Melissa Berman

The melancholy Minnesota sports fans reeling from Timberwolves and Wild losses earlier in the evening who decided to flip their TVs over to catch the ending of the Twins game were treated to one of the most exciting albeit baffling endings of a game seen in a long time. Hey, a win is a win, right? Here are 3 of my Takeaways from yesterday's wild ending. 1. Twins are in control of the division and this is the time to pull away With two walk-off wins in a row, the bats heating up for players like Max Kepler and (hopefully) Miguel Sanó, Byron Buxton back in the lineup and performing as clutch as ever, and a Twins starting rotation that has an AL-best ERA of 2.60, the Twins appear to be firmly in control of the division and stand to continue to gain ground, especially considering what a mess top rival Chicago White Sox are in. The White Sox are on an 8-game losing streak, including the last 7 losses against 3 division opponents, are plagued by a host of injuries to impact players like Liam Hendriks, Luis Robert, and Eloy Jimenez, and have continued to commit a circus of errors in the field. The Sox lead all the MLB in errors with 20. The Twins, by comparison, have 8. If the Twins can sweep the Detroit Tigers, march into the AL East and play competitively vs the middle-of-the-division Tampa Bay Rays and the bottom-of-the-division Baltimore Orioles, they should hopefully continue to gain some ground. The Twins will go head-to-head with the current second place Cleveland Guardians on May 13-15 when the Twins host them for a 3-game series. I have no doubt that the White Sox will end up being fine in the end and will start wracking up some wins once they get some key players back and can calm things down in the field, but until then, it is important that the Twins put as much ground between the teams as possible. The takeaway here is that the Twins are on a 5-game winning streak, the momentum is with them, and the team is having fun again. That's worth a lot. 2. Miguel Sanó is starting to arrive Despite Sanó having what some seasoned Twins fans will regard as his perennial start-of-season slump, it appears that he might be starting to break out of it. This season, it has been apparent that the Twins have decided to stick with him and “play him into the ground,” so to speak, in hopes that he will work through his slow start at the plate. So far this season, Sanó has played in 16/17 games and has not been pinch hit for, even in situations like Sunday April 24's series finale vs the White Sox in which some fans were screaming for Carlos Correa to pinch-hit for him in a bottom of the 10th inning, down by 1, do-or-die situation. For those who have been in the "just stick with him" camp rather than the "send him down to St. Paul to figure things out" boat, it is gratifying to see him being to experience some degree of success at the plate, even though it has mostly continued to be in the form of singles here and there. His at-bats are becoming better quality, his strikeouts are becoming more infrequent (though, as a hitter he is always a high strikeout hitter, even in good times), and his statistics and specifically plate discipline (chase rate and walk percentage) mirror the profile of a consistent hitter who so far has just had some bad luck. Twins Daily's own Nick Nelson had a great tweet illustrating this fact. As we know, Sanó did not get his first hit until the 7th game of the season at Boston, and his batting average is up to a modest .096, but he has quite the hole to climb out of, and it will take some time before his batting average reflects improvement. Baby steps. But just by watching him (everyone's favorite highly scientific "eye test") he is clearly not as lost at the plate or as frustrated as he was to start the season. When he gets ahold of the ball, he is mashing it. Take a look at that exit velocity- the 9th highest exit velocity in the whole MLB. Of note, Sanó has been nothing but an asset at first base as well. Yes, Tuesday's 9th inning hit could have almost been an error, and his baserunning on the play could have been disastrous. No, the Sanó of a few weeks ago wouldn't have had that hit. The takeaway: Sanó was the hero of yesterday's game and big plays like this will hopefully inspire the confidence he needs to continue to return to form. Stick with him a little longer and he's going to be one of the best power hitters in MLB. 3. We probably need to work on our baserunning a bit It is no question that yesterday's 9th inning walk-off was quite fortunate and arguably even lucky for the Twins. When Sanó singled on a line drive to right field, Trevor Larnach held at third, Gio Urshela kept running when Sanó continued to second, and we all collectively screamed at our TVs. Tigers catcher Eric Haase threw the ball over third base into left field (airmailed it, we would have called that in softball) allowing two runners to score and the Twins received a happy reprieve. That play could have easily turned into a double play, and if Kepler had not struck out before Sanó/Haase did not overthrow it, that play feasibly could have feasibly been a triple play. Rewatching that play with the camera focused on Sanó, it appears his eyes are solely fixed on the ball and he isn't paying attention to what the other baserunners are doing. Somewhat relatedly, the Twins also have had three runners thrown out at home so far, including a memorable and unfortunate play vs the Mariners when Sanó was sent home and was ultimately thrown out by approximately a mile despite the base paths being only 90 feet. The Twins have been caught stealing three times this year, which appears to be about league average. Yesterday worked out in the team's favor, other times might not. As the Metrodome light-up board once said, "Walks Will Haunt," and bad baserunning undoubtably will too. Do you have any other takeaways from this memorable game? Leave a COMMENT below. View full article

