The Twins can win

Published 12:00 am Thursday, July 6, 2006

Ever see the movie &8220;Major League&8221;? If you are a baseball fan, of course you have.

We have a &8220;Major League&8221; situation here in Minnesota. Well, sort of.

The Twins don’t have an owner purposely building a horrible team, but we do have a league that makes building a good team in a small market difficult.

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In the movie, the owner wanted to move the Cleveland Indians. Talking of moving the Twins out of Minnesota has been as common as talking about the weather until this year, thanks to the state Legislature approving a new downtown Minneapolis stadium.

In the movie, it took time for the teammates to gel as a team. For the Twins, it took time for these wild things to get their act together, too.

In the movie, the Indians caught up with the division leader and made the playoffs.

We believe in these Twins. We believe they can catch the division leader.

The Detroit Tigers are a team built on quality pitching. Kenny Rogers is their veteran, but Justin Verlander is a rookie and Jeromy Bonderman is a young pitcher. When you think of the Tigers, you don’t really think of sluggers, except for Pudge Rodriguez, who has faced back spasms and a left-wrist injury this year, even though he hasn’t made the disabled list.

Minnesota is nine games behind Detroit. The Chicago White Sox are 1 1/2 games behind. The All-Star Game is July 11, the Twins have played the Tigers only three games in May, so there’s a lot of baseball to be played. Remember 2003? The Seattle Mariners were the best team in baseball at the All-Star Game break but failed to make the postseason.

Our prognostication for the second half of the season in the American League Central Division is that Detroit will hit a slump, Chicago will win the division and the Twins will slip into the postseason as a wild card.

Stay tuned to see how the movie ends.