today’s Minnesota roundup.
Minnesota Update, 20230601
May 31, 2023
It’s the dawn of a new month, the start of meterological summer, and it’s going to be 90 degrees and humid for the next three months in Minnesota. Why don’t we stay inside and round up the evening in Minnesota sports?
Minnesota Update, 20230531
May 30, 2023
Getting back into the swing of things here, to use a cliche that sounds like it should be a baseball cliche but isn’t, so let’s round up the Minnesota sports scene for today.
More streaks and droughts for MNUFC
May 19, 2023
Robin Lod hasn’t scored a goal in a year.
That statement’s not quite true, not yet, but on Wednesday’s Apple TV broadcast of the Minnesota-Houston game, they flashed a stat on the screen, noting that Lod hadn’t scored since May 22, 2022, which immediately prompted a “okay they must have screwed that up, there’s no way Robin Lod hasn’t scored a goal in a year” reaction from me.
So I looked it up, and I’ll be darned, it’s true. Weirdly, it was on the end of a stretch where Lod scored five times in six appearances, even though he was out sick in the middle.
To be fair to him, it was only about a month after that goal that the Loons started regularly deploying him in central midfield, rather than as a forward; by my count, he’s only gone seven or eight starts at forward without scoring a goal. But still, it was astonishing, and so I decided to look up some more droughts and streaks for the Loons.
A whirlwind of Sportive Podcasts
May 15, 2023
Just a quick note, but after taking a month off (by accident), The Sportive did three podcasts last week. I was on all three, joined in turn by each of the three Sportive guys, talking Wild and Twins and Wolves. I won’t link to them individually but here’s the link to the podcast overall; all I’m asking is that, if you removed us from your podcast subscriptions because you thought we were dead (or if you never subscribed in the first place), please add us back, because we are alive!
MNUFC, we need to talk about Dayne St. Clair
May 15, 2023
When Minnesota United goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair was going good - and he was never going better than mid-season last year when he made the MLS All-Star Team - his scouting report was pretty clear.
He’s not a great distributor. He doesn’t really command the penalty area, preferring to stay on his line. He’s not much of a sweeper-keeper, nor is he especially good with the ball at his feet… but man, he sure can stop some shots.
Halfway through last year, that shot-stopping ability was carrying him to one of the best goalkeeper seasons in MLS history. The numbers put him in the upper echelon of MLS keepers, up there with Djordje Petrovic and Andre Blake and other, better-known goalkeeper names. He slid a bit in the second half, but by almost any measure, he was still a top-10 keeper for the season.
Now, the 2023 season is one-third over, and we can no longer lean on “well, it’s a small sample size” as an excuse, and so we’re forced to reckon with what the numbers are telling us for 2023, and we need to ask ourselves an uncomfortable question.
Is Dayne St. Clair currently the worst goalkeeper in MLS?
Talking MNUFC with Michael Rand
May 5, 2023
I joined the Star Tribune’s Michael Rand, on his daily podcast, to talk about all things Minnesota United FC. Among the topics discussed: why the Loons can’t score, why their defense is better, and what’s the deal with soccer analytics these days.
There should be a pitch clock in soccer
Apr 19, 2023
Major League Baseball’s unmitigated success with its new pitch clock is sweeping the nation. Americans have clock fever! The pitch clock, were it a single person, would be the most popular figure in the history of baseball!
This is hyperbole, but not ridiculous hyperbole. Baseball has managed to cut a half-hour or so out of its usual running time, without changing anything major about the game itself, and all simply by putting an actual clock in view, to help umpires enforce the rules about pace of play that were already on the books.
With this in mind, I think it’s time for the next step: there should be a pitch clock in soccer.
MNUFC 1, Orlando City 2: The tactical change that changed the Loons' fate
Apr 15, 2023
Through 55 minutes, Minnesota United’s 2-1 loss against Orlando City looked like it would be another in a series of tight, cagey defensive performances by the Loons.
Orlando had yet to create anything that looked like a scoring chance. The Loons weren’t much more dangerous.
Ten minutes into the second half, though, Minnesota made a change that, finally, unlocked their own offense - but in the process, gave the Lions the space that they needed to steal three points.
The battle between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf is only about money - and shame
Apr 11, 2023
In 1995, John Feinstein published “A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour,” an insider’s account of the 1994 PGA Tour season. The central cast of the book includes Zimbabwe’s Nick Price, the world’s top-ranked golfer at the time, and the man who led the money list on the 1994 tour.
The book adopts a head-shaking, almost tongue-clucking tone at the sum that Price earned that season, an otherworldly $1,499,927. It’s cast as almost too much money for a single golfer to make, a sum that would potentially deflate Price’s desire to not only compete, but to ever play golf again. Adjusted for inflation, that’s a little less than $3 million in 2022.
On the 2022 PGA Tour, 26 golfers earned more than $3 million for the season.