Ron Gardenhire admitted something that few sports figures ever do on Sunday: That athletes read what's written about them.
That's why he made it clear Saturday night how unhappy he was with his team's intensity, how disappointed he was that Tampa Bay was able to win with so little resistance, how he noticed that one team was hungry and the other was not. Those quotes were recorded, reported and printed. And, presumably, noticed in the clubhouse.
"They read your articles, believe it or not," Gardenhire said to the assembled media after the game. "When you talk about stuff like this in the newspapers, about "one team's getting after it and one's not," these guys read the articles."
Well, that explains a few things. "It's why I use and abuse you," he joked with reporters. "I think they read some stuff. I hope they did. That's the way you're supposed to play, right there" as they did in Sunday's 6-4 victory.
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It was a pretty lousy homestand, all things considered, with the Twins going 3-7, scoring only 28 runs in 10 games, and getting shut out three times. Since the Twins are 3-14 in their last 17 games at Target Field, maybe it's for the best they're headed to Chicago, where they took three out of four last month, and Oakland, where they are 6-5 over the past three years.
Still, there's one interesting thread between the three wins this week: They came in games started by Jared Weaver, Jarrod Parker and David Price. Not a bad collection of pitchers.
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