twins/mlb

You can look at it as a positive, that the Vikings' running game and defense were strong enough on Sunday that they rarely needed to throw the ball.

Or you can look at it realistically and say that quarterback Christian Ponder continues to regress.

Sunday, he completed 11 of 17 passes, which is fine, but he threw for just 91 yards against a defense stacked up to stop Adrian Peterson. He took just one sack, but almost fumbled while foolishly trying to throw the ball away on a play that could have turned into a game-turning fumble.

He threw one awful interception into triple coverage. And he continued to look skittish in the pocket.

His post-game press conference lasted less than two minutes, because we have nothing left to ask him and he has nothing left to say.

He's a nice guy, if that sort of thing matters to you. He really is. He's accountable and friendly and honest and all that good stuff. But he's playing lousy football.

If there was a positive development in the passing game, it was that there were a few Michael Jenkins sightings on Sunday. He caught four of the five passes thrown his direction. With Kyle Rudolph catching zero passes, Jenkins at least helped move the chains a few times.

My Monday column is about what the victory meant for the team and Leslie Frazier.

I'll be on WJON in St. Cloud on Monday at 7:15, and on 1500ESPN at 2:05 p.m. with Reusse & Mackey.

Please follow me on Twitter at @Souhanstrib.

In the first 47 years of Vikings history, Viking running back produced one 200-yard game.

Scine 2006, Adrian Peterson has produced three.

He rushed 21 times for 210 yards and a career-long 82-yard touchdown on Sunday. Because of Christian Ponder's two horrific interceptions deep in Packers territory, Peterson's efforts weren't enough, and the Packers won, 23-14.

Since Washington ``held'' him to 79 yards, Peterson has rushed for: 153, 123, 182, 171, 108 and 210 yards. On the season, he's rushed 213 times for 1,236 yards and seven touchdowns. He's averaging 5.8 yards per carry.

His previous career-high was 5.6 yards per carry in limited action as a rookie. His yards per carry starting in '07: 5.6, 4.8, 4.4, 4.6 and 4.7 before this season.

He's never been better. With four games remaining, he could challenge his career high of 1,760 yards, set in 2008.

The question of the day is whether the Vikings are wasting the best years of one of the best running backs ever to play the game.

``It's very disappointing, especially the way we ran the ball today,'' Peterson said.

What struck me, watching it live, was that the Packers entered this season once again as a Super Bowl contender, and the Vikings were thought to be rebuilding, and yet the Vikings would have won at Lambeau with a competent performance from their quarterback.

If you want to play the good news/bad news game, the good news is that the Vikings look capable of beating the Bears and Packers with decent quarterback play; the bad news is they're not getting decent quarterback play.

As I wrote in my column for tomorrow's paper, the Vikings are making a mistake, hanging the entire season on Ponder. If he plays poorly, he should be benched, just like anybody else on the team.

-I'll be on WJON in St. Cloud at 7:15 a.m. on Monday, and on with Reusse and Mackey on 1500ESPN tomorrow afternoon.

My Twitter handle is @Souhanstrib.

Last night in Miami, in a nationally-televised game that had to be a prime ticket on South Beach, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich didn't even bring along three of his best players.

He put Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobli and Tony Parker on a flight home to San Antonio instead of having them dress for the game against the Heat.

He was wrong, and I'm amazed at how many of my peers are either defending Popovich or ripping commissioner David Stern for threatening sanctions.

It would be one thing to play his stars limited minutes. How he uses his stars in the course of a game is beyond the reach of the commissioner or anyone else. When he doesn't bring them to the arena, he is begging to be punished.

As for those ripping Stern for threatening sanctions, well, just because he's made mistakes during his career doesn't disqualify him from trying to make good decisions moving forward.

The NBA is an entertainment entity. It is dependent upon television ratings and attendance. Sending the signal that you don't care about winning regular-season games, that you don't care about even competing in certain regular-season games, is wrong. It's bad for business. It's bad for the league's image. That puts this in Stern's court.

Popovich is a great coach, but his arrogance leads him to forget why he's making millions of dollars. He's making millions of dollars because his league is popular. When he damages the reputation of his team and his league, he is begging to be fined or suspended.

The fact that some teams tank at the end of seasons doesn't make what Popovich did on Thursday night right. Tanking needs to be addressed, as well.

Stern isn't overstepping in addressing this. He's doing his job.

-I'll be on 1500espn at 2:05 today with Reusse and Mackey. My Twitter handle is @Souhanstrib.

As a longstanding member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, I have a Hall of Fame vote. I often wish I didn't. I'm not sure any of us are qualified to judge who belongs in the Hall. I don't really want the responsibility, and I frequently disagree with my brethren about judging athletes linked to steroids or rumored to have used steroids, and about our fitness to judge the ``character'' of a candidate.

But I vote because I feel it is my responsibility. In recent years, I've been voting for Jack Morris. I felt that even though his statistics make him a borderline candidate, I recognize him as a dominant pitcher who performed his best in big games and ate up an incredible number of innings. I greatly value innings, because having your ace on the mound is a great advantage to your team. Call it VORP: Value over Relief Pitcher.

While I've voted for Morris, I have not campaigned for him, because I understand the arguments against him: He did not dominate in vital categories like ERA and strikeouts, and he pitched for mostly good teams, which elevated him in the dubious category of pitcher victories.

In a piece writte by Stuart Miller for the New York Times baseball blog, Miller notes that Morris may be about to get his lucky break. He's on the same ballot as a number of players tainted by steroid use or rumors. Morris, who received 66.7 percent of the votes last year, may make it because he is viewed as a clean player.

I disagree with that approach. I will vote for players regardless of their reputations because I don't believe I, or any of my peers, are qualified to discern who used performance enhancing drugs and who didn't. We just don't know and we shouldn't pretend that we do.

More interesting about Miller's piece is that he writes something that contradicts what I've heard from many sabermatricians.

The longstanding argument in favor of Morris has been that he pitched just well enough to win, meaning he would pitch to the situation, giving up more runs and hits when he was far ahead, which could damage his stats without hurting his team.

The longstanding argument from stat-heads has been that pitchers do not pitch to the situation, and that there was no proof of Morris doing so.

Here's the key portion of Miller's piece: 

``(Morris) has fallen short for 13 years because he is a classic borderline case, with plenty of arguments both for and against him. He never was dominant in terms of E.R.A., WHIP or strikeouts — in the American League, he finished in the top 5 in E.R.A., WHIP and strikeouts per nine innings just twice each — but he knew how to win. That sounds a bit like an intangible, and it is, but Morris won 254 games by pitching to the situation — when his team gave him more run support he pitched to contact, striking out and walking fewer batters, allowing more hits and more runs.

The closer the game, the lower the opposing team’s batting average against him. And most significant, he rarely missed a turn and almost always went deep into games, averaging 33 starts and nearly 7 1/3 innings per start from 1979 through 1992.

That also was invaluable to his teams, since he kept lesser starters off the hill and allowed the bullpen to rest. (This was a guy who rang up 64 complete game losses.) He also led the 1984 Detroit Tigers and the 1991 Minnesota Twins to World Series, turning in one of baseball’s greatest performances with his 10-inning Game 7 shutout in 1991.''

That is the best summation of Morris' career I've ever seen, and it bolsters my reasons for voting for Morris for the Hall of Fame.

-I'll be on 1500espn at 2:05 today with Reusse and Mackey, and on with Tom Pelissero at 6:40. My Twitter handle is @Souhanstrib