We expected better from the trips to Seattle and Oakland and, again, each of the losses were games that slipped away after they should have been W’s.

That being said, the Twins are still only a half-game out and could be tied by the end of the day if Cliff Lee handles the White Sox and raises his record to 20-2, which doesn’t seem at all far-fetched.

And that being said, the Twins need to put some payback on Toronto, which swept them in a painful three-game series at the Dome in May.

I’m thinking that Saturday night’s loss wasn’t indicative of very much. It felt like the clubhouse handled the situation pretty well — Nathan facing up to the facts that he wasn’t sharp (that happens) and the that he needed to make a better throw to third on the sacrifice bunt. Right idea, wrong execution. Watching the play, it seemed like a catchable throw for Brendan Harris, but he’s never going to be mistaken for a Gold Glover at third (or anyplace else in the infield).

The hardest part was watching Harris have a night when he grounded out weakly twice and then took two called third strikes. He was acutely aware of his suckitude, telling Joe C. that he had “left a small village on base” throughout the night. This is why it’s sometimes better not to blog until you’ve had a chance to sit and measure and count to 10. Harris knew he had a terrible night on Saturday and it wasn’t going to be a great revelation for me to pile on. Now, it’s going to be interesting to see what his role is now that the reinforcements from the minors have arrived and Brian Buscher smacked a couple of hits in Sunday’s win.

Right now, the season pretty much comes down to this: The Twins play 15 of their last 25 games against teams with losing records. The other 10 are against Toronto (barely over .500), Tampa Bay and Chicago. The White Sox have 12 of their final 26 against losing teams — and have three with the Angels this weekend and four at New York. I’m not sure how to measure the schedule and I’m not sure whether it’s all that important.

It’s pretty simple now: If the Twins don’t give away games and handle the White Sox, I’m pretty sure they’ll be playing baseball in October. Let’s take the day off and then bring on September.

Keep New Orleans in your thoughts.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 1st, 2008 at 8:23 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.