Game (and league) notes in an off day

• Did not watch the game yesterday, just followed it up with my mobile phone, due to other obligations. It sounds like Boof, after a shaky inning got his brain in gear. It seems that the location of his fastball was better after the first inning and he used his fastball more than other pitches after the first. Great show by the bullpen with Guerrier pitching 2 scoreless innings and Nathan a scoreless 9th for his 11th save


• Good to see the team being able to orchestrate comeback wins this year. This is a huge change from last year and in combination with its ability to hang in and win close games, propelled the Twins in first place, 1.5 games ahead of the White Sox. Furthermore, the last 2 sweeps gave the Twins a nice divisional record. If the team continues in this pace, it will be a shoo-in to win the Division, esp. with Detroit and Cleveland underperforming. Today all the Twins' rivals, except Cleveland, are playing and the Twins are in a position to increase their lead.


• The next series of games is in Chicago tomorrow (3 games) at a time where the White Sox manager publicly lashes against the Chicago fans and media. Not a good move biting the hand that feeds you. And apparently having blow up sex toy dolls in the Chicago clubhouse did not exorcise their demons. However, profanity and sex toys aside, that was probably not the most inane move by an AL Central manager today: Leyland cut Jacque Jones, replacing him in the field with Gary Sheffield and in the roster with Matt Joyce, with a whole 28 AAA games experience being the highest level of pro baseball experience, and incidentally starting at RF today against Boston. In several places and timepoints before the season, I expressed my opinion that Detroit was a flawed team, mainly because of pitching and fielding deficiencies. Now they have proven that they simply are a bad team...


• Not to be outdone, the Indians joined the AL central peanut gallery announcing later today that they will cut Michaels. In an unrelated note from Left field, but of potential interest to the Twins, for some reason it seems that Andy LaRoche has slipped way down the 3B depth chart for the Dodgers. He is a player who could potentially solve the 3B issue for the Twins. His value is probably at his lowest point right now, I wonder what would it take for the Twins to pluck him from the Dodgers...

Twins MVP: Nathan