The Twins (17-18) fell below .500 tonight for the first time since last June 17, when they were 33-34 and just taking off on a memorable run to the division title. Tigers manager Jim Leyland went on a pregame rant about how negative the Star Tribune coverage of the Twins was in Friday’s paper. Well, judging by the grumbling Reusse and La Velle were doing in press row tonight, Leyland hasn’t seen anything yet.

Again, the alarming part now is how well the rest of the division is playing. Detroit has won 10 of 11, pushing the Twins 5 1/2 games back. Cleveland (20-12) is playing late in Oakland tonight with C.C. Sabathia on the mound.

The White Sox also seem to be heating up. Jon Garland went 8 1/3 innings tonight in a 2-1 victory over Kansas City. That’s five wins in six games, and Jim Thome took batting practice before the game. He still seems on track to return for Tuesday’s game against the Yankees. Before long, that team is going to start scoring some runs.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 10:19 pm and is filed under Around MLB, Twins thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.