I Will Fear No Evil

ALDS Preview

Obviously, since Ron Gardenhire took over as Twins manager in 2002, things haven't gone well against the Yankees. That's history. Nothing can change it. Let it go. This time can be different. Why?

These aren't the Twins of years past.

When the Yankees swept the Twins in the ALDS last year, the bottom of the Twins' lineup in each game featured some combination of Brendan Harris, Carlos Gomez, Jose Morales, Matt Tolbert and Nick Punto. The 2004 team that lost 3 straight to the Yankees fielded lineups that featured Lew Ford and Henry Blanco. These are bench players. This year's team will finish the lineup with Jason Kubel, Danny Valencia and JJ Hardy. Every hitter has some combination of ROTY votes*, MVP votes or All-Star appearances on their resume. Bona fide starters 1-9.

*Valencia looks like a good bet to finish in the top 3 this year.

These are the Yankees of years past.

They've been here before. Many, many times. Because they're old. Derek Jeter, A-Rod, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Lance Berkman are all north of 34. All but Rivera showed it this year, either by missing significant time due to injuries, or by showing declines in production, or both. In previous postseason match-ups the Yankees' core players were in their prime. Now they're well past it.

The earlier series were closer than you think.

The Twins are 2-9 against the Yankees in the postseason. But 3 of those losses came in extra innings. In 3 of the other losses the Twins held the Yankees to 4 or fewer runs. If Cory Koskie's double off Rivera late in game 2 of 2004 had stayed in play rather than bouncing into the stands, the Twins would have come home leading the series 2-0. If Gomez and Punto had been under control on the basepaths last fall, the Twins would have been dead even with the Yanks going into the 9th inning of game 3: series tied at 1, score tied at 2. Even while being badly overmatched from a personnel standpoint, which isn't the case this year.

The Twins are due.

Whether good or bad, streaks don't last forever. The Twins have lost 9 straight postseason games, and 5 straight series. Those streaks have been sustained by teams that came soaring into the 2006 and 2009 postseason on tremendous rolls. They were due to have letdowns. No such trouble this year, as the Twins enter the postseason in a 2-8 malaise. Each of the starters in the postseason rotation, most of the position players and a couple of the key bullpen pitchers have had at least one crappy game in the last 2 weeks. That's good. Everybody has a bad game now and then. Better to get it out of the way in meaningless games against the Tigers and Royals than on the big stage against the Yanks.

It can be done. Here are my keys to making it happen:

1. First Inning, Game 1

The Twins and their fans are carrying a lot of baggage into this series. The players will be more relaxed and the crowd livelier if things get off to a good start. Francisco Liriano has had some early-inning troubles this season. He did not end the regular season on a good note. He needs to have a scoreless 1st inning on Wednesday night. If it's a dominant inning, 1-2-3 with a K on 10 pitches, for example, that's even better.

Since the A lineup was first assembled in Fort Myers, they've been ambushing opposing pitchers in the 1st inning. Some real good ones, including John Danks, Zach Greinke and Felix Hernandez. No reason they can't jump on CC Sabathia, too. An early crooked number would go a long way toward making everyone believe that the Twins can prevail.

2. Michael Must Mash

The Yankees intend to use Sabathia in games 1 & 4 and Pettitte in games 2 & 5. That means that the Twins will be seeing LHP in about 2/3 of 4/5 of the games. This will largely neutralize Joe Mauer (.711 OPS) Jim Thome (.769) and Jason Kubel (.655). That means the righties in the lineup will have to pick up the slack. Delmon Young and Valencia have been doing it for most of the summer. The guy who's been missing lately is Michael Cuddyer. His OPS barely cleared .700 over the final 2 months of the season. However, vs. LHP, he raked at .896 in 2010. He's got to do that vs. Sabathia and Pettitte. If not more.

3. Don't Give Them Anything

The Yankees are very good at scoring runs, but they're actually only a little better than average at hitting. They are exceptionally good at taking walks. The Twins are exceptionally good at not giving up walks. Something's got to give there, and that matchup needs to fall the Twins' way. But it goes for more than walks. No HBP. No extra outs coming from errors. And don't give away any outs on the basepaths, either. This series is going to be tough enough if the Twins play flawlessly.

No more hype. Time to play the games.

Turn Out the Lights

I remember thinking last Tuesday how I wished the Twins' 2009 season could be like the movie "Major League:" come back to win the division on the last day of the season, kiss the girl, roll credits. Instead, before the champagne buzz had a chance to subside, they were thrust into the lion's den, the site of 4 rough May losses, against a team the Twins hadn't beaten all year. The Yankees were well rested, and their rotation was set up, beginning with their innings-munching, Cy Young, mega-contract ace, CC Sabathia. The Twins had to overcome all this minus their All-Star, former MVP 1B, their battle-tested 3B, and 3/5 of their original starting rotation, necessitating a Game 1 start from a guy who'd been in the Majors for only half a season, and a lineup that featured a handful of guys who had been bench players in August.

This mismatch was almost comically huge. Maybe that's why the result doesn't sting too badly. Did I really expect this Twins team to beat the Yankees? No, I don't think I did. But did I expect them to win at least one game? Yes. And, the way things developed, did I expect them to be able to win Game 2 and/or 3? Definitely.

The lack of precision that the Twins got away with against the Tigers was fatal against the Yanks. Overzealous baserunning cost the Twins a run in each of the last 2 games. Had Carlos Gomez prudently stopped at 2B, unwisely continued to 3B, or even gotten himself caught in a rundown, the Twins would have outscored the Yankees in the first 9 innings of Game 2. Had Nick Punto put the brakes on in the 8th inning of Game 3, the Twins could have gone into the 9th inning tied, and with momentum and the crowd behind them.

That might not have been enough, however, because the Twins' pitching, though rather good for most of the series, had a terrible habit of giving runs back as soon as the offense could produce them. The Twins scored first in each game, only to find Derek Jeter or A-Rod waiting to answer in the subsequent half-inning. Nick Blackburn and Carl Pavano gave the Twins everything they could ask for, but the offense didn't show up. Delmon Young and Orlando Cabrera, so hot down the stretch, couldn't knock anyone in, and Jason Kubel struggled against the Yankees' LHP. Perhaps most egregiously, Joe Nathan couldn't get big outs. Yes, Mark Teixeira and A-Rod are great hitters, but Nathan is a great pitcher, just as reliably an All-Star, just as highly paid for his position. The 9th innings of Games 2 & 3 are why the Twins pay Nathan the big bucks, and he failed to do his job.

So ends the story of the 2009 Twins, a team that was mostly worse, but briefly, gloriously better than we had a right to expect them to be. I'll take another few days to savor the good things that happened in September, then analyze the whole season, then begin looking forward to 2010.