School’s out for the summer, at least in my neck of the woods, and so today’s Minnesota sports update feels rather wistful for summers gone by. Ah, to be a kid again… back when the Twins could hit.

What can you say about the Minnesota Twins hitting that hasn’t already been said about the Oakland Athletics hitting, or the Cleveland Guardians hitting, or about any of the other disasters of the modern age?

It happened again on Thursday, as the Twins lost 4-2 to Tampa Bay, their fifth consecutive loss. During that losing streak, the Twins scored six runs, and perhaps more tellingly, struck out 52 times versus putting on a total of 39 baserunners.

It’s hard to watch! Carlos Correa hit a home run in the top of the fourth inning on Thursday, but Tampa Bay scored three times in the bottom of the inning, and at that point, you might as well have turned the game off, because Minnesota’s chances of scoring three more runs to win the game seemed vanishingly small.

In the first inning, Jorge Polanco hit a line drive that should have been a hit, but instead hit the second-base umpire and popped into the air, leading to a fielder’s choice at second base - and Polanco hurt himself on the play, too. A lot of people are casting this as sort of a “how typical that this happens to the Twins” kind of bad-luck thing, but I don’t think that’s the truth.

Now that Polanco’s out again, the Twins have exactly one hitter in their lineup, Alex Kirilloff, who has an above-league-average OPS. This isn’t about bad luck. Bad things happen to bad teams because they are bad.

Anyway, the Twins are 31-32 now, under .500 for the first time this season, and now they have to go to Toronto, which has won three straight. It’s not looking good!

Over in St. Paul, the Saints’ winning streak finally came to a thudding halt, but naturally they immediately made up for it, losing the first half of a doubleheader 13-3, but coming back in the second half for a split with a 7-6 win.

Old friend Randy Dobnak took the pounding in the first game, pitching three innings and allowing nine runs (eight earned) on eleven hits and two walks, while striking out no one. Remember when Randy Dobnak was the Twins’ third starter, maybe even their second starter? Anyway.

Simeon Woods Richardson wasn’t much better in the finale, giving up six runs, seven hits, and four walks in three and a third innings, and the Saints trailed 6-2, but they rallied - like many baseball teams do, except for certain other ones - thanks to a homer by catcher Tony Wolters and a Jose Miranda RBI double, eventually sending the game to an 8th inning (seven-inning doubleheaders, remember those?) and winning in the bottom of the 8th.

Miranda was 3-for-7 with a walk on the day, helping to pull his Triple-A OPS out of the 500s. Jair Camargo homered in the first game, his third consecutive game with a home run, and Wolters had three hits and drove in two runs in the nightcap, as the catchers drove the offense.

As mentioned, the Twins are in Toronto for the weekend, and the Saints continue to host Iowa.

Minnesota United FC is also headed to Canada, taking on Montréal on Saturday night, while the Minnesota Lynx are home for a pair - Friday against Indiana, and Sunday against Los Angeles.

In the USL pre-professional ranks, the Minnesota Aurora hit the halfway point of their schedule, on the road against Chicago City SC on Sunday, while Minneapolis City SC hosts Rochester FC on Saturday evening. And for those looking for a little National Sports Center nostalgia, Minnesota United 2 hosts Houston Dynamo 2 on Sunday evening, in MLS NEXT Pro action.

Wednesday in Minnesota sports was defined by the two hallmarks of summer, these days: baseball and wildfires. Plus, a look at what Lionel Messi moving to MLS means for Minnesota (short version: we probably won’t really see him.)

The news on the East Coast was all wildfires, all the time, as smoke from Canada enveloped most of the Amtrak corridor. The local angle here is that the Lynx game against the Liberty in New York was postponed until an undetermined future date, probably a day on which the sky is a bit less orange.

On the baseball front, the Twins are borderline unwatchable right now. Tuesday night, they got four hits; Wednesday night, they dropped that down to three, all singles. It was a miracle that one of them, Royce Lewis’s single in the ninth inning, happened to come after a walk and a hit by pitch, thereby scoring a run for the Twins purely by accident.

