Dave Paisley

"The only thing you can say about this homestand is Seattle took us behind the woodshed and whipped us for a while." - Twins shortstop Denny Hocking.

This past weekend featured a four game series between the two teams with the best records in baseball. And, as absolutely nobody predicted before the season, the two teams involved were the Minnesota Twins and Seattle Mariners. As recently as 1999 you couldn’t have forced 10,000 people into the Metrodome with pitchforks and cattle prods to watch these teams play. But in mid-season 2001, here we are with almost sellout crowds throughout the weekend.

The rise of Seattle this year has been covered in excruciating detail in all the national media (although not as much as if it had been, say the Red Sox) and here, which is nice for me because I also get to see most of it first hand. The Twins, on the other hand, have been a stealth presence in the upper ranks of baseball this year. Sure, people know they are there, but almost everyone expects them to fall from grace "any minute now," including most Twins fans. Maybe especially most Twins fans. While the Mariners have been doing their magic with both pitching and offense, the Twins have got by with average offense and are really making headway with their pitching, headed by Radke, Milton and Mays.

For the four game series, the Twins skipped the Mariners #1 starter, Freddy Garcia, while they sent out #3 Joe Mays in game 1, plugged in two rookies filling in the #4 and #5 slots and finished with ace Brad Radke on Monday. So the Mariners missed seeing Eric Milton, the #2 guy in the Twins rotation. One critical difference between the starting pitching is that the Twins probably are slightly better at the top of the rotation, but have struggled all year with the last two slots. Since Mark Redman’s injury early in the year, there hasn’t been much after the big three for the Twins. Seattle, though, is solid all around, but without the real spectacular guys at the top.

The series sweep by the Mariners went 4-0 behind a pitching gem by Aaron Sele in the first game. Game 2 was a 6-3 win despite yanking starter Joel Pineiro after 2 innings. Game 3 was really a romp for the Mariners behind Paul Abbott, although three runs in the ninth made the 6-3 score look deceptively close. The finale featured Jamie Moyer out-dueling Brad Radke 3-2. The series also featured outstanding pitching by the Mariner bullpen, as usual. John Halama, in four-plus innings of long relief in game 2, allowed the first, and so far only, Mariner bullpen run since the All-Star break.

Overall, the Mariners outscored the Twins 19-8. And there's the heart of the Twins problem - lack of offense. With basically a league average offense there's no margin for error, and over this series, enough of the offense disappeared to be the difference. Th normally reliable Matt Lawton was a mere 2-14, Torii Hunter was 1-13 with 6 strikeouts and Luis Rivas was 0-15 with 3 strikeouts. With three black holes in the lineup like that it's tough to get much going. On the bright side, the Twins did get David Ortiz back at DH and he did provide some instant offense. Shortstop Christian Guzman is also due back off the DL any time now and couldn’t possible provide less offense than his replacements.

Obviously, Twins fans weren't pleased at the turn of events over the weekend. Nobody likes to see a team come in and slap the hometown boys upside the head like that. Still, Twins fans are nothing if not stoic. Longtime Twins fan and strikethree.com correspondent Karla had this to say about the series:

Karla writes:

It's pretty ugly to be see a five game lead over the second place team melt away in the course of a week. And it's not over - the Twins face the A's and Mariners for six more games this week before returning to safer haven of the Blue Jays and Royals, followed by a home set against the now hated Cleveland Indians. As Karla points out, though, the AL is headed by Seattle with a pack of four teams jostling for the three remaining playoff spots, all with virtually identical records now. That's assuming the A's don't remain ultra-hot and catapult themselves into the race.

On the surface it appears that the series was something of an anti-climax. The reality is, though, that the series was well played with the Mariners executing perfectly. And this weekend, we get to it all over again, only this time in Seattle.

Will the Twins lackluster offensive performance last weekend result in the state of Minnesota seceding from the Union and joining Canada? Would anyone notice if they did? Then again, you could always ask Dave Paisley at drdjp@strikethree.com if Jesse Ventura will be seeking personal vengeance for poking fun at his state...

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