Minneapolis Twins are so cute, says national media

By Soup

I like to ridicule those that need a good ridiculing. The national baseball writers often deserve ridicule when they punch out their mandatory annual Twin’s article. Jeff Passan’s column isn’t all that bad, but this article will be a sufficient scape-goat. I will comment on some of the highlights. First, let me take care of some business:

Twins don't hit home runs, win anyway
By (insert national sports writer name here)

The Twins don't ever hit home runs. They win anyway. They play small ball, throw strikes, play good defense, try hard, do the little things, small market, all stars leave, Mauer hometown boy, Morneau goalie, The Metrodome is located on the second floor of the Mall of American.

There, national sports writers. I wrote your obligatory twins article for the next 10 years. Now, let’s get to Passan’s article.

Twins dig long ball, at least for one night
By Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports

Inside the Minnesota Twins dugout, they figured the roar was for Jason Kubel. His teammates were telling him to take a curtain call after his second home run, and everybody was so busy patting Kubel on the back and slapping his hands that they missed the real reason for the commotion.

What was the reason for the commotion? You can't end a paragraph like that! The suspense is killing me. You better tell me what the commotion was in the next paragraph or I swear to God...

Back-to-back home runs for the Twins

Oh, thank God.

That’s like two straight laughs at a Dane Cook show

Ohhhh! You're not so funny now are you, Dane Cook? Jeff Passan, of Yahoo! baseball columnist fame, just knocked your ass of its pedestal.

The Twins don’t hit home runs. They nibble and pick and gnaw.

And store many acorns in our large cheeks.

They’ve turned small ball into a verb. And here they were, in the game their manager deemed the most important this season, a game that could’ve shattered their glass slipper, launching balls like they hadn’t all year.

Glass slipper. I get it. As in Cinderella wore a glass slipper. But using Cinderella as a sports metaphor? …Interesting. I like it. I think it might catch on.

Though they weren’t packed to the rafters, 35,225 strong witnessed the Twins’ 50th home win in 76 games. And they saw an offense that somehow scored the fourth-most runs in the major leagues in spite of hitting the second-fewest home runs.

Sure, there were signs of typical Twins baseball: Nick Punto laying down a squeeze bunt that scored a charging Young, and Joe Mauer lacing an opposite-field single before coming home on a Justin Morneau gapper, and three more hits with runners in scoring position, bringing their major-league-best total to 444.

I'm not sure why you're surprised that we are fourth in the majors in runs when you say in the very next paragraph that we have a major-league-best 444 hits with runners in scoring position.

Prescience isn’t generally Gardenhire’s forte, though he did have the foresight to emphasize the importance of this game, just in case his cache of young players didn’t grasp it

Ooh two words of French origin in as many sentences. So bon mot.

They entered the year minus ace Johan Santana, franchise center fielder Torii Hunter and starter Carlos Silva and long shots behind Cleveland and Detroit.

Okay, Who's the jokester? Who slipped Carlos Silva's name in that list right before it went to print?

Guillen’s nonchalance before the game.

Another word with French etymology? You sonuva bitch. Don't you know that the French are our enemies. Well, okay. “Technically” they are our "allies." So, maybe it's more like we’re frienimies.

How they’ve turned into a run-scoring juggernaut, 810 and counting, symptomatic of their .311 batting average with runners in scoring position, which would be the best in major-league history.

Do you get paid per comma used? What, a, terrible, sentence. I'm assuming "how" is supposed to be "now."

It makes the Twins the small kid on the playground who knows jiu-jitsu and can fell the big bully with one strike.

There is no striking in jiu-jitsu. So this small kid's jiu-jitsu knowledge would be irrelevant if he was able to "fell the big bully" with a strike. Don't worry about it, Jeff. I doubt anyone read this far anyway.

“We scored over 800 runs playing our Twins baseball, bunting and stealing and all that kind of stuff,” Morneau said. “It’s nice to hit those homers and put the game out of reach, but we can’t expect to do that every night.”

No, it was a special evening at the Metrodome, from the homers to the seven great innings from starting pitcher Scott Baker to the cavalcade of overweight security guards trying to chase down an interloper during the ninth inning.

So, this is how his sentence attempted to tie Morneau's quote into the story: "No, something irrelevant to the quote, something irrelevant to the rest of the article." I'm assuming bringing up the fan on the field story is going to tie back in somehow, right?

The fan popped out of the left-field stands during the ninth inning and spent a good minute outrunning 10 guys in white shirts. He waved his arms and engaged the crowd and even caused a smile to spread across Kubel’s face.

Nope. I'm assuming he used this tangent to fill his word count requirements.

The fight was over. The slipper was intact. And there would be two more to play.

Wait, Fight? What fight? The man that ran on the field started a fight? Do you mean fight as in a baseball game is metaphorical fight?

Well regardless, I'm glad the fight is over. Did the small kid that knows Jiu-Jitsu win?