Ah, the fluidity of baseball. I’m away for a couple of days and the Twins’ entire situation does about three 360’s, and they now find themselves landed somewhere roughly resembling on their feet.
After the 22-1 Toronto loss, I think a lot of people were ready to write the epitaph on this season. The only real question remaining in a lot of minds was whether or not they could cling on to that final playoff spot before being sacrificed to the Baycats in the first round. I was even ready to write a post about how the chances of them hanging onto that playoff spot had gone, in my mind, from about to certain to still highly probable to possibly questionable after they dropped 4-3 game in Hamilton on Sunday.
I would have written that in order for them to miss the playoffs, they would need to lose again to Hamilton and Hamilton would need to steal a couple of games here and there.
And then, lo and behold, paranormal events of paranormal events, the lowly Thunderbirds stun the second place Brantford Red Sox on Tuesday, and I was starting to think that the Twins’ ship had sailed.
And then, and then, and then... the Twins rolled into Oshawa tonight and, looking dead in the water, posted a four-run top of the ninth to go up by 2, and then held on to a one run lead after giving up a run in the bottom of the ninth, to pick up a HUGE come-from-behind win against a key rival in the standings and turn all of this speculation right on its head.
I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the importance of this win. I haven’t had a chance to look at the boxscore yet, which is often just as important as the result itself, but that does little to change what this game means for the Twins.
It gives them a three and a half game buffer over the T-Birds for that last spot, and, perhaps more importantly, pulls them within a game and a half of Kitchener for the seventh spot. London and Oshawa, in the fifth and sixth spots, are a ways up – the Twins trail both by 4 games, and it would take a torrent final month to make up those games. Not impossible – but it will be very, very tough to do.
Aside from the strict math of the standings, the win demonstrates a couple of things: i) the Twins aren’t as bad as they’ve demonstrated over the past little while – which makes sense, since no one could be, and ii) they can still beat the teams ahead of them that they need to beat to make up ground in the playoff race. This, too, was seriously challenged during the losing streak.
The seventh spot is interesting – if Mississauga were to get there, it would set up a likely first round matchup with Brantford. This, by far, represents the Twins’ best shot at an upset. They’ve already beaten the Red Sox once – on the road, to boot. They also came very, very close to beating them at home on opening day. Perhaps most interestingly, the Red Sox have shown that they can be vulnerable at times, dropping that shocker to Hamilton.
Anyways, tomorrow’s (tonight’s, actually) home game against the Maple Leafs represents a chance to take a big step forward. Unfortunately, I won’t be there, but I should be blogging on the outcome and doing a game story based on long-distance interviewing.
Speaking of which, part of the reason I felt so down on the Twins before seeing the outcome of the Oshawa game might have something to do with the fact that I spent about two hours tonight writing the past three games’ worth of articles – man, those were bad. The games, not the articles – obviously. They should be up soon on MississaugaTwins.ca, and whenever they are I’ll include a link here.
The IBL has posted updated statistics, and I would encourage everyone to take a look at them – they really strengthen your understanding of who is doing what and help you think critically about what is going on in the games. They are right here:
http://www.theibl.ca/documents/RELEASE7_000.pdf
I’m going to check into whether or not some of the new guys listed with the Twins are permanent team members now, or if that page is just including call-ups. As always, if I find out anything of substance, it will go here – and possibly into a piece for the website!
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