Do you believe yet?

People, the Minnesota Twins are going to WIN THE WORLD SERIES. I'm telling you right now, here on 9/21/06, in case anybody accuses me of being a bandwagon jumper once the Twins beat the Mets in the Fall Classic. Johan Santana is going to edge out teammate Justin Morneau and Big Papi to win the regular season MVP award, which he'll add to his second AL Cy Young trophy. He'll then go 6-0 in the playoffs and take the ALCS and World Series MVP honors.

The Twins are going to win it all, almost 20 years to the day after the Homer Hanky days of 1987.

How can I be so sure, you ask? After all, this team doesn't have 2 of its 3 best starting pitchers (Brad Radke & Francisco Liriano), has not had its starting left fielder and leadoff hitter (Shannon Stewart) all season, blah, blah, blah. I thought all this was relevant for much of 2006, but this team CONTINUES to prove everybody wrong, day after day after day. How else do you explain Matt Garza and BOOF Bonser shutting down the Red Stockings on back to back nights?

As for the Tigers, WHEN they blow the AL Central to the Twins, where will it rank among the all-time historical COLLAPSES? Unbelieveable. Lucky for Detroit, the only thing fading faster than the Tigers is the White Sox, so Leyland and Co. will sneak in via the Wild Card, then get trounced by the Yankees in the first round.

I can't wait for October.

FYI, the Twins' MAGIC NUMBER IS 6.