We face Minnesota this week; should we actually want to knock them out?

In this millennium, few things have produced more enjoyable autumnal memories than our good friends, the Twinkies of Minnesota. Basically, they've served us cakewalk after cakewalk: 2003, 2004, 2009 and 2010 in Octobers past - each series a stress-free whupping of those congenital patsies from the state that brought us the deceased celebrity formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince. Here's to 'Sota! The state fish is Walleye. The state drink is milk. The state bird: The Common Loon. I fucking love these people. (Please, stay off the bridges.) 

If there were such a thing as my fave rival - you know, in the way that Catwoman loosens a notch on Batman's utility belt - I hereby nominate our cousins from the land of 1,000 lakes: In the name of Bob Dylan and John Ryan Murphy, may they always play against us!

... And then there are those mean-spirited, celebrity-grubbing Hollywood back-stabbers, the Los Angeles California Angels of Anaheim, California. The Golden State Warriors of baseball. I am gritting my teeth now, just pondering their greasy, stomach-turning existence. If Darren Aronofsky directed a baseball version of Human Centipede, it would be the Angels. Twice, they knocked us out of playoff competition, including the single-after-single, small blade wounds decimation of the 2002 post-season, which effectively ended Joe Torre's run of great teams and still leaves me fighting PTSD deliriums when I think of Scott Fucking Spezio.

I don't like the Angels. 

I don't trust the Angels. 

I never will. If the Big One hits California, I will mourn the catastrophe like every other American, but one side of me, deep down inside, will be saying, "Serves you right, la-la dandies." 

Clearly, the conventional wisdom says we should fear the Twinkies. In the last month, they have gone 18-12 - (Angels, 16-14) - with a lineup of emerging stars, most notably Byron Buxton. This week, if we can win - say - a mere three out of three against Minnesota, the Twins could slide into a tie, or even fall below Anaheim in the final wild card slot. That would force the two teams to wrestle down to the wire, perhaps burning their best pitchers on the final weekend. Not a bad plan.

However...

Every October, one team stands out as the most fearsome opponent in the lot: The team that is hot.

We have 16 games left. Forget Boston. If they go 9-7, we'd need to win 12 of 16 just to force a divisional tie. We want to keep a steady, unrelenting pressure on the Redsocks and our potential first round foes. And certainly, we need to play Minnesota as if it's the first round of the playoffs. 

But be careful what we wish for. We might get the Angels, a team that never thought it could win, until now. I don't trust them. I never will.