The particularly amazing thing is that this happened in a game where the Rays had also scored just one run. Pablo López held the Rays to a run on five hits and a walk, in seven innings, and so Lewis’s single actually tied the score in the ninth - and with just one out!

Of course, after another hit by pitch, Ryan Jeffers killed the rally by grounding into a double play. Even at that point, the Twins’ win probability was supposedly 36.6%; I suspect most fans would have put it right around 0.0%. And it took Jhoan Duran just two pitches in the bottom of the ninth to confirm that, giving up a walk-off home run to Randy Arozarena to doom the Twins to a fourth consecutive loss.

Amazingly, this is Minnesota’s first four-game losing streak of the year, and it drops them to 31-31, the first time they’ve been .500 or worse since they were 0-0 to start the season. The way they’re unable to hit, it’d be a shock if they stayed above .500. But hey, at least they’re still leading the AL Central by two and a half games, because AL Central gonna AL Central.

A night after hitting a grand slam to lead the Saints, Jair Camargo went one better, homering twice and driving in four runs as St. Paul beat up on Iowa again, 11-6. That’s nine wins in ten games for St. Paul, who are still somehow six games behind Norfolk at the top of the International League.

Matt Wallner and Eduoard Julien both had two hits and drove in runs for the Saints. Wallner’s OPS is at .992, while Julien’s is .946.

I maintain that you could swap this batting order with the Twins batting order and nobody would be able to tell the difference.

I am very disappointed to tell you that the Minnesota Aurora finally gave up a goal. Sure, they also hammered the Chicago Dutch Lions, 6-1, but I was very excited about the possibility they could go through the entire season without giving up a single goal.

Hannah Adler had a hat trick for the Aurora, which moves to 5-0-0, and has now (ho-hum) outscored its opponents 26-1 this year.

Finally, Lionel Messi announced to the world where he was headed - and to a fair amount of surprise, it was neither back to Barcelona, nor onwards to a (rumored) billion-dollar offer from Saudi Arabia. Instead, he’s working toward a landing with Inter Miami, which makes sense to me. After all, we’ve been told that MLS is a league of choice, and who wouldn’t choose to join the last-place team in the Eastern Conference, with a team that just fired their coach?

All kidding aside (and this being MLS, there’s plenty of things to kid about), from a Minnesota perspective, this doesn’t change our lives much, unless this pushes the league to change its scheduling somehow. Miami already only plays six games against the Western Conference, so even getting a MNUFC-Inter Miami matchup in the next few years was an iffy proposition. Getting a home matchup? When the league could so easily just make sure that, somehow, Miami travels to Los Angeles twice a year instead? I wouldn’t bet on Lionel Messi treading the Allianz Field turf at any point, never mind anytime soon.

That said, here’s hoping. After all, if Messi does someday come to St. Paul, season ticket holders might be able to pay for their tickets just by selling their seats for that game.

Thursday’s all about baseball. The Twins have a noon start in Tampa Bay, so by 2pm you should probably check in and see whether they’ve gotten a hit yet. Meanwhile, the Saints have an evening doubleheader with Iowa, and will look to keep their hot streak going.

After the state took a breather on Monday, Minnesota’s pro baseball teams were back in action Tuesday, with all of the garment-rending that might produce. Let’s take a look, shall we?

So often, my routine for checking the Twins score goes something like this.

1. [Open MLB app on phone]
2. [See 0 next to Twins logo]
3. “Ah, crap…”
4. [Tap on “BOX” link with great trepidation to see if the Twins have been no-hit]

When fans just assume on a daily basis that you are being, or have been, no-hit, you know things aren’t going well.

Anyway, the Twins didn’t get no-hit on Tuesday night - they got four hits, thank you very much, as they lost 7-0 to the Tampa Bay Rays. Michael A. Taylor hit a double and also didn’t strike out, making him by far the Twins’ best hitter. The rest of the lineup managed to fan a combined twelve times, including three more Ks for Carlos Correa, who nevertheless managed to raise his puny batting average by also hitting a double.

