{"id":661372,"date":"2026-04-03T19:30:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T19:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661372\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T19:30:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T19:30:40","slug":"game-7-rays-at-twins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661372\/","title":{"rendered":"Game 7: Rays at Twins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Remember<\/a><\/p>\n

Remember this game from 2021? Buxton probably does. Brace Hemmelgarn\/Minnesota Twins\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

First pitch: 3:10 Central<\/p>\n

Weather: Cold and drizzly, THAT FITS, 38\u00b0<\/p>\n

Opponent\u2019s SB site: DRays Bay<\/a>TV: Twins TV, FOX 9 (maybe, probably?). Radio: Here\u2019s the list of this year\u2019s Treasure Island Baseball Network stations. Hiya Eau Claire<\/a>!<\/p>\n

The Athletic recently released their 2026 MLB Hope-O-Meter<\/a>, surveying over 11,000 baseball fans on whether or not they are \u201coptimistic\u201d about their favorite team\u2019s chances this season. Here\u2019s what one fan had to say: \u201cThis team is just doomed. Utterly doomed. And frankly, as long as [the current owners are] in charge, it deserves to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

That fan was describing the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. They were 29th out of 30 teams for Fan Optimism, at 5.7% of fans being hopeful. Ranking 30th, with 4.3%? Your Minnesota Twins. One fan said this: \u201cI was sitting at the rehearsal dinner of my mother\u2019s wedding when the Twins\u2019 fire sale began. I sat in disbelief watching players be shipped out like Amazon packages. If her marriage fails, it\u2019s the Pohlads\u2019 fault.\u201d<\/p>\n

I would remind that fan, though, that when Arte Moreno bought the Angels and started spending a little more on players in the early 2000s, he was seen as a savior for the franchise. And now he\u2019s despised. New owners can ALWAYS be worse.<\/p>\n

My favorite take on the Twins came from some friends we were recently visiting down South, who moved there to be near their grandkids. One of these friends has been a Twins fan from their opening season in 1962. His daughter-in-law helped some Twins players find day care in the early 2000s, and the son\/daughter-in-law got a nice present from one of those Twins for their wedding, a very fancy dinnerware set.<\/p>\n

Guess which player spent nicely on the dinnerware set? Have you even READ this blog before? It has to be Nick Punto, and it was Nick Punto!<\/p>\n

And that friend said he was as disgusted with the team as he\u2019s ever been. Even more than when they lost Rod Carew because of Cal Griffith\u2019s bigoted remarks.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I think that frustration\u2019s going around.<\/p>\n

The way I choose to approach the team this year is like the way I approached them in 2001, my first full baseball season living in Minnesota, and the first time I paid any attention to the Twins. I\u2019m going to assume this team completely sucks, and let them surprise me if they don\u2019t. (I know 2001 was a long time ago, but the Twins were competitive right up until about the last month of the season.) If they surprise me, great! If they don\u2019t, no big deal. I\u2019m not going to put any emotional energy into this team until they make me.<\/p>\n

Heck, there\u2019s always the Saints to root for\u2026 whose pitchers walked 20 batters<\/a> on Tuesday. I blame the guy who posted the Brian Dinkelman Memorial Link Dump<\/a>; Dinkelman\u2019s the manager of that squad.<\/p>\n

TV Fun! TwinsDaily says<\/a> this is on FOX 9 in the Twin Cities, and so does FOX 9\u2019s website. MLB.com\u2019s \u201cProbable Pitchers\u201d website doesn\u2019t say that (it used to be a reliable resource for which games were on which channel, maybe it still is, I dunno anymore). So I guess we\u2019ll find out? Here\u2019s hopin\u2019.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an official statement<\/a> from the Twins on how to watch the games, with this handy explanation of blackout rules:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Um, doesn\u2019t the last \u201cno\u201d contradict the first \u201cyes\u201d? Silly me, I thought the new way of doing things was going to end the idiotic blackout rules! Wasn\u2019t I a dum-dummy!<\/p>\n

As you enjoy the cold weather today, give a read to Al Yellon of BleedCubbieBlue, who really hates it<\/a> that MLB schedules games in cold places in late March \/ early April. Anybody who likes Steve Goodman half as much<\/a> as I do is OK in my book, whether you agree with Yellon on the weather or not.<\/p>\n

Anyhoo, as to the Rays, they finished 77-85 last year, kept their best players, and added a few decent starting pitchers to the rotation. They\u2019ve also got our favorite Air Force Academy grad, Griffin Jax, in the bullpen. Today\u2019s Rays starter is Joe Boyle, who throws a high-90s fastball and high-80s slider, among a sinker and some offspeed stuff; he does tend to be around the middle of the plate, for guys who can hit such things. Boyle made his debut for the As in 2023 and burnt his mouth on coffee<\/a>. So that\u2019s what you know about Him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remember this game from 2021? Buxton probably does. Brace Hemmelgarn\/Minnesota Twins\/Getty Images First pitch: 3:10 Central Weather: Cold…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[5,822,60,84349,3190,4,148],"class_list":{"0":"post-661372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-twins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-minnesota","10":"tag-minnesota-twins","11":"tag-minnesota-twins-game-information","12":"tag-minnesotatwins","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-twins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116342440509963825","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}