Could not believe the absolute laser he managed to throw LOL. The crowd went absolutely nuts

Yes!! I had a wedding so I couldn't make it to that one, but I was at the Wolves game at night. That was a great one to get to. The Twins game I attend tomorrow will make me 0/7.. but it's coming!

Wow, what a game yesterday! There is nothing better than seeing a walk-off win in absolute monster fashion. Winning is pretty fun, eh? Here are some of my thoughts on Sunday April 24's walk-off win vs the White Sox: After that sweep, we’re back on top of the Central where we belong. I have no doubt that the White Sox will end up being fine, but it is important that we pounce and gain as much ground as possible while they’re banged up and committing a circus of errors in the field. I of course don’t wish to see anyone injured, but unfortunately that’s part of the game and we’re already facing a host of injuries too. Now that our offense has really woken up, it's time to go on a tear here and put some space between us and the White Sox. A long season awaits, but it's great being the frontrunner. It's incredible how entirely different of a team the Twins are when Byron Buxton is in the lineup. Everyone else starts hitting and he makes unbelievable, clutch plays like Sunday’s walk-off launch into orbit. He's also a huge clubhouse leader/ veteran presence. Jeff Passan had a great tweet illustrating his on-field impact: I was at the game with some friends, including a loyal White Sox fan, and he called the Buxton home run. Once he saw the Sox weren’t going to walk Buxton, he laughed, pointed up to the Home Run Porch and said, “He’s going to hit it right up there.” And sure enough next pitch, out into outer space that ball went. I was really surprised that they decided to pitch to Buxton considering the streak he’s been on (4-4 with a walk the day before Saturday and a home run in the 7th inning earlier on Sunday’s game). Chicagoans were not impressed with that decision either. Boy, is it great to have Buxton back. If this keeps up, he very legitimately will be in talks for MVP. And going further- might we even have the best player in baseball? It was a COLD day for a Gatorade bath at home plate, but something tells be Buxton didn't mind too much... We got our first look at everyone's favorite rule- the "runner on second in extra innings" or Ghost Runner rule! I wrote a piece on it in March when the return of the rule was announced. It worked out well for us this time, but I'm still not a big fan of the rule. Because it is so effective on ending the game in the inning in which it is implemented, it seems to me it should maybe take effect in the 11th or 12 inning- give a little extra time for the game to end naturally, and if not, the Buck stops here (pun intended). However, yesterday's game was a bit cold and unpleasant with some scattered sprinkles, so my friends and I were just fine with the rule yesterday. I'm glad we started out with an extra innings win so we don't have an "0-8 in extras" monkey on our back like we did last year. And I'm kind of surprised we made it 16 games into the season before we had an extra innings duel. How about that diving stop by Gio Urshela followed by an incredible, right on the money throw to first from the seat of his pants?! That has to be the best 3rd baseman play I've ever seen at Target Field. What a great addition to the team he is. There were a few times there where I was wondering why in the world we did not pinch hit Carlos Correa for Gilberto Celestino, Nick Gordon, or Miguel Sanó. I understood that we could not pinch hit for José Godoy because we did not have another catcher to go in, but for the others I was a little puzzled. To Rocco, if a player is off, he must be off. Every time Sanó gets a hit, I breathe a sigh of relief. He had a nice single in yesterday's game and no strikeouts- so progress, right? He has played in 15/16 games. so they are really trying to just make him work through what he's been going through. Hopefully things are turning around now. I noticed Target Field is still doing the pitch sequence that I talked about in my last blog, but it is very irregularly shown on the right field screen and only for opposing pitchers, Everyone in the stadium got a huge kick out of the junior PA announcer, who was extremely enthusiastic and sounded like he was announcing a goal at a Wild game when announcing each Twin up to bat. Cute moment from Gleeman here describing how the junior PA announcer got a tour of the press box after his half inning! I wore snow pants to the game, brought big, thick Twins mittens, and wore a full winter coat. I'm not messing around. It looks like it won't be at least until a week into May when it will hit 60 degrees. The Tigers series this week will be cold (a shock, I know). It's been so bad that at this point I'm wondering if Correa knew how cold it was here (albeit, unseasonably so) if he would've come here. We sure are earning that spring this year, and those warm summer nights at Target Field will feel even better after all this, right? Maybe? As a last side note, I got mentioned in David Laurila’s Sunday Notes column at Fangraphs! Thank you so much to Twins Daily’s Matt Braun for pointing that and to David for the kind shoutout. Here is a link to my piece and here is David's! See you at the Ballpark and Win Twins! Walk-off home run!