Louie Varland got slapped around all night, giving up seven runs on four walks and six hits (including two homers), bringing him rather back down to earth after his gem against Houston last week. It pushes Varland’s season numbers into the “okay maybe we’ll see Kenta Maeda again after all” territory - ERA of 4.40, FIP now north of 6.60.

Max Kepler went 0-for-2 with a strikeout, and is now hitting .189. Rocco Baldelli pinch-hit for him in the seventh, even though the Twins were already losing 5-0. It must be hard for Kepler, knowing that most of the fan base would happily see him defenestrated from the Skydome Hotel, later this week.

In other news, Byron Buxton finally went on the disabled list, after he left the game last Thursday due to a 97-mph fastball in the ribs. I don’t want to tell the Twins training staff how to do their jobs, but it seems like maybe they should have some ice ready, in situations like these. Trevor Larnach was recalled to take his spot.

For the entire season, the Twins have exactly one extra-base hit (a double) with the bases loaded, in 60 tries (they’re batting .140 and slugging .160 in this situation).

Tuesday night, the St. Paul Saints had three tries with the bases loaded, and hit two home runs.

Jair Camargo went deep in the fifth, turning a 4-2 deficit into a 6-4 lead, and Chris Williams added four more insurance runs in the eighth, as St. Paul won for the eighth time in its last nine games by beating the Iowa Cubs, 10-4.

The Saints have hit seven grand slams this year; the Twins have seven hits with the bases loaded this year.

Maybe we’re all just watching the wrong team?

I have to admit right now that I mistakenly thought Camargo was an organizational-depth veteran catcher, probably because I got him confused with former Atlanta and Philadelphia third baseman Johan Camargo - but he’s not even 24 years old yet, and he’s built like a brick… brickhouse. He’s struggled a bit so far in his first go-round at Triple-A, slugging just .357, but he’s hit five homers in 31 games and this was already his second grand slam of the year.

Also I think more people should know that while the Twins have a fishing vest and fishing pole for players when they return to the dugout after hitting a home run, the Saints have a hat that looks like a hot dog, which is pretty on-brand.

Matt Wallner hit a double and threw out a runner at home plate from right field, and also still isn’t Max Kepler. Jose Miranda hit two doubles, too.

Jordan Balazovic got his first Triple-A win ever, after striking out seven in 3.1 innings as the first in a parade of relievers.

Wednesday, the Lynx return to the court in New York, which could be tough - the Liberty might be the second-best team in the league, behind the Las Vegas Aces.

The Twins - assuming they don’t just forfeit twice and head to Toronto early - are taking on the Rays again, and the Saints are home again against Iowa.

On the soccer front, the Minnesota Aurora are back in action, taking on the Chicago Dutch Lions at home and trying to extend their unbeaten, un-tied, un-scored-upon record.

I’ll be checking, of course - to see if the Twins got no-hit, mostly.

It sure has been a weekend on the Minnesota sports scene. The Twins turned sour as the weekend wore on, and MNUFC failed to win at home again, but the Lynx finally found the win column in the standings, and the lower-division soccer teams in the area had a successful weekend too. Let’s round up the whole weekend, shall we?

Four runs.

That’s how many runs the Twins managed in their three games over the weekend, scoring one on Friday, two on Saturday, and one on Sunday.

Minnesota went a combined 3-for-19 with runners in scoring position, including 0-7 on Sunday; in both Friday and Sunday’s game, they only managed to score on a solitary, bases-empty home run.

Using the old six innings / three earned runs metric, the Twins got three quality starts, against the American League’s most anemic offense that doesn’t wear green and gold and play in front of 300 people at the Oakland Coliseum… and they STILL managed to lose twice to the Cleveland Guardians.

You can blame this on missing Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa all weekend, or that Joey Gallo has now hit the disabled list, but it’s not like any of them are burning things up. Since May 1, Correa actually has the highest OPS of the three, at .708 (which is 14 points below league average). Buxton’s is .645; Gallo’s at .625.

All three, in May, were on a 180+ strikeout pace for a full season; Gallo struck out an astonishing 40 times in 100 plate appearances.

