Let’s start with Minnesota United, which shook off its ignoble Leagues Cup exit to beat NYCFC on the road, 2-0 on Sunday evening. The Loons started off the night outside the playoff spots, which feels meaningful. But even though it feels like it’s practically time for the playoffs to start, it’s worth remembering that there are still 11 games to go in the season - basically, one-third of the year.

If this were baseball, we’d basically just have hit the trade deadline.

The Loons are so weird this year; they have six wins in 13 road games, and two wins in ten home games. Even when you throw in a US Open Cup home win and a couple of triumphs in the Leagues Cup, they still have more road victories than home ones.

Minnesota has seven home games down the stretch, and only four road games, and normally I’d say that’s a good thing but this year I’m not so sure.

At any rate, Bongokuhle Hlongwane went off injured in the first half of this one, and Emanuel Reynoso didn’t last for the full 90 minutes either because of a bum ankle, and Teemu Pukki mostly just wandered around lost for the entire game. So there are concerns. That said, the goals came from Ján Greguš - returning to the Loons as the conquering hero, and subbing in for Hlongwane - and Ménder García in stoppage time.

I don’t know if they have sports betting where you’re reading this, but $10 on that combo would have netted you about fifty grand, plus a probable match-fixing investigation of some kind.

At Target Field, the Twins took the series against the Pirates, thanks to Dallas Keuchel, who not only took a perfect game into the seventh inning, but actually struck out three major league hitters. I leave it to the reader to determine which of those things is more unlikely.

Hilariously, Rocco Baldelli was out of the dugout to remove Keuchel from the game approximately 0.2 seconds after Bryan Reynolds’s double had bounced off the right-field wall to end the perfect game - partially because it brought the tying run to the plate, because the Twins lineup managed just five hits against a collection of Pirates relievers.

A particular hat-tip to Joey Gallo, who pinch-hit for Jordan Luplow in the third inning, because the Twins are platoon geniuses. Gallo struck out. He stayed in the game, and struck out twice more for good measure.

Also a hat-tip to Jorge Polanco, who earned the golden sombrero and struck out four times. As usual, the Twins depended entirely on the guys they tried to replace or keep off the major-league roster this year, and Edouard Julien drove in both Twins runs.

For all the complaining about this squad, they won two out of three and are now six games up in the AL Central. They had a four-game losing streak, but now have won five out of their last seven. I think we can assume that they’re now due to lose five out of six.

The Minnesota Lynx might only be about a week or so away from officially clinching a WNBA playoff berth, but every game that goes by, they look like their chances of winning a playoff game are dropping fast. They lost at home on Sunday night, 88-74 against the hapless Seattle Storm, their second loss in three games to one of the league’s worst teams.

The Lynx did basically nothing well - they shot 35% from the floor, including a combined 14-for-39 from Napheesa Collier, Diamond Miller, and Kayla McBride. They gave up 31 points to the league’s leading scorer, Jewell Loyd, who was 5-for-10 from behind the arc (which helped cancel out a 10-for-25 night overall).

Minnesota now has a home-and-home against fourth-place Dallas, which is going to be one of their final chances to make up ground in the playoff race.

The Vikings played a preseason game on Saturday, and if you are a season ticket holder and were therefore forced to pay money for tickets to the game, I feel very bad for you. The Vikings played nothing but backups, a roster that mostly answered the question “what would the Vikings look like if there was a players’ strike and they were forced to use replacement players,” the football was predictably awful, and they lost to Tennessee. About all we learned is that Oli Udoh is the worst version of Todd Steussie and the worst version of Matt Kalil, all rolled into one single package.

The St. Paul Saints split their series with Indianapolis last week, losing the first two but coming back to take three of the final four. Yunior Severino, approximately the 45th guy who has played third base for the Saints this year, was the hero on Sunday, blasting two homers and driving in three. Andrew Bechtold, another guy who played third base for St. Paul, picked up his second career win in relief, pitching a clean sixth inning.

Severino is one of those guys that just keeps progressing. He hit 24 homers in 84 games in Wichita this year, earning the 23-year-old his first promotion to St. Paul, and now he’s hit four homers in 12 games in his first taste of Triple-A. Apparently he is a bit position-free, in the style of Edouard Julien - he’s played mostly third base this year, with a little bit of second base, but reputedly isn’t all that good at either one, and if any of this is sounding familiar it’s because it seems to be the scouting report on every Twins infield prospect since approximately the dawn of time.

If he hits 35 homers a year, though, someone will find room for him somewhere.

As a team, the Saints are tearing the cover off the ball this year, especially at home. At CHS Field, the team has an .894 OPS; on the road, they’re at .761. At home, they are Juan Soto; on the road, they are Whit Merrifield.

The Saints also have the second-best team ERA of any International League squad, which gets hidden a bit because anybody who can pitch is in the majors, and so the league as a whole has an ERA of about 5.00. St. Paul has a 1.52 WHIP, which would be the worst in the major leagues except for Oakland, but they’re in the top 10 in the International League.

Finally, a word for Gopher athletics, which are somehow already up and running for the year. Gopher soccer won twice over the weekend, in games that actually count, and Gopher volleyball opens their actual schedule this week, with matches against TCU and #15 Baylor. They also have #1 Texas, #11 Florida, #9 Oregon, and #3 Stanford on the nonconference schedule.

I do love that Gopher volleyball fights the heavyweights.

TODAY’S SLATE

Nothing! Mondays are a wasteland.

ON DECK

TWINS at Brewers, Tuesday
LYNX vs Dallas, Tuesday
SAINTS at Omaha, Tuesday
GOPHER VOLLEYBALL vs TCU, Friday
VIKINGS vs Arizona (preseason), Saturday
LOONS vs Seattle, Sunday