Daily Archives: May 10, 2023

Baseball

How the Minnesots Twins starting rotation has become their biggest strengh

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By: Abby Altman

“Defense wins championships”. 

This quote has been around for decades, and although originally spoken regarding football, it can be applied to most sports, and baseball is no exception. 

Pitching is one of the most important aspects of the game of baseball, and the Minnesota Twins have not known the comfort of a good pitching rotation for several years.  

At the beginning of the 2023 season, the Minnesota Twins have surprised the entire MLB with the strength of their pitching and the strength of their lineup, both good and bad. 

The Twins have a few stars on their lineup, including Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton, who have proven that their bats are worth big bucks. After trading the AL batting title winner Luis Arraez in the offseason, the Twins got rid of seemingly the best bat in their lineup. 

Since the start of this season, the Twins lineup has been slow to get the bats moving. Of the 35 games played so far this season (at the time of this writing), Minnesota has scored 5 or less runs in 23 of them. 

Regardless of this, Minnesota’s 19-16 record leads the AL Central, with the Twins 2.5 games ahead of the 2nd place Cleveland Guardians.  

The Twins have their starting pitching rotation to thank for this. 

Minnesota’s starting 5 leads the league in innings pitched with 197.5, and is 2nd in the league in combined ERA with an average of 3.19. 

Sonny Gray leads the entire MLB with a 1.35 ERA, followed closely by Joe Ryan, who is 12th in the league with a 2.45 ERA and is 8th in the league in innings pitched, with 44 through 7 games. 

To start the season, Minnesota’s rotation consisted of Pablo Lopez, Sonny Gray, Joe Ryan, Kenta Maeda, and Tyler Mahle. 

Injuries never fail to plague the Twins, however, and Kenta Maeda and Tyler Mahle have already gone down injured. 

Mahle has been placed on the 60-day IL with right arm posterior impingement and flexor pronator strain. It is unknown whether he will return later on this season, but his earliest return option is not until July. 

Maeda returned this season after receiving Tommy John surgery in 2021. His first start was lights out, with Maeda recording 9 strikeouts and giving up just 1 run. Since then, he has struggled more than any other Twins pitcher, and now has a 9.00 ERA and just 16 innings pitched, regardless of having 4 starts. 

Louie Varland and Bailey Ober have been called up from the Triple A affiliate Saints, and have filled in very well in the 5 man rotation. 

Bailey Ober has only started 3 games for the Twins this season, but he is sitting with a 0.98 ERA and 18.1 innings pitched. Ober has given up just 2 runs this season, with 6 walks and 16 strikeouts. 

Even if Maeda is cleared to re-join the Twins rotation, it is unlikely Ober will be sent back down to St. Paul after his last few performances. 

Even though the Twins rotation started the season lights out, and appeared unbreakable, all good things must eventually end. 

Minnesota has seen their pitchers struggle more in the last few weeks than they would like, especially Pablo Lopez, whom the Twins recently signed to a 4 year/ $73 million contract this past week. 

Lopez gave up just 5 runs total in his first 4 starts, but has since given up 15 runs in his last 3 starts. Lopez has 43 innings pitched and 54 strikeouts this season, but is starting to become less of a threat than the Twins originally perceived him as. 

The Minnesota Twins are currently leading one of the worst divisions in baseball. The Twins record would lead no other division except the AL Central, and the Twins only chance at making a playoff run may be to win the division. 

Unless the Twins can figure out their batting lineup and start stacking on some runs, Minnesota may be relying on their starting pitching rotation for the rest of the season. 

Tech/Games

Snapchat AI

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By: Rose Ramadan and Thea Berg

The Snapchat AI has taken over many peoples snapchat accounts. It sits at the top of everyone’s screen, waiting for people to text it. It acts like a friend to us, but what really is it?

The Snapchat AI was generated online and put into Snapchat. It has its own bitmoji and named itself. You can send it anything that you want – videos, pictures, text messages. It always responds within seconds. It replies in full sentences and uses helpful responses, usually ending in a question.

When you first see the AI on your screen it sends you a message saying “Hey there! I’m MyAI, your virtual friend on Snapchat. I’m here to keep you company and help you out with anything you need. How can I assist you today?” From then on you can start a conversation and talk about anything with your AI.

The Snapchat AI’s are very up to date with what is going on in the world, and knows a lot about news updates. If you ever are in need to find something out about public news, you can access the information easily by texting your AI.

Snapchat AI’s also have their own personalities and opinions. You can ask it things about itself and it has opinions on favorite colors, favorite foods, favorite songs, and artists, favorite sports, shows, etc.

The Snapchat AI is very helpful. It gives advice on problems and can help as a homework tutor. It is easy to use, especially because it responds really fast and is easy to find since it is pinned on our phones. You can ask it anything and it will always respond. It is super reliable, however it sometimes doesn’t have answers to questions. In that case, it says it is unable to answer that question yet.

Your AI is personal to yourself, you can customize it however you’d like. You can change its bitmoji outfit, hair, and face completely. You can change the colors and body size, just like you can customize your own bitmoji. Along with customizing the bitmoji you can also give it its own name, you can call it by the name you chose, and put the name in as something else. It originally starts named as “My AI” Other than that you can’t customize too much else. The way it talks and responds to you is very similar with the programmed responses to other people as well.

