We had a phone interview earlier this afternoon with the Twins' Orlando Hudson for a Page 2 Q&A coming out later this week spotlighting his Twins & Pins charity bowling event July 29 along with other various Twins things. Toward the end, we snuck in a couple hardball questions that might have a pretty short shelf life, so we thought we'd throw them out there now. Please note that the second question originally had a reference to Clarence Swamptown's brawl suggestion but that we scratched it at the last minute (and will forever regret it): RandBall: Have you had a chance to think about the first half and the potential of the Twins vs. what transpired in the last month and a half or so?
Orlando Hudson: Nah man, it's baseball. The first half is gone. It's gone for everybody. Now we're getting ready for the second half. The first half started off pretty good, and then we hit a bump in the road. But every team hits a bump in the road. … Now we're going to get back on a hot streak, and before you know it we'll hit another little bump in the road. … But hopefully we'll hit another hot streak at the end and take it right on through and get a division lead and take it into the playoffs.
RB: The underlying message I hear from fans seems to be the Twins need to play with more fire or aggression. What's your take on that?
O-Dog: Nah, we have fire. There's a lot of fire here. But nothing bothers us. We're professional athletes, and we've all been here before. We've seen it done. These guys played Game 163 for two years straight, so they know what the grind is. … It's not about hoo-rah and jumping up like we have mini-skirts and pom-poms. We're just going to sit there and hit home runs and win the game. Or if we lose, we'll pick it up and keep going.
