Road stretch did Twins no favors

By JOE CHRISTENSEN, Star Tribune

Last update: September 22, 2008 - 11:15 PM

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The Twins tried being good sports about their schedule, as they traveled to eight cities in a little more than a month, including a one-week layover in Minneapolis.

By the end of their last road trip, however, they couldn't mask their frustration.

"This is as brutal of a stretch as I've ever seen -- 24 out of 30 on the road is a joke at this time of year," first baseman Justin Morneau said Sunday. "So we'll be happy to be home."

Yes, home at last. That will be a prevailing theme tonight, as the Twins open a three-game series with the White Sox at the Metrodome.

Kansas City arrives on Friday, as the Twins will play their final six games at home.

They were 72-54 on Aug. 20, when they left on their 14-game trip to Los Angeles, Seattle, Oakland and Toronto. They returned home for six games, then set out again for Baltimore, Cleveland and Tampa Bay.

All told, they went 12-18.

"We knew this was going to be a very tough stretch; there's no doubt," manager Ron Gardenhire said. "For a young team, going on the road for 24 out of 30 -- you don't even have to put the young in there -- for any baseball team, any season in the dog days, that's a lot of travel. A lot of baseball away from the friendly confines."

The Twins brought some of this on themselves, however. The team prefers to do West Coast trips in three-city swings, and they also requested to be gone during the Republican National Convention.

That spurred the schedule makers to add Toronto to their trip west, creating the longest road trip for the Twins since 1969.

Still, as a Midwest team, the Twins will end up flying about half as many miles as their West Coast counterparts, especially Seattle.

The Twins wouldn't be dwelling on all the travel if it hadn't coincided with their worst stretch of the season.

"To say it's because of the schedule, I don't know," Gardenhire said. "We just found a tough time to go through some rough baseball."

Here's the rub: Next year won't be much easier, as the Twins will play 17 of their final 29 games -- and 10 of their final 13 -- on the road.

Attendance update

The Twins have sold about 90,000 advance tickets for the White Sox series and expect about 35,000 to 40,000 for tonight's game, a team spokesman said.

As of late Monday afternoon, none of the games were sold out, though team officials hoped a Game 1 victory would change that.

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