Twins

Things will get back to normal tonight when the Twins open up a 3-game series in Tampa. By normal, I mean just a normal series in a normal location with no chance of abnormal weather changing plans.

Don’t get me wrong… I had zero complaints about the 2-game series in San Juan. I was just implying it wasn’t normal because it wasn’t normal. Not normal is perfectly OK. In fact… I believe that MLB should choose a few more alternative sites to play some not normal regular season games. It may be shocking that I have some location suggestions but I actually do.

Honolulu – It’s really hard for Hawaiians to see a professional baseball game. The closest major league city is San Francisco and that is 2,397 miles away. That’s a 5 hour non-stop flight and 48 years by car. Let the ball players come to them for a change.

London – Baseball is making plans for a series in London in 2019. The NFL has a regular season game at Wembley Stadium every year but the dimensions of Wembley wouldn’t fit for baseball. The solution is to move the games back to America to find a stadium. Make no mistake… MLB is serious about playing some games in London… even if they have to be played in America.

Here are some things to think about:

Joe Mauer passed Rod Carew on the all-time Twins hit list with a fifth-inning single Friday night at Target Field. With 2,086 hits, he now trails only Kirby Puckett on the Minnesota Twins franchise leaderboard. I’m sure he would have preferred to reach that milestone in a victory, but unfortunately the Twins fell to Oakland 7-1.

Aaron and John discuss the Minnesota Twins signing slugger Nelson Cruz. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this link.

Sometimes one particular out is especially elusive. For the Twins tonight, that was the 15th out. Jake Odorizzi was cruising early on, looking about as efficient as we’ve seen him with the Twins, but everything fell apart in the fifth inning. The bullpen not only failed to bail him out, they made matters even worse.

Down in South Beach tonight the Minnesota Twins proved victorious over the hapless Miami Marlins. Sitting at a local brewery for the latest Gleeman and the Geek event, the question was whether or not the away team would cap off the night with a deadline deal. Then it happened, the Cleveland Indians sent Trevor Bauer packing. Much like his heave over the center field wall in Kansas City, Mike Chernoff flipped his pitching asset to the National League. Now, it’s your move Derek Falvey.

The Twins used a group of rookie pitchers including Randy Dobnak and Cody Stashak to beat the Royals by a score of 4-3. Everything was working late as Marwin Gonzalez came through and Miguel Sano showed off his elite speed.

Recently the Philadelphia Phillies inked Zack Wheeler to a five-year deal, and in losing out on a highly coveted free agent starting pitcher a good portion of the Twins fanbase lost their collective minds. What if we’re going about this all wrong though, and the expectations need to be shifted?

Spring has finally sprung with Twins pitchers and catchers reporting to Fort Myers this week. Many of the players are already working out at the team’s facility and media members are on the way down to sunny Florida. For Minnesota, the catching situation looks different than last year and there are some questions surrounding the team’s catchers this season.

There have only been four presidents in the history of the Twins and Dave St. Peter has served in the role since 2002. He has been part of the Twins organization since 1990 and he has worked his way up from intern all the way to the club’s highest position. Minnesota has won seven American League Central Division championships.

Aaron and John talk about Jose Berrios' struggles and the Twins' in-flux rotation, the strategy behind a surprising safety squeeze, how the Twins dramatically improved their defense, what to make of slow starts by Miguel Sano and Mitch Garver, and whether or not John Bonnes is a heartthrob. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this link.

Yes, you read that title correctly. There are major league teams out there who are *willingly* doing work for the Twins and they don’t even know it! Can you believe this? Well, you probably don’t actually and even I, the person who did the research, am somewhat skeptical. Rest assured, there are no fibs here.

Liam Hendriks is back in the AL Central and that might not be good news for Minnesota Twins fans. Hendriks has evolved into arguably the game’s best relief pitcher over the last two seasons and now he has $54 million reasons to be excited about joining the Chicago White Sox. It wasn’t very long ago when Hendriks was a prospect in the Twins organization with a bright future ahead of him. So, let’s look back and see what happened between the Twins and Liam Hendriks.