MN Sports Blog

Jason Kubel led the Twins to their first victory against the Yankees after losing the last ten regular season games against them. Kubel’s grand slam was just his third  homer of the year but gave the Twins enough of a cushion this time to hang on to the victory. The slam came against Mariano Rivera of all people who had successfully converted his last 51 save opportunities.

Jon Rauch tried to make things interesting in the bottom of the ninth giving up back-to-back singles but he managed to slam the door shut striking out Jeter, Gardner and Teixeira. The save was Rauch’s tenth of the season and helped lower his ERA to a very impressive 1.80.

This might help the Twins develop some amount of confidence whatsoever against the Yankees who have absolutely dominated them in the past few years. If the Twins turn out to be the contenders we hope they will be they’ll need to find some way to handle the American League East. Although this is the last trip of the regular season the Twins will make to Yankee Stadium they have another three game series against the Yanks starting May 25th at Target Field.

The next AL East test comes on Monday in Toronto as Kevin Slowey (4-3, 4.62 ERA) faces off against Dana Eveland (3-2, 4.81 ERA) and the Blue Jays.

Minnesota Sports Blog

On one hand you have the Minnesota Twins who represent all that is right with baseball, in most aspects, and then you have the New York Yankees. The Minnesota Twins scout, draft and develop their players rarely signing big time free agents. The Twins don’t spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the biggest names available to buy themselves a championship. They develop and sign great baseball players who play the game the right way.

On the other hand you have the Yankees who are the epitome of laziness and all that is wrong with salary cap free baseball.  The Yankees spend hundreds of millions of dollars on other teams hard work. They don’t need to take the time to develop players they’ll just wait for the small market teams to find them, scout them, draft them, develop them and then when they’re so good the small market teams can’t afford them, in come the Yankees. The Yankees just throw ridiculous amounts of money at players to the point where it’s just embarrassing. Who needs to win based on hard work and dedication, we’ll just try and get the best players money can buy. Because every team has $400 million to spend on three players. This is why the Yankees don’t earn championships, they buy them.

Yankees 2009 Payroll: $208,097,414(highest in MLB)  Twins 2009 Payroll: $67,634,766 (23rd highest).

That’s the end of my rant on why the Yankees are a disgrace (for now). Now we’ll focus on the unfortunate match up that puts our Twins against them. Which, conveniently, the Yankees elected to have start on Wednesday instead of Thursday so they would have the upper hand against the winner of the Tigers/Twins playoff game.

Game one featured CC Sabathia who had the Twins struggling early and often. Rookie Brian Duensing didn’t have the same effect against the Yankee lineup. Duensing lasted just 4 2/3 innings while giving up 5 earned runs on 7 hits. Sabathia lasted through a very impressive 6 and 2/3 innings allowing just 1 ER with 8 strikeouts. Fatigue is an easy excuse to try and play for this game and I’m sure it was a factor but the Twins want it just as bad as anyone. The fact that the Twins have been playing do-or-die baseball the past few weeks probably does have their tanks nearing empty but they’ve fought this hard to get to this point so they’re going to need to find something extra if they want to make it all worth while.

After a much needed day off, game two of the five game series will start Friday with Nick Blackburn (11-11) facing off against another Yankee splurge A.J. Burnett (13-9). This season against the Twins Burnett has pitched 13 innings in two starts giving up just 4 ER with 9 strikeouts. He did have 10 walks with 13 hits in those two starts so control can be an issue. Blackburn has only faced the Yankees once this year going 7 2/3 innings giving up 4 ER but picked up a no decision.

Game time: 5:07 CT on TBS.

Minnesota Sports Blog