So the guys that are supposed to hit aren’t hitting. And that leaves the Twins Backup Plans, and while you have to give them credit for keeping the Twins from going completely in the tank, it’s not a long-term solution, is it?

Let’s put it this way - in the bottom of the ninth on Sunday, the Guardians brought in their closer to face the Twins’ 3-4-5 hitters. The meat of the lineup! The most dangerous part of the batting order! Surely, the Twins could get the run they needed?

Those 3-4-5 hitters were Donovan Solano, Max Kepler, and Kyle Farmer.

The St. Paul Saints 3-4-5 hitters on Sunday were Trevor Larnach, Matt Wallner, and Edouard Julien.

Hand on heart… is there any difference?

Speaking of St. Paul, Minnesota United was back at Allianz Field. Normally, being in St. Paul is a good thing for the Loons, but this year the eastern Twin City has been a bit of a nightmare factory.

Saturday, it was more on the nightmare side of the ledger again, as the Loons drew 1-1 with the extremely struggling Toronto FC, a team where the star players have actively been trying to get the coach fired.

It’s hard to overstate how much of a home-field-advantage league MLS can be. There was a season not too long ago where zero teams had winning records on the road, or losing records at home. The top team in the standings this year, Cincinnati, has nine wins out of nine games at home.

And then there is Minnesota, which has one win, one loss, and five draws in St. Paul this year.

The Loons have actually won four games on the road this year, which in other seasons would represent eight months’ worth of away wins; they’re one of only two MLS teams to win four times on the road so far. But they’ve been letting down the home crowd, again and again. Between MLS games, and their sparsely-attended home win against Philadephia in the U.S. Open Cup, they’ve only played “Wonderwall” twice all season.

The big story in this one was that Emanuel Reynoso finally returned to the field for MNUFC, coming on in the second half as a substitute. It was pretty clear from the reaction that, if the crowd held his unexcused absence against him earlier this year, its anger had evaporated; by the second half on Friday, they were just desperate for anybody to give the team a spark.

Reynoso did do that; whether he’s in shape or not, he was immediately the Loons’ best player on the field. He nearly scored with one of his first touches, he was instrumental in the team’s danger from corner kicks and set pieces, and while he didn’t score the goal - that was Kervin Arriaga, driving a three-wood through some trees that deflected past the keeper with two minutes to go - it was the first time the Loons’ attack looked whole, all season.

Next Saturday, in Montréal, is the halfway point of Minnesota’s schedule, and they get a two-week break following that game. You can sense that they’re just trying to get to that break, and then regroup and start the second half.

The Lynx finally got a win, beating Washington 80-78 on Saturday, and I have studied and studied and studied the box score to try to figure out how they did it, and I’ve got nothing. They turned the ball over 16 times again - they’re leading the WNBA in turnovers, though on a per-game basis they’re only third-worst - but they did make more three-pointers than Washington did, and they held the Mystics to 39.4% shooting overall.

Looking the stats overall, too, nothing jumps out. They’re not a great defensive team, second-to-last in defensive rating, but they’re middle-of-the-pack in everything else. If they were 4-3 through seven games, you wouldn’t really say they were particularly lucky, but instead they’re 1-6.

Perhaps it’s just evidence that the Lynx have truly cracked what my Sportive co-host has termed the CBI (Clark-Bueckers Index). They’re tanking, but they’re doing it in the absolute best, non-tanking way of all time.

On the USL pre-professional soccer scene, it was a good weekend for the Twin Cities. Minneapolis City beat the Milwaukee Bavarians 1-0 on Friday night, a game that I was at and will be writing something about later this week, and the Minnesota Aurora kept their spotless record going on Sunday.

Aurora’s record thus far: four games, four wins, 20 goals for, 0 goals against.

They’re a third of the way through their season schedule. At what point do we start treating this like a no-hitter in baseball, and stop talking about their chances to go through the season undefeated, untied, and unscored upon? Two more games? Three?

Finally, the St. Paul Saints did some more damage in Buffalo over the weekend, winning two out of three to take the overall series with the Bisons, 5-1.