I guess we'll probably get used to it.. but why do the logos have to be so massive?!

I'm beyond frustrated for so many people who are unable to get the games. Truly, it shouldn't be that hard. I have DirectTV so I'm lucky, but simply being able to watch the games in your own state should not be that much of an ask

Side note from me: I had no idea that Motorola was still solvent as a company, haha

Huge fan of the headline- the more Yogi Berra references we have in our lives, the better

Picture this- it’s 2023 and you’re watching the Twins play an away game on TV. Byron Buxton (fresh off of a career, MVP-caliber 2022 season, by the way) steps up to the plate and gets settled into the box, the camera focused intently on him. And right there practically enveloping his left sleeve is a giant Target Bullseye (or a US Bank logo or the face of a certain well-known realtor) staring back. Back to reality now- these days, nearly everything has a sponsor, and in 2023 Major League Baseball (MLB) jerseys will be no exception. For helmets, sponsorship might even come as early as the 2022 postseason. In March, news broke that MLB and the MLB Player's Association (MLBPA) had agreed to implement jersey advertising as a part of its new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Now, fans have a little more clarity on what these jersey sponsorships will look like. According to recent guidance from the league, individual clubs can begin reaching sponsorship deals for patches beginning in the 2023 season. If a team does not get a deal done, they will not have a sponsor patch, it's on them. Logos will be 4-by-4 inches and can be placed on either the right or left sleeve of the team’s on-field uniform. A team must stick with a sponsor for at least a year, and they must use the same logo for at least a season too. On April 19, the San Diego Padres became the first MLB team to announce a jersey sponsor deal- a 2023 partnership with Motorola. The Padres also released a mockup of what their 2023 jerseys will look like with the Motorola "M" on the sleeve. No, Chris Paddack, it’s not a UPS logo. When negotiating jersey sponsors, teams will have a few constraints. The league and MLBPA must approve all the planned patches, and patches advertising alcohol, betting and media brands are prohibited. Fans will be given the option to buy jerseys with and without the sponsor logo. Team stores will sell authentic jerseys with sponsor patches at the ballpark, and replica jerseys sold by retailers will come without them. While jersey patches will not arrive until 2023, helmet decals could arrive as early as the 2022 postseason. However, unlike sponsor patches, helmet decals will be a league sponsor, not negotiated by the individual team. Jersey and helmet sponsor patches are not entirely new- MLB teams have used them during special games in the past like the 2019 Yankees and Red Sox London Series and its past Opening Day games in Japan. The NFL is now the only major U.S. professional sports league without plans for jersey advertising. Major League Soccer was the first to implement jersey sponsor patches in 2007. Next came the NBA, which added small sponsor patches on the front of jerseys during the 2017-2018 season. The Minnesota Timberwolves are currently on their second uniform sponsor, Aura, after having partnered with FitBit for three seasons. The NHL, which already has helmet sponsors, also plans to allow jersey patches during the 2023 season. My take: Baseball uniforms are synonymous with tradition. Look back at pictures of uniforms from the very beginning of baseball in the 1800s and it is evident that uniforms really have not changed all that much, especially considering the amount of innovation in all other aspects of the game. Yes materials are better, the size of shirt collars have shrunk, and the fit of baseball pants is tighter (especially if you are Robbie Ray), but uniforms have remained largely unchanged since the beginning of baseball. Do modern MLB jerseys really need