The Twins lost 2-1 on Thursday afternoon, proving that even the gravity well of shame that houses the Oakland Athletics is not enough to overcome the team’s firm commitment to not scoring any runs when Sonny Gray is on the mound.

Gray ends the year with 184 innings pitched, 183 strikeouts, and a 2.79 ERA. Except for throwing many fewer innings, these numbers are fairly comparable to Johan Santana, when he was winning Cy Youngs; for example, here’s Santana’s Cy Young season in 2006, compared to Gray’s 2023:

Santana ‘06: 233.2 IP, 9.4 K/9, 1.8 BB/9, 2.77 ERA, 3.08 FIP
Gray ‘23: 184 IP, 9.0 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 2.79 ERA, 2.82 FIP

The kicker here is that Santana was 16-9 that year, and Gray was - I can hardly believe this - 8-8 this season.

Gray allowed zero runs seven times this year; the Twins were 5-2 in those games. They were 4-4 when he allowed one run. They were 2-4 when he allowed two runs. He allowed four or more runs just three times; he lost all of them.

The right-hander allowed fewer home runs per nine innings than any other major-league pitcher this year, which is part of the reason why why he also led the league in FIP. He won’t win the Cy Young - that will go to Gerrit Cole, who led the AL in innings, ERA, and WHIP - but there’s no reason he shouldn’t at least be discussed as a candidate.

Anyway, the Twins’ loss also eliminated them from any sliver of hope of clinching a first-round bye in the playoffs, so they officially have nothing to play for in Colorado. The Rockies have already lost 100 games this year; this will be a truly meaningless weekend for Minnesota. I hope Willi Castro pitches 25 innings.

The other big story on Thursday was Gopher football coach PJ Fleck saying, on his radio show, that if boosters don’t step up and start getting some name, image, and likeness paychecks into the program for players, the Gophers would become “a Triple-A ballclub for someone else.”

So unless you want the Gophers to start giving up 500 yards to North Carolina, and to start blowing three-touchdown leads to Northwestern squads that haven’t beaten a major opponent in two years, you better start finding your checkbooks, everybody.

It is amazing how fast college football is turning into European soccer; the comparisons were previously always about history and tradition and structure, not about current realities. Now it feels like we’re about four years away from promotion and relegation.

To be honest, I don’t think I’m going to enjoy rooting on the Gophers to capture the Division 3 - North title.

I haven’t been mentioning Wild preseason much yet, partially because the games aren’t on TV, but I do want to note that Kirill Kaprizov scored 32 seconds into his first preseason game of the year. Kaprizov also got an empty-netter, the Wild won 4-2, and we remain firmly committed to enjoying absolutely everything that Kaprizov does, even if it’s still September and the games don’t count.

TODAY’S SLATE

GOPHERS VOLLEYBALL vs Michigan, 6pm
TWINS at Colorado, 7:10pm

ON DECK

GOPHERS FOOTBALL vs Louisiana, Saturday
LOONS vs San Jose, Saturday
WILD vs Chicago (preseason), Saturday
VIKINGS at Carolina, Sunday
TIMBERWOLVES vs Dallas (preseason), Thursday
GOPHERS WOMEN’S HOCKEY, at RIT, Friday