(Side note: I can’t figure out why it’s “Bisons.” Surely the correct plural is “Bison”?)

Any Saints update could not be complete without an update on Matt Wallner, who has emerged as the club with which Twins fans use to pummel Max Kepler.

Wallner hit three doubles over the weekend, while Kepler went 1-for-9 at Target Field. This has been your Get Angry About Max Kepler Update.

In other “former Twins hitters” news, Edouard Julien and Jose Miranda both got four hits over the weekend, though the latter’s OPS is still a Gallo-esque .534 in St. Paul. Julien also homered, as did Trevor Larnach, though Larnach also fanned six times.

On the pitching side, Simeon Woods Richardson started on Saturday but couldn’t find the strike zone, walking five (but allowing just two hits and two runs) in four and a third. Kenta Maeda made the start on Sunday, and gave up two runs on five hits in three innings.

Given the way the rotation is going, Kenta Maeda may be in St. Paul for as long as he can possibly be there.

Tonight… well, tonight everybody’s got an evening off. What am I going to do tonight? Talk to my family?

The Saints need to rest up, as they’ve got a seven-game series at home with Iowa this week (including a doubleheader Thursday), while the Twins travel to Tampa Bay and Toronto to get clobbered by the AL East. The Lynx have to go to New York on Wednesday - that could be rough - but host Indiana on Friday.

Could be a long week! Could be one of those weeks.

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.

Part of being a baseball manager is giving players chances. It takes more than just a starting nine or a few great pitchers to win a game, and so every manager has to be long on optimism and short on memory, to put faith in struggling players and trust them to come through.

Eventually, though, every team has to lean on its big names and established stars. So while Byron Buxton and Pablo López and Carlos Correa and Max Kepler got a chance to try to make names for themselves, eventually Rocco Baldelli had to turn to his battle-tested players, the tried-and-true, like Royce Lewis and Willi Castro and Donovan Solano and of course the lights-out bullpen combo of Emilio Pagán and Griffin Jax to get the job done.

… I kid. But then again, do I? It was again the Twins Backup Plans that won the game for them, leading Minnesota to a 7-6 win over Cleveland, and the team to its first two-game winning streak since May 14.

Lopez, having completed five really good innings, gave up a walk and six singles in the sixth inning, turning a 3-1 lead into a 6-3 deficit - and when he gave way for Pagán, Twins fans could have been forgiven for switching channels.

Instead, Pagán twirled a solid two and a third - even pitching through some adversity! - to extend the game, and then the Twins’ no-names went to work. Castro beat out an infield hit. Solano ripped a double to left-center. Lewis, with his developing flair for the dramatic, then hit a mammoth home run to center field to tie the game.

After Jax, of all people, set the Guardians down in order in the ninth, the Twins won it in the bottom of the inning, thanks to a Christian Vázquez walk (he was 2-for-3) followed by a Jorge Polanco double, followed by Castro - aka Mr. Clutch, aka Future All-Star Willi Castro - winning the game with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly.

I feel I must point out that Buxton (plunked in the ribs with a 97-mph fastball), Correa (plantar fascitis flare-up), and Kepler (migraine) all had injury-related reasons for leaving the game. Still, though, for the second straight night, it was the little fish and not the big fish that won it for Minnesota.

Also, the Twins’ dwindling bench led to one of the great pinch-running moves of all time; after Polanco’s double moved Vázquez to third base in the ninth inning, the Twins pulled their catcher and inserted Ryan Jeffers, their only remaining bench player, a move that swapped their slowest player with their third-slowest. Rarely has a 300-foot fly ball to right-center left so much doubt as to whether a run could score from third base.

Once again, it was a loss caused by something different for the Minnesota Lynx, which fell to 0-6 on the year after an 89-84 loss at home against Connecticut. Minnesota fell behind by 15 with less than nine minutes to play, but managed to erase the entire deficit in five minutes, including a stretch where Napheesa Collier scored on four consecutive possessions - two free throws, three-pointer, driving layup, three-pointer.

