The lede story continues to be the horror of the war in the Gaza Strip. Israel is preparing to invade, but no one I have heard or read feels like that will “get rid” of Hamas. This is a horrible story because of the depth of suffering that has occurred and is about to occur. I chose this image because it reminds me of my grandchildren and how terrified I would be if they were with me and I had to find food, water, and shelter for them. And there are two million plus people in Gaza who are in this situation. There are also thousands of people in Israel who are living in fear of more attacks, missile or otherwise.

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The baseball season ended with a called third strike; a fitting conclusion for the hometown nine – the Minnesota Twins – who swung and missed at a record pace this year. There are several reasons that contributed to our loss, but the number one factor was that we didn’t put the ball in play very often. Granted the pitching in the playoffs is better, but we struck out 14 times yesterday and that is way, way too many to be successful.

Derek Falvey and Thad Levine deserve tremendous credit for assembling the best pitching staff we have had in a very long time. I am tempted to say that this is the best pitching staff we have had since I moved to Minnesota in 1983. (I am being lazy – a horrible sin as a writer, and I am not offering supporting factual detail to support that claim.) Pedro Lopez, Sonny Gray, Joe Ryan, and Bailey Ober were great starting pitchers and now that Chris Paddack is healthy our pitching future continues to look bright.

The relief corps was also very impressive. Jhoan Duran was our closer, and he is very impressive. There are a number of other outstanding arms that helped make this group very strong. Caleb Thielbar, Griffin Jax, Brock Stewart, and Emilio Pagán all did very well at providing us quality innings.

Our Achilles heel was hitting the baseball. After trading Luis Arraez, the 2022 American League batting champ, for Pedro Lopez it was to be expected that our hitting would dip a bit, but the addition of Joey Gallo, the injury to Byron Buxton, which forced him to DH all year – a job he struggled with mightily, by his own admission were two sources of endless strikeouts. To be sure, other hitters, Carlos Correa, and almost everyone else struggled to make regular contact with the baseball. Donovan Solano and rookie, Edouard Julien were two bright spots on the offensive side.

I think our pitching situation is strong, but we need to develop better hitters. We need to help Trevor Larnach, Matt Wallner, and Alex Kirilloff are three young men who seem to be floundering too often at the plate. We need to get some help.

If Byron Buxton actually heals and can play in center field, then that is a huge left. Michael A. Taylor did very well, hitting 21 home runs and playing great defense, but batting .154 in the playoffs is just not enough.

I was so mad when Rocco Baldelli pulled Joe Ryan after two innings. The strategy worked, but if we needed to go into extra innings, Emilio Pagan was our only arm left. Not a great strategy IMHO.

It will be interesting to see what the Twins say and do between now and next March. It was a fun year. We won a playoff game, and a playoff series. We showed that we have some of the pieces, but we need more of them.