Puckett's Pond » Mike Moustakas

Friday Links

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 18:15:15 +0000

I should not go to Las Vegas. The past week is proof of that. Last week I took a look at the current roster, future call ups and the guys that were coming back from injury and I said that Joe Mauer at 1B was going to be a myth for the rest of the 2011 season. How wrong I was. Since that time Mauer has played at first base at least three times. Such much for that. Then yesterday I suggested that despite facing AL Cy Young candidate, Justin Verlander, that the Twins had a chance to beat the Detroit Tigers. Turns out, that Verlander guy is as good as advertised and the Twins floundered against his mid-upper 90s fastballs. So I am not going to Vegas, and I am going to steer away from making some predictions for a while, let my luck build up.

The good news is that the Twins have an opportunity to face three Detroit pitchers who are not Justin Verlander over the weekend (Max Scherzer, Brad Penny, and Rick Porcello, each of whom is very beatable). The Twins can win the next three games and head to Texas directly in the rear view mirror of the Detroit Tigers and the Cleveland Indians.

And here are the links:

Each week over at Seedlings to Stars their staff of writers will be recapping all of the players that made their Major League Debuts. This week, the Twins’ own Scott Diamond made his debut and StS has the coverage.

Seedlings to Stars had another Minnesota Twins related feature this week, this time it was Nathaniel Stoltz providing some insight into one of the Twins next bright stars, Liam Hendricks. (The article has a weird two page format, but just click through for the good stuff on page 2)

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the internet, it turns out that planking is dead. Now, I cannot be sure that planking was ever alive, ever something that we should have paid attention to, but this new craze that is taking it’s place is even cooler. @HippestHipster would be proud.

Mike Moustakas is not a super hero yet, and he doesn’t have his own set of rules like teammate Eric Hosmer, but he’s going to get there. And when he does, look out world. For now though, he’s suffering through some growing pains. Twins fans everywhere only hope he never grows into his big league shoes.

How long has Frank McCourt been in the news? Too damn long. How soon until MLB takes over the Dodgers and McCourt is bounced from MLB? Not soon enough. Just go AWAY!

You know how Twins fans like to joke about how dumb White Sox fans are? NotGraphs is on your team, here is some video evidence to back up those claims. (more…)

2011 Series Preview: Minnesota Twins at Kansas City Royals (6/2-6/5)

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 06:51:54 +0000

It used to be that the Minnesota Twins beat the Royals seemingly every time they played, those days have come to an end. After an early season split in a two game series at Target Field the Twins were promptly swept out of their last series in Kansas City, failing to score more than 3 runs in any game. Hopefully this time around the Twins can continue to hit the ball well and come out of Kansas City with nothing worse than a 4 game split. Although the Twins bats are not REALLY that hot, as they haven’t won a single game in 2011 when they have given up more than 4 runs (0-25). Oofda.

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2011 Series Preview: Royals vs Twins (4/12-4/13)

Wally Fish — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 03:00:11 +0000

Heading into the A’s series over the weekend I was supremely confident that the Twins would win 2, if not all 3, games. I also expected that the offense would break out of it’s slump and put up some big run totals. Instead they scored 5 runs. Simply put, there is a reason I’m not in the prediction business.

Tomorrow the Twins host the Kansas City Royals for a quick two game series and seeing how the Royals are my “other” favorite team, I have a rooting interest on both sides of the aisle. In most of these matchups I root with a little more energy and vigor for the Twins, since they are generally playing for more than the Royals are. Heading into the season I thought that would be the case, even for this early April series and yet it’s Minnesota that is sitting in the basement and not Kansas City. I don’t think either of those things will last but I’ve clearly been wrong many times before.

The Twins, of course, are also the team that I grew up with. You can take the boy out of the state of Minnesota, but you can never take the Minnesota state of mind out of the boy … or something like that.

Stepping up to help me out with the Royals side of this series is my good friend Michael Engel. If you are not aware, he is the Senior Editor of Kings of Kauffman and my hand-picked successor on that site over a year ago.

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