Twins-Blue Jays: Wait a minute, the baseball season is not over yet

The Twins will try to end their nine-game home losing streak today when they play host to the Blue Jays at Target Field. The Twins have been swept at Target Field five times this season, not counting rain-shortened series or make-up games.

Andrew Albers had pitched at least into the sixth inning in his first five major league outings but was knocked out in the second inning earlier this week against Houston. Is his control a little off or has the scouting network caught up with him? Twins manager Ron Gardenhire feels it is a location issue. So Albers has to get ahead in the count and give himself a chance, because a mistake to some of the hitters on this team will travel 400 feet.

Some post-game notes from last night:

Josmil Pinto singled in the eighth inning Saturday to extend his hit streak to five games. He is the ninth Twin to begin his career with a hit in at least five straight games…in five major league games he is hitting .556 (10‐for‐18) with a home run, three RBI and four runs scored.

Trevor Plouffe has at least one hit in 16 of his last 19 games. Over the 19 games he is hitting .324 (24‐for‐74) with eight
doubles, two home runs and five RBI.

Alex Presley collected a hit in his fourth straight game and is batting .370 since joing the Twins.

Other stuff

Chris Herrmann wants to play winter ball.

Darin Mastroianni will not, opting to spend the offseason in the Twin Cities and work on being as fit as possible before spring training.

Today is Ron and Carol Gardenhire's 34th wedding anniversary. Yes, they were married in September. Gardenhire had finished the season in the minors and had one weekend before instructional league began. Their honeymoon was instructional league.

It's become obvious that the city of Minneapolis is on a revenue drive before the baseball season ends. Normally, parking prices in the ramp don't go up until three hours before game time. Now, the city is jacking up the rates earlier than that. I arrived at the ramp nearly four hours before gametime today amd the $13 sign already was in place. ``You're charging me $13 to park when the team is 16 games under .500 in September?" I cried at the woman taking my money. She laughed. I'm sure that's what the people running the parking ramps are doing at 9:15 a.m. on a Sunday. Can't wait to see how many people park in those ramps on this first NFL Sunday of the year.

Blue Jays (66-76)

Pitching: Esmil Rogers, RHP

Twins (61-79)

1. Alex Presley, CF
2. Chris Herrmann, C
3. Brian Dozier, 2B
4. Oswaldo Arcia, LF
5. Ryan Doumit, DH
6. Trevor Plouffe, 3B
7. Chris Colabello, 1B
8. Clete Thomas, RF
9. Pedro Florimon, SS