Over the past 12 hours, the USA women’s beach volleyball team and the USA women’s soccer team picked up goal medals in Beijing after some intense games. Props to them.  Too bad USA softball lost to Japan in the gold medal game, but we’re having a great run over there.

Overheard after Michael Phelps won his eighth goal medal: Can he hit lefties?

Sorry, I’m a sap for major international events. I’ve stayed up late and have been up early to surf the NBC family of networks for Olympic content. Back to baseball….

There were some interesting comments on this blog after yesterday’s game. It looks like Twins Nation is wound up big-time for this road trip. I think this would be a huge trip even if it was just a 10-gamer.

The Twins have grumbled about this road trip for weeks. And they seemed to be a little on edge after two losses in Seattle about playing better on the road.

Now that The BIG Trip is here, the challenge is to not make this more than it is.

“It doesn’t matter how long the road trip is,” Justin Morneau reasoned,  “Any time you have a four-game series, it seems like it’s too long.”

“I think we have to remember that this is no bigger than any other road trip,” Scott Baker said. “Just because it’s toward the end of the season, it seems like the games mean a lot more.”

I agree somewhat. A team shouldn’t get wound up about big games at this point of the season. But the Twins need to be fired up this week against the Angels to get this thing off to a good start.

They’ve got to execute. The starters need to pitch into the final third of games. If they get a lead, they’ve got to keep attacking. No one should more motivated than Glen Perkins, who twice has had big leads against Seattle but failed to reach the seventh inning.

My prediction for the road trip: 7-7 - and that’s not a bad thing. It’s hard to win on the road.

All I know for sure is that Mike Redmond is ready to pull out all the stops to get the Twins fired up for this trip.

“We have an opportunity to go out there and control our own destiny and get to the playoffs, that’s what it’s all about,” he said. “Not all teams can say that. If that doesn’t fire you up I don’t know what will. That’s it. That’s what it’s all about. A shot.”

7-7 I say……….what say you?

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 11:23 am and is filed under Random thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.