The Minnesota Twins avoided the shame and embarrassment of a 100-loss season during Wednesday night's season finale against the Kansas City Royals.
Thanks to a complete game-shutout performance by Carl Pavano, a ridiculous diving catch by Ben Revere, and a walkoff single off the bat of Trevor Plouffe, the Twins came away with a 1-0 win for a 63-99 season record.
Unfortunately, 99 losses is not all that much better than 100. Obviously just one win better. In fact, the appearance of triple-digits in the Loss Column would better serve as proof of just how terrible the 2011 season really was. Not only did the Twins not make the playoffs, they finished as far out as they possibly could with the worst record in the American League. Only the 56-106 Houston Astros sucked more than Minnesota.
Well, at least they won't be swept by the Yankees in the ALDS this year.
In a season plagued by injuries, filled with mistakes, and marred by mismanagement, it can only get better from here. There are many questions to be answered and broken crap to be fixed this offseason, like strengthening the rotation and the bullpen, signing and/or ditching free agents, trading away the junk, bolstering the offense... yep, pretty much all of it.
Ron Gardenhire, who for some reason sounded rather optimistic after the win, had this to say postgame:
"A very exciting end to the season for us. Kind of a storybook way to get out of this season for nine innings and get a couple big hits there at the end and win it like that in front of these fans, who have been so good to us and been behind us through thick and thin."
Whatever, Ron. I don't want to read that book ever again, cause the story sucked.