The game was tied at 81 with three and a half minutes to go, but from there, things quickly soured for the Lynx. They gave up offensive rebounds on three straight possessions, leading to two buckets for the Sun. They missed three out of four free throws, then threw the ball away. That turned a tie game into a five-point deficit with 21 seconds to go, and that was enough for the Sun to pull the game out.

Sure, the Lynx may go 0-40 this year. But at least their losses are close? It may be too early to do this much grasping at straws, and yet…

Over in Minnesota United news, the club announced Thursday that they were waiving center back Doneil Henry. Henry was a depth signing even when he was made, but you could tell that they weren’t entirely happy with him; he began the season with an injury, but even after returning, he only made the team’s bench one time. Not even as the squad shrank, and the Loons regularly began filling out their lineup card with two keepers, or - as in the case of Wednesday’s game - two keepers and only five outfield players, did Henry even make an appearance in the substitutes.

He did play 72 minutes in one game for Minnesota United 2, in MLS NEXT Pro, so we’ll always have that. We’ll remember him fondly in the ranks of the Doubloons legends.

And hey, this clears an international roster spot for Minnesota. Assuming Luis Amarilla also departs, they’ll have two open (update: no they won’t, reader Collin reminded me that Amarilla got his green card this year and actually missed the beginning of the season to do so).

That said, at least in terms of recognized MLS players, the Loons are currently down to 15 guys, not counting goalkeepers. Rumors are that Emanuel Reynoso could return as soon as this weekend, so there’s one to add to the squad - and they desperately need the numbers.

The St. Paul Saints are on a roll, winners of five straight, after hammering Buffalo for a third consecutive day, 11-5. Matt Wallner was again the hero, homering (for a third straight day) and driving in three runs, and catcher Chris Williams homered and doubled and knocked in four.

Caleb Thielbar pitched another scoreless inning, and Josh Winder made his third consecutive clean appearance out of the bullpen, after a mid-May debacle (seven earned runs in one inning) semi-permanently blew up his season stats.

Jordan Balazovic struggled again, giving up three runs on four hits in two innings. Balazovic had a 1.80 ERA on May 9, but since then has allowed 14 earned runs in 15 and a third innings across five appearances. The former top-100 prospect is still trying to… find himself, I guess, it’s hard to see where he’s going right now.

TONIGHT: The Twins are set to take on Cleveland again on Friday night, in one of the famed Apple TV games (this offered as a public service for when your dad calls and asks which channel the game is on).

The Saints are still in Buffalo, too - these week-at-a-time Triple-A schedules sure are monotonous - and Minneapolis City is hosting Bavarian United in USL League Two action tonight, a game I’m going to be at, and writing about soon.

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?

We start with Minnesota United FC, which dropped a hair-tearing 2-1 decision in Austin. Joseph Rosales scored the team’s lone goal, but Minnesota could have scored about five; Rosales had a first-half goal ruled out for offside, as did Hassani Dotson as the Loons searched for a late equalizer.

That search for the late equalizer was particularly garment-rending; Dotson’s goal was disallowed, Bongokuhle Hlongwane should have scored, Sang Bin Jeong and DJ Taylor tested Austin keeper Brad Stuver, but nothing came of it.

Of course, this came after Rosales had gone off with an apparent groin strain with 20 minutes to go, leading Adrian Heath to shift his team into a 4-5-1 to try to see the game out. This is a 4-5-1 that’s working about as well as a Vikings prevent defense these days; Austin scored ten minutes later from, of all things, a long throw to the penalty spot that nobody could clear.

Every high school soccer team in the nation has a play where they launch a long throw at the penalty spot, and hope that everyone misses a header and the ball bounces around a little bit and maybe finds a player. In this case, that player was Sebastian Driussi. Not good!

The Loons don’t really have enough points in the bank, or enough points likely to come their way in the future, that they can afford to be dropping one or three. The MLS website had MNUFC winning the xG battle 3.1 to 1.3, so it’s fair to look at this one as three points swirling down the drain.

