On May 30, Lynx rookie Diamond Miller rolled her ankle in an extremely painful-looking way, then left the game. It was a sad injury, but also the Lynx were in the process of running their season record to 0-5, so it kind of got lost in the shuffle a little bit; it was hard to keep track of all the things that were going wrong for Minnesota at that point of the year.

Tuesday night, she returned to the floor for Minnesota. She scored 18 points, played 31 minutes, was a plus-21 for the night, and in the process reminded everyone: oh yeah! The Lynx have the number-2 pick on their roster! There’s actual hope here!

The Lynx waxed Seattle 104-93, their fourth win in six games. They are… I’m not sure I believe it, but they are tied for the final WNBA playoff spot, mere point differential behind Indiana. Atlanta, which is the current seventh seed, is tied with them in the win column and only two games ahead of them in the loss column. And I don’t think it’s too early to look at the standings yet; Minnesota is more than a third of the way through the season. If this were a baseball season, they’d have played 57 games already.

One of the things the Lynx have been looking for his secondary scoring. Napheesa Collier is the clear number one - she scored 33 on Tuesday - but so many of the box scores this year have had Collier with 20 points and nobody else with more than eight. On Tuesday, the Lynx got 18 from Miller and 18 more from Kayla McBride, who had scored 16 points - combined - in her last three games. They also got a double-double from rookie forward Dorka Juhász, which reminds me that we have not spent enough time talking about how great of a name “Dorka Juhász” is.

I wrote Monday about how much I wanted things to work for a young Timberwolves lineup, two years ago. I feel like with the Lynx, I got so distracted about the potential for tanking for Caitlin Clark or Paige Bueckers that I didn’t notice, maybe until right now, that the Lynx have got a youth movement going, too.

In exciting-new-player news that’s about the middle-aged, not young rookies, Minnesota United made it official on Wednesday, inking striker Teemu Pukki to a two-year contract. (The contract also has a six-month club option for what would be the remainder of the 2025 season.)

Pukki is definitely a proven goal-scorer, and comes with the shine of “here is a guy that has scored goals in the Premier League, a league that everybody in America watches.” A recap:

  • He got 29 for Norwich City in 2018-19, helping the Canaries to promotion to the Premier League.
  • He got 11 the next season, and they got relegated.
  • He got 26 in 2020-21, and they won the second division again.
  • He got 11 in 2021-22, and they got relegated again.
  • Last year they went nowhere in particular in the second division and he only scored 10 goals, plus he had his 33rd birthday.

There’s really no good way to tell what the truth of his last season was. Some Norwich City fans on social media said that he was surrounded by a much worse team in 2022-23, had no service, and that was the reason for the drop-off. More cynical people will note that he’s middle-aged now, and also played nearly 17 thousand minutes over the past five seasons, which might have an effect as well.

I will point you to his scouting report at FBRef, which highlights that (relative to other forwards in what they call the “Next 8” leagues, which includes the USA, Mexico, Brazil, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the English second division) he’s quite good at shot creation and carrying the ball, but his finishing seems to have dropped off a bit.

Good at getting into places to score, but maybe not so good at actually getting the ball into the net? Why, Pukki will fit right in, in Minnesota!

I tihnk the real truth is that there’s no telling how Pukki’s stats will translate to MLS, because there are far more factors that go into whether a player is successful when they make the jump to America. For example, Adrien Hunou had good numbers in Ligue 1 before he signed in Minnesota, but he was also still fairly young and had never played outside of France. He never settled in MLS, and on a personal level, it’s kind of no wonder; I’m not sure any of us can say that we would have done our best work if the tables had been turned and you plonked us in the middle of France with not much in the way of home comforts.

Pukki, at least, is 33, and has an exceptional amount of experience outside his comfort zone. The Finn has played in Spain, Germany, Scotland, Denmark, and England. He’s been mostly away from home since he was 19. And in Robin Lod, he does have an international teammate, that can help him make whatever transition he needs.

At any rate, I do think this is something that MNUFC fans can get excited about. The team needs a striker to come through in the worst way; the team’s 0-for-6 (or even worse, depending on how you count it) since they sold Christian Ramirez in 2018.

Pukki can’t play until the MLS transfer window opens on July 5, because rules. (I’m not going to pretend to understand why a guy who was a free agent, and has signed his deal, can’t play yet. There are rules about these things and we’ll all be happier if we just accept them instead of trying to understand them.)

In baseball news, the Twins did nothing at the plate again, losing 6-2 to Atlanta and dropping under .500 yet again. Joe Ryan, coming off a shutout, gave up five home runs and departed after just three innings.

Carlos Correa was 1-for-5 and extended his MLB lead by hitting into his 14th double play of the year. He’s hit 15 doubles and into 14 double plays; we’ll keep tracking that particular race.

Byron Buxton was 0-for-4, struck out again, and now has an on-base percentage under 300. He truly has turned himself into an almost exact copy of Miguel Sano: physically unable to play the field, unable to do much of anything at the plate except for swinging hard and hoping to run into a pitch. He’s got an exactly league-average OPS.

Oh, and Brock Stewart - one of the Twins’ three reliable relievers - went on the injured list with elbow tendinitis. “I feel like there is a reasonable chance that we headed off this issue,” said Rocco Baldelli, a quote that should fill all Twins fans with dread and loathing. Goodbye, Brock Stewart; when we find out in six weeks that it wasn’t actually elbow tendinitis at all, but in fact your arm was detached from your body in an unfortunate accident, we will be sad but not surprised.

TODAY’S SLATE

TWINS at Atlanta, 11:20 am
LOONS vs FC Kaiserslautern (friendly), 7:30, apparently they’ll play sort of a split squad

SAINTS vs Gwinnett, 1:07pm
CROWS vs Thunder Bay, 7pm; Read the story of their stolen trailer here

ON DECK

LYNX at Seattle, Thursday
AURORA at Green Bay, Thursday
MNUFC2 vs Portland Timbers2, Sunday