A Few Good Notes: Past Twins All Stars, The Deficit, and TwinsTrain

• Tomorrow, Michael Cuddyer will be representing the Twins at this years MLB All Star Game. And since he will be entering the game as a reserve, it may be possible that he will only get one at bat. Hopefully, he can make the most of his at bat or two because past Twins hitters have not had great success in the mid summer classic. Since 2002, Twins hitters in the All Star Game (Torii Hunter, AJ Pierzynski, Joe Mauer, and Justin Morneau) have hit just .174 (4-23) with 2 2B, 2 BB, and 1 RBI. But its possible that Cuddyer could help add to those numbers with his hot hitting in July (.417, 3 HR, 13 RBI).
  
• On June 1, the Twins took their final loss in Detroit, and their record dropped to 17-37 and sat 16.5 games out of first place. Since then, they have gone 24-11 and have cut their deficit in the AL Central to 6.5 games. And now coming out of the break, they will have Delmon Young returning to the lineup, and the prospect of Denard Span and Jason Kubel returning shortly there after. And as Nick Nelson writes in his blog yesterday, he doesn't see the Twins being buyers at this years trade deadline even if the team stays in the race. I mainly agree with him on that, but I do think they would consider looking to acquire bullpen help as deadline nears.
• This past weekend, I had the opportunity to go watch the Twins play a couple of games against the White Sox. I chose to do that this year with TwinsTrain. And if you haven't heard of TwinsTrain by now, I strongly encourage you to do so. For a very fair price, you get to see a couple of games, explore the city you are in (The destinations are different every year), you travel everywhere on a nice coach bus, and the hotel is also included in this package. I wasn't sure what to expect going in to this trip, and after it was all said and done, this was probably the best road trip I have ever taken. Got to see two Twins/Sox games (The second game we got to hang out in the patio), and then on Saturday night we did a bit of eating and drinking (more of the drinking, haha) around Chicago. The event was very well organized. I believe they are out of trips for the 2011 season, but continue to check their site for additional trips this year, or check back later on for 2012 trips. I will keep a link for them on the right side of the blog here. Again, I look forward to doing this again and I encourage you to do so too.