February 22, 2011
Paul Konerko responds to Alex Rios’ ‘We’re the team to beat’ statement
“To me, you guys know me, the team to beat is the Twins.
Whoever wins the title from the year before is the champion until they get knocked off. What I think about what’s being said or what anybody thinks is irrelevant. We’ll get an answer 6½ months from now. That’s how it is. It’s pretty black and white
I don’t know how that came up with Alex. Maybe he didn’t mean it like that or maybe he was trying to be confident. But that’s fine. I am too. But it’s pretty simple. You go out and play the games every day and at the end of September there will be a champion in this division. There’s no need to talk about it up until then.
But the Twins deserve the respect. They earned it last year and had a great year. Until someone knocks them off, they are the team.”
That’s more like it.
Vegas Watch 2011 MLB Wins Over/Unders
VW’s AL Central Wins Over/Unders:
Minnesota- 87
Chicago W- 84.5
Detroit- 83.5
Cleveland- 71
Kansas City- 70
Carlos Quentin tries to relax
“Pressure is always something that’s been self-inflicted by myself, it’s something I’ve worked on to lighten up and enjoy this game this off-season,” Quentin said Tuesday morning. “And definitely bringing in this enormous bats with Paulie (Konerko), A.J. (Pierzynski) and Adam (Dunn), it will be fun to be on this field with these guys, like it’s always has been for me. And it will be even better.”
Konerko, AJ and Dunn? Enormous bats? Well, one of these things isn’t like the other.
Rewind yourself
So Nick Wright of 610 AM is interviewing Mike Moustakas about character. It’s all very positive. The Royals value character, the team is full of high-character guys, that kind of thing. Then Wright asks Moustakas about the fact that he might start the year in the minors, because of baseball’s service time system.
For whatever reason, Jason Kendall strongly objected to this question. (Audio here.) …
UPDATE: Online audio.