buttons down the front? Not really, outside of the fact they’ve always had them. Considering advertising has permeated nearly everything in sports (3M Arena at Mariucci, anyone?) I am not surprised that MLB jerseys are the next frontier. But I dislike how ads have crept onto jerseys across sports, especially in baseball and hockey, two sports heavy in tradition with their uniforms. I know that it is within MLB’s rights to raise money how they want, and inventing new places to advertise is essentially like printing free money, but I do not like the direction this is going. Not everything needs a sponsor, not everything needs to be monetized. I don't mind ads on walls or boards, but the players themselves? Ads on players effectively transform them into walking, sliding billboards and make the jerseys look amateurish. "The sleeve makes them look like the Motorola Padres," one of my friends said when I sent him the Padres jersey mockup. Without exception, sponsor patches subtract from the uniform. At best they’re not an eyesore and still a reminder of the ever-accelerating creep of advertisement and profiteering into every aspect of our lives. And it’s the owners who will keep the profit, by the way. While I’m relieved that the logos are only allowed on the MLB jersey sleeves and not the fronts, the logos are jarringly huge. At 4-by-4-inches, they are much larger than what is allowed on current NBA jerseys. The NBA logos do not bother me quite as much due to their smaller 2.5-inch by 2.5-inch size. And while I am also relieved that the MLB sponsor decal is on the side of the helmet and is not replacing the team logo, to me, it just makes the helmet look busy and cheap. Regarding the Twins specifically, I really enjoy the non-sponsor patches the team currently has on their jerseys. On the Twins’ dark blue road jerseys, the Twins circular logo appears on the jersey’s left sleeve (seen in the feature photo above), and on the Twins’ home white jersey, there is a blue Minnesota overlaid with Minny and Paul shaking hands. Some Twins jerseys, like the throwback baby blue jerseys that the Twins wore in 2021, have a patch on both sleeves. But these patches serve as decoration, a pop of color, and in the case of the Minny and Paul patch, a unique nod to the team’s tradition and history, not advertisements. I am curious if in the future patches will be allowed on both jersey sleeves. It seems that, if there is money to be made, these fun, non-advertising jersey patches will be disincentivized. There is also the "slippery slope" argument. Yes, ads are allowed on one sleeve for now. What is stopping MLB from allowing ads on both sleeves, the front, or back of the jerseys next- outside of tradition? Overall, chalk me up as being one of the fans who will buy replica jerseys without the sponsor patch. Hey, if the brand wants me to advertise, they can pay me, not the other way around. What are your thoughts of the jersey patches and helmet decals? Leave a COMMENT below, View full article

Thank you so much, other Melissa! ? (us Melissas have to stick together). That will be a great game to get to and looks like it will be warmer by then!! I'm hoping to get to some games this week, but staying tuned on what happens with the Timberwolves because there's some overlap!

That really DOES look like a UPS uniform..

One of the foul balls Duran threw hit the 3rd baseline scoreboard by me with such force that it broke a piece of the scoreboard off, Never seen anyone like him

Nice post! I think there is still a lot to look forward to from this season. The Dodgers are one of the best teams in the league, so at least we won't have to see THOSE guys for a while again.. bats are starting to wake up! Correa and Sanchez in particular have looked great. I love Nick Gordon too and am happy Miguel Sanó is using one of his songs as his new walkup. Hopefully Sanó figures it out too- he's slimmed down and he's been working hard, so it's a bummer that it hasn't translated onto the field quite yet.