In other news, Luis Amarilla didn’t even make the bench for this one, and my old, trusted MN soccer friend Brian Quarstad says that he’s hearing that Teemu Pukki to MNUFC is a done deal, so apparently we’re about to be on to a new era of number 9s in Minnesota, for approximately the sixth time in five years. (Amarilla’s apparently off to Mazatlan in Liga MX.)

The more I think about it, the more I support this. Not only did several Norwich City fans tell me on Twitter that Pukki’s drop-off last season was merely due to the craptitude of the entire Canaries attack, but ultimately, the Loons needed to do something up front. Whether this works or not, at least it’s something, and not just “let’s sign the eleventh-leading scorer from a second-rate South or Central American league and see if we unearth a diamond.”

Also deepinthehearta Texas, the Twins finally won a series! On the road, against - of all teams - the Astros! Minnesota hadn’t won a series since pounding the hapless Cubs into the dirt in mid-May, and they did it in surprising fashion in this one. Louie Varland spun a gem, allowing four hits and a walk in seven scoreless innings, and - qué milagro! - the Twins actually got not one, but TWO hits with the bases loaded. Donovan Solano had the first, a single that scored two in the third inning, and Ryan Jeffers had the second, a ground-rule double in the fifth inning that maybe relegated Christian Vázquez to second-catcher duty for awhile.

Solano drove in four, Willi Castro scored three runs, Michael A. Taylor was on base three times and scored twice and drove in a run with a double - it truly was a victory for the “guys that the Twins signed because their best players were not-so-secretly hurt” brigade.

Also, a word for Jorge López, who might be out on the street at this point if the Twins weren’t entirely desperate for relief pitching, and who - despite becoming completely unpitchable - is probably still second on the “drop this guy” list behind Emilio Pagan. Lopez went all of March and April without giving up a run; in May, his ERA is a deserved 9.00. Wednesday, he came in the eighth with the Twins leading 8-0, gave up two home runs on three pitches, walked a guy, hit a guy, and then was presumably tackled off the mound by Pete Maki before he got them both fired.

He also can’t tell the difference between Gatorade and water and took it out on a cooler. Not helpful, Jorge!

I predicted a bloodbath in the Minnesota Aurora’s scheduled game against hapless RKC Third Coast, but it ended up worse than I thought; the Aurora won 10-0 and Maya Hansen had a hat-trick in the first half.

I would submit to whoever’s running the USL W League that maybe letting just anybody field a team in the league is not a great idea.

Down in Triple-A, the Saints won again in a Wednesday matinee, beating up on Buffalo 6-2. Jose Miranda and Matt Wallner both hit home runs and had three hits; Miranda’s 5 for 9 in Buffalo after batting .155 in his first two and a half weeks with the Saints. Wallner, fresh off a four-game stint with the Twins in which he was 7 for 11 with a homer, has continued tearing it up in St. Paul, homering in both games and going 3 for 5 on consecutive days.

Would it be churlish to note that Max Kepler is 1 for 14 since replacing Wallner with the Twins?

Oh, Kyle Garlick mashed a homer for the Saints, too.

Thursday, the Twins return as conquering heroes to Target Field, taking on Cleveland in the first of four. I’m sure Twins fans have no bad memories at all of the Twins playing Cleveland at home in early summer with a 3.5 game lead on the Guardians.

The Lynx are also back home, taking on the East-leading Connecticut Sun, which should be a tall order. The Saints are still in Buffalo, and play the Bison at 10:05am, which is not a typo; it’s “School Kids Day” in Buffalo, which I’m sure will be deafening chaos. My thoughts and prayers to everyone who’s chaperoning kids in Buffalo.

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.

The Twins have lost four consecutive series, and the way things looked on Tuesday night in Houston, they’re headed for five. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but they didn’t hit much, they didn’t hit at all with runners in scoring position (1-for-8), and Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton both hit into double plays.

They managed all this off of Brandon Bielak (you know, “Who?”), one of the many pitchers with no real track record of success that the Twins have made into potential All-Stars this season.

