There is only one reason I can think of that college volleyball, which is a very popular spectator sport, is not an even more popular spectator sport, and it is this one: it probably makes me more incandescently angry than any other spectator sport.

The Gopher volleyball team lost to Texas on Tuesday, a four-set loss that included a fourth set in which the Gophers took an early lead and then just sort of bled to death for the rest of the set. By the time Texas, and former Gopher (and noted traitor) Jenna Wenaas, closed out the match at 25-23, I was screaming what I would describe as “Vikings words” at the television.

read more...

Who does Royce Lewis remind you of?

I’ve used a lot of comparisons for the young Twins shortstop / third baseman / center fielder, but most of them have not been people-related, because his particular combination of youthful enthusiasm, fearlessness, and disregard for personal well-being is more comparable to many of our friends from the animal kingdom than it is to most people.

Lewis hit his second grand slam in two days on Monday, leading the Twins to a win over Cleveland, 10-6. He became the first Twin ever to hit grand slams on back-to-back days, he has three this season, and he’s showing off a flair for delivering in big situations - something that has especially stood out as so many of his teammates have struggled with runners on base, and as Carlos Correa has shown a proclivity for hitting into double plays instead of driving in runs.

So who does he compare to, in the human, baseball world?

read more...

The Twins beat Texas three out of four over the weekend, which is an accomplishment that looked a lot better a week ago, when the Rangers hadn’t lost nine straight games. But that said, the Twins shouldn’t have won on Thursday, and nobody should have won Sunday’s game, when both teams repeatedly beat themselves with horrible mistakes; finally the Twins won , in 13 innings, with - of all things - a walk-off walk from Michael A. Taylor, who is basically impossible to walk under normal conditions.

read more...

In fairness, we must note that the Twins’ 7-5 victory over Texas on Thursday evening was one heck of a win. The drumbeat of Minnesota’s season has been “bad loss, bad loss, bad loss,” so to watch the Twins’ seemingly Sisyphean fightback against the Rangers turn into an actual summit was extremely enjoyable.

read more...

The Twins lost again on Wednesday, 8-7 in extra innings against Milwaukee, a second consecutive day in which the bullpen blew the lead (and for good measure, blew it twice). Emilio Pagán heard all the positivity, and decided to remind everyone what he’s about, giving up a two-run homer to cut a 6-3 Twins lead to 6-5; Caleb Thielbar let the Brewers tie it, then Jhoan Duran gave up two runs in the tenth - his second inning of work, indicating how desperate the Twins are - and lost it.

As an aside, this one shows just how dumb counting stats can be for the bullpen; Pagán had the worst outing, but got a hold; Thielbar got a blown save even though he pitched the seventh inning; and Duran got a loss, but not a blown save, since he was already in the game when the Twins took the lead.

read more...

You know about the Gordie Howe hat trick, right? In hockey, it’s a goal, an assist, and a fight. Apparently the term was coined in the 1950s, though why it involved Howe was never quite clear; the man himself only had two of his namesake hat tricks in his entire 32-year career. He scored 975 goals and racked up nearly 1400 assists, but he simply did not fight all that often.

That said, it’s a fun concept to think about, and especially in the context of translating it to other sports. What’s the soccer version? The baseball version?

I don’t know about the basketball version, but the Lynx’s Bridget Carleton had to be in the neighborhood on Tuesday at Target Center, as Minnesota beat Dallas. She hit four three-pointers off the bench, scored 14 points including eight in the fourth quarter, and was thrown out of the game for committing two flagrant fouls.

read more...

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

read more...

Tuesday’s Twins win, 5-3 against Detroit, contained one of the more memorable moments of the season so far. Matt Wallner hit a grand slam in the sixth inning, giving the Twins a 5-2 lead, and the Forest Lake native got the fun of taking a curtain call in front of his hometown fans.

Wallner has provided two memorable moments, with this and his walk-off homer against Arizona last week, and perhaps that’s all we should remember about this game. It was a moon shot of a homer, landing above the second-deck walkway in right-center field. The official measurement was 450 feet, but it seemed longer. It’s worth remembering that, when Target Field opened, it seemed more or less impossible to hit the ball out of the park to right-center; Miguel Cabrera did it about twice a series (he homered on Tuesday too, in probably his last game against Minnesota), but otherwise it seemed more or less unreachable. And Wallner not only hit it out, but into the middle of the second deck.

But there are other, worse, things to remember about Tuesday.

read more...

None of Minnesota’s teams were in action on Monday evening, which gave me an extra day to catch up a little on the things that I missed - though it’s also true that, after last week’s action, it was a bit difficult to get excited to talk about Minnesota sports.

Just to recap: the Twins lost four in a row, including three in a row to the hapless Detroit Tigers, two of which saw them get shut out. Minnesota United went into Nashville for a Leagues Cup quarterfinal, and came out with the club’s first-ever 5-0 loss, a game that’s probably top five or top ten for their worst losses ever. The Lynx, starting a run of must-win games with an away game at bottom-of-the-league Indiana, lost by an astonishing 18 points in a game that wasn’t really even that close.

The Saints did win five in a row last week, so there’s that. And the Twins recovered the weekend by rebounding to win two out of three against Philadelphia. Over the past two and a half weeks, Minnesota is 1-6 against the AL Central and 7-2 against everybody else, which might be the best possible illustration of why fans are tearing their hair out this year.

read more...

Sine wave, roller coaster, yo-yo - whatever metaphor you want to use for the Twins this season, they’re all apt.

Wednesday the Twins put together another stinker, losing to a hapless Tigers team, 9-5. Minnesota somehow allowed 17 hits in eight innings - eleven by Bailey Ober, six by Jordan Balazovic. For good measure, they struck out eleven times as well, including several times in key spots.

As bad as the AL Central is, this is already the sixth time this year that the Twins have lost back-to-back games against an AL Central opponent - twice against Detroit, twice against Cleveland, and once each against Chicago and Kansas City. It should be more or less impossible to lose twice in a row against these teams, given that they are playing .412 baseball combined - that’s a 96-loss pace - but the Twins have managed to not only stumble, but trip and fall and roll, six times against this division.

read more...