How about the "we had to play a day game after a night game and we were tired" bit?

The Twins just wrapped up their first homestand! I have the Twins Pass so I have a ticket to every home game this year, and I was so baseball-starved that I decided to go to all 4 of the Twins vs. Mariners games and then game 1 vs the Dodgers (I stayed from 6:40-8 p.m., at which point I went to the Timberwolves game. Luckily too- it started raining right after we left + that's when the game fell apart). I did not go to the Wednesday day game vs the Dodgers because of work, and thankfully so- we all know how that one turned out. Here are my observations from going to this bunch of games: Opening Day was a joy to get to. I was just so happy to be back regardless of the game result. Thank goodness the Twins pushed the game back a day, so while it was still chilly out, there was at least a lovely warm sun for a bit. I did stay warm- I wore several pairs of pants, brought hand and toe warmers and thick mittens- the whole works. My brother and I's tradition of attending every Home Opener lives on! We were literally 3 feet away from a Gary Sanchez walk-off win- that would have been an unbelievable cap on the day. It was still somewhat surreal to see Carlos Correa in a Twins uniform! The Opening Day jackets were cool. They are very thin, but they look nice and it's a great windbreaker layer to wear over a sweatshirt or something. I thought the Twins' decision to give out 10,000 of them at each of the first 3 games vs just 30,000 at the first game was kind of a cool idea. Of the 3 jacket days I went to, I got 2 jackets! Duran is the real deal. On Monday, one of the foul balls he through hit the 3rd baseline scoreboard by me with such force that it broke a piece of the scoreboard off. I've never seen anyone throw like he does. I cannot wait to see him pitch again, especially in person with that "101 mph" constantly flashing. I'm a huge fan of our new Yankees additions in Sanchez and Urshela. They appear to have settled in on the team very well and they seem like great locker room guys. I saw Sanchez's Grand Slam on Sunday and it was unbelievable. I'm not sure I've seen a Twins grand slam in person before despite all the games I've attended. What was cool was that his grand slam was part of a bit of a home run outbreak in the MLB- there were 3 in about 20 minutes across the MLB. One of my favorite accounts on twitter is MLB Home Run, which tweets in real time every home run that happens across the MLB. It was really fun seeing our copious amounts of home runs come through on this account. Speaking of, my favorite game I've attended so far was Sunday's day game which had Twins 6 home runs! It was a blast to see Correa's first home run as a Twin- a triple deck launch into outer space. The 7th Inning Stretch is sponsored by Kris Lindahl this season and BOY did people have some thoughts on that. When I tweeted that picture out, I was not expecting the absolute barrage of strong reactions. Check out the replies and quote tweets on my tweet and you'll see what I mean. Kris Lindahl, or someone running his account, liked nearly every one of those replies, I must add. He's always watching. It's definitely spring training for the scoreboard operators. No hate intended towards them, just lots and lots of errors in terms of the wrong player at bat being shown on the jumbotron, the wrong amount of outs being shown on the board, inconsistent displaying of the stats about each player (as in, one player it will show their height, DOB, debut date etc, and the next player it doesn't) the entire jumbo showing a blue screen of death for a bit, etc. The jury is still out in my head on the scoreboard re-design for this season. I do like how with the new design makes the balls, strikes, and outs really huge. The player's batting stats now display in the lineup column on the right side of the jumbotron. They didn't have any facts about the players (ie DOB, height, debut date) for the first couple games, and I was wondering if they just weren't going to do those this year. The fun facts returned for the last 3 games I went to, so it appears it might have been a kink the operators were working out. New this year is the "pitch sequence" displayed on the right field board. I thought it was really interesting to see what pitches guys were going to, but I was surprised it was showing the type and order of pitches for both Mariners AND Twins pitchers. I noticed they stopped showing the pitch sequence for the Twins pitchers after the first couple games- though I'm sure the opposing teams have ways of seeing what pitches are being thrown, putting