Correa, of course, is the one that’s still driving me crazy - not even because of the contract, because it’s not my money, but because he’s genuinely been a disaster in big spots this year. He’s hit into nine double plays, which is difficult for a guy who can run at least a little, and his WPA at the plate (coming into last night) was a negative 1.0, which is among the worst 20 players in the game.

We’re beyond the “well it’s early in the season” excuses for Correa. For the rest of the Twins, too, but they either have an OPS north of .700, or weren’t the type of guy who was expected to carry the team (Michael Taylor, Max Kepler, etc.)

But hey, Christian Vázquez got two hits in a single game, and even drove in a run. So if nothing else, this one was a collector’s item.

The Lynx are 0-5 now, after a 94-89 loss in Dallas last night, and it’s looking like it’s going to be a long 40 games this year for Minnesota. They’ve got that affliction - familiar to fans who watched either Gopher basketball team last winter - where it’s always just something that goes wrong, not even the same thing every time, just something. Either they can’t shoot one night, or they can’t play defense, or - as in this one - they turn the ball over a hundred times.

They actually out-shot Dallas in this one, including hitting nine of 18 threes (a number that also counts a desperation heave at the buzzer by Rachel Banham), but they gave up 46 points in the paint and turned the ball over 15 times.

The biggest news might be that first-round draftee and presumed franchise cornerstone Diamond Miller was injured in the second quarter, spraining her ankle in ugly fashion. She didn’t return to the game, after ending up in tears on the floor, so you may go ahead and (potentially) mark off one of the reasons to watch Minnesota.

Frankly, keep your eyes on June 27, June 29, August 18, and August 20. Those are the dates that Minnesota plays fellow stragglers the Seattle Storm, and by the time those games roll around - especially in August - the #CollapseForCaitlin effort could be reaching fever pitch.

The big MNUFC news of the day, beyond the fact that Emanuel Reynoso and Bakaye Dibassy were with the team and training, was a rumor linking the Loons to Finnish striker Teemu Pukki.

Pukki, familiar to most as the dude with the funny name who was the only bright spot for Norwich City for two Premier League relegations in a row, is apparently a free agent. He’d have a friend in Minnesota, fellow Finland international Robin Lod, and he plays striker, the position that has bedeviled Minnesota since time immemorial.

That said, he’s also 33 years old, and his numbers in the Championship this year were way down from his previous two stints in the English second division. I’d like to convince myself that this is simply because the Canaries were much worse (13th, instead of winning the league like they did the last two times they were at that level), but the numbers do concern me.

But hey, what do European stats mean? Adrien Hunou’s were fine for three years in Ligue 1 before he got to Minnesota, and he mostly flopped, so maybe they really mean nothing and Pukki is the answer. Here’s hoping, because the Loons need somebody to work out.

Down at Triple-A, the Saints beat Buffalo 9-1, led by occasional Twin Matt Wallner, who was a single short of the cycle and drove in four runs. Jose Miranda also got two hits and drove in three, and given that he’s batting .177 since his demotion, the Twins (and Saints) will take all the hits they can get out of him.

On the mound, Kenta Maeda and Caleb Thielbar both pitched, somewhat oddly as openers, making the Twins’ pitching line look a bit spring training-ish. Maeda walked one and struck out four in two scoreless innings, Thielbar gave up one hit and struck out one in a scoreless inning, and then they turned it over to Brent Headrick, who went five innings and got the win.

Headrick’s one of those semi-anonymous depth guys - he’s a starter, but the Twins called him up and used him as a reliever earlier this year - so it’s nice to see him having some success.

The Twins are again in Houston tonight, finishing off that series, but otherwise it’s a soccer-focused night. MNUFC is in Austin, taking on fellow Western Conference middlers Austin FC.

On the local side, Minnesota Aurora is playing at home, against RKC Third Coast, a team so well-established that they don’t have a Wikipedia page. (Maybe they don’t have the internet yet in Racine, Wisconsin?) Anyway, RKC Third Coast is 0-3 this year, losing their games by a combined score of 13-1, while the Aurora are 2-0 and have yet to give up a goal, so it should be a real… barn-burner in Eagan.

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.

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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!

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?

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