it up for display and analysis in real time is totally different. I'm wondering if someone complained. Let's keep it to opposing pitchers. The Hammermade sponsorships in the jumbotron pictures are back! Didn't notice our new guys sporting it yet It appeared to be mostly Dodgers fans at the game I attended on Tuesday and boy, do they still have a lot of vitriol for Correa. The "cheater" chants reverberated through the stadium at each of his at-bats. The taunting seemed to work, as Correa smacked two doubles in a row in his first two at bats. I was wondering if these Dodgers fans came into town for the game or where they came from. I should've asked one of them. Dollar Dog night was back on Tuesday! A damp night at the ballpark did not stop us from getting what my brother deemed "Soggy Dogs." They were actually quite good, and they did not have a limit on the number you could buy (their website says two). Attendance at these five games was pretty awful- I wrote a front page article about the Twins' efforts to fill these empty seats. The weather was not ideal though, so better weather and good play should help numbers. There are some really cool walkout songs this season. A few favorites of mine: Sanós new walkup song, "Goat" by G Cinco aka our very own Nick Gordon (who is extremely talented at music in addition to baseball, by the way), Chris Archer's "Voodoo Child", and Tyler Duffey's "Electric Feel." Joe Ryan's Grateful Dead "Fire on the Mountain" quickly grew on me too. I'm really pulling for Sanó. I will always have a soft spot for the players who grew up in our organization, though I fully acknowledge that 6 hit-less games in a row is approaching egregious level. I'm hoping he figures it out soon. That decision to send Sanó around to home on Monday's game was.. a choice. That was obviously not his fault. That game had some pretty rough baserunning. We will need to get that ironed out- and quickly. A reminder that if you buy tickets in person at the box office, you can avoid the heaps of ticket fees. My buddies bought a heap of $4 tickets on Tuesday to avoid ticket fees. I got to the game very early on Sunday because I wanted to make sure I got a jacket in my size, so I had some extra time on my hands. I went into the team stores and they're still selling "October Reign" 2019 Yankees playoffs sweep apparel for semi exorbitant prices. I mean who is going to buy one of these sweatshirts for $40? Come on now, let's slash those prices and clear up some floor space. That's all for now! I'm looking forward to getting to lots more games this season, but I'm hoping the Twins can go on a tear here so we don't get buried before we even get started. Though Twins games are always fun to get to, they're extra enjoyable when the Twins are competitive. Bummer we have to start off the season playing the likes of the Dodgers and Red Sox. See ya out at the ballpark and Go Twins! One photo from each game recap: Friday- Opening Day! (above) Saturday- A beautiful, sunny day for ball! Sunday- Home runs galore! Monday- Second win of the season! Tuesday- Dollar Dog Night!

One of my past cheat codes was that if you signed up at the Designated Driver booth, you'd get a coupon for a free pop. They still have the two booths, one in lower level outfield and the other in upper deck down the third baseline, but they don't give you the pop coupon anymore- it just enters you in a drawing. I just bring a water bottle with me- those prices are too wild

At least it was Dollar Dog night on Tuesday!! ?

My buddies bought in person at the box office when we were at Dodgers game on Tuesday for the sole purpose of avoiding fees. There's a in-stadium box office down the first baseline. I should've mentioned that

Tickpick is the best. That's where I get all my secondhand tickets. They used to not even have sales tax, so the price you saw was the price you get. Now there's tax, but still no fees, which is great

Thanks for the kind words! ? Looking forward to lots of Opening Days to come!!

That was a really good deal they ran- hopefully they bring it back and expand some other deals to include weekend games too. The weekend games I was at this past weekend were extremely empty, so it's not like those automatically fill up in the early season just because it's a Saturday (weekend summer games are better-attended)

SOON, hopefully! Hang on! ? There will be plenty of nice-weather games to be had. I'm waiting to go golfing until it gets warmer

Exactly. An empty seat is going to generate $0 in revenue, but even if they give out a free ticket (which they won't but you get my point) that would generate some money in concessions