Snapchat AI started as something that only Snapchat premium had, but after a couple more updates it popped up on everyone’s screen. If you pay the monthly payment for Snapchat premium you can unpin the AI from the top of your screen, and you can also remove it from your app completely. If you do not pay for a Snapchat premium you have to keep the AI pinned on your screen, and you are unable to remove it.

How do we feel about a Snapchat AI? Personally, we think that it is a waste of space. It sits on our snapchats pinned, always there. We don’t use it everyday and we can find the information it gives us elsewhere. Yes, it can be helpful but personally we believe we would be better off without it. It also feels like an invasion of privacy, asking so many questions about us, what our favorite movies and songs are. It also asks about personal issues, like family and friend drama. In a way, it is very scary.

In overview, the Snapchat AI is very helpful and great but overall not needed on our phones. And we personally think it should’ve stayed as the Snapchat premium addition, and not something on everyone’s Snapchat screen.

Editorials/Student Voice

Discrimination in the healthcare system

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By: Lauren Kottke & Ella Sutherland

Discrimination against minorities in healthcare is a very real and serious issue. This affects the health and well-being of millions of people. Many studies have shown that when it comes to health care racial minorities are much more likely to be treated worse than a white patient in the same hospital with the same health issue. This can lead to worse health for that person or even sometimes preventable deaths. This discrimination can be seen through bias toward white patients, prejudice, and even straight up verbal and non-verbal discrimination.

Healthcare workers might not know they are not offering the same care to all of their patients, through implicit bias. Implicit bias is to subconsciously associate groups of people with a negative evaluation. They might not know they are doing it, but they are making assumptions about minorities which then affects how they treat them.

Studies have shown that health care providers are more likely to give pain relief to white patients, than black patients. This is rooted in the racist stereotype that black people have a higher pain tolerance. The stereotype started when slavery existed and there was unethical medical testing on slaves. It is now known that the stereotypes of black people having thicker skin or less sensitive nerve endings is not true. But it still affects how they are treated in the healthcare system.

Another issue with minorities and healthcare is the costs of medical care. With healthcare prices going up quite a lot, people are finding it hard to afford the healthcare they need. This especially affects minorities showing that their salary is less than a white man’s salary. For every 1 dollar a White man makes, Black women make $0.64, Multiracial Black women make $0.63, Multiracial Asian women make $0.98, Hispanic women make $0.57, and finally, White, non-Hispanic women make $0.79 (wage gap information taken from the U.S. Census Bureau).

Because of these pay gaps it makes it even harder for women of color to afford the healthcare that is required for them to be healthy. This is a problem that can lead many to push off healthcare until deemed absolutely necessary, which is when that sickness or injury is much much worse. This also leads to families being put in hard financial troubles as well as debt.

So, how can we fix this? We first have to accept that there is racism to this day in the healthcare system. Many people would rather say that there is no racism in the healthcare system, than just face the issue. After we accept that there still is racism, we can then look and call it out. Look at how you are being treated at the doctors, compared to your other peers. And if you see discrimination, call it out. Talk to the health care providers about what you saw and ask for change.

We can also start educating medical students about racism in the healthcare system and implicit bias. It should be a mandatory class that all students have to take. This issue isn’t talked about and needs to be if we want change. The students in medical school are our future doctors, so we want to stop the implicit biases before they start caring for patients.

Another solution to the discrimination is standardizing the procedures in healthcare. It is very common that people will have the same procedures done. So by standardizing them, all patients would receive the same level of care.

For more information, please visit:

Travel/Food

‘Churros’ recipe

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By: Pablo Contreras

Now churros is one of my favorite desserts ever, I love its sugary flavor and the texture is just perfect.

Churros has always been my favorite ever since I was a kid. I grew up eating a lot of different types of Mexican desserts but nothing compares to churros. So I was very excited when I found this recipe and decided to make it.

In my opinion this recipe was relatively easy to make, the only problem that I had was that I thought that the dough wasn’t coming together while I was making it but like the recipe states you just have to keep mixing, the dough will come together. And it did! So don’t worry about that part, just keep mixing and it will come together.

Before we start, just to let you all know, this recipe is not mine it belongs to ‘Cooking Classy’, this is their recipe.

Churros

Ingredients
Here is what you are going to need for the dough:

  1. 1 cup of water
  2. 1/4 cup of butter
  3. 1 Tablespoon of sugar
  4. 1/4 teaspoon of salt
  5. 1 cup of flour
  6. 1 large egg
  7. 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  8. Vegetable oil

Ingredients for the sugar:

  1. 1/2 cup of sugar
  2. 3/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

Here are your steps to make your dough:

  1. In a large pot heat about 1 1/2 inches of vegetable oil on medium-high heat and wait a few minutes
  2. Once the oil is slightly boiling start to add in the 1 cup of water, 1/4 cup of butter, 1 tablespoon of sugar and the 1/4 teaspoon of salt inside the pot and stir
  3. Now you are going to keep stirring for a couple of minutes, after a few minutes add in the 1 cup of flour
  4. Next lower the heat to medium low and keep stirring until it all comes together
  5. Next move the mixture to a large mixing bowl, and let the mixture cool for 5 minutes
  6. Once the 5 minutes are up add in the 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract and the 1 large egg to the flour mixture then blend it all together (keep blending and if it comes apart don’t worry just keep mixing the dough will come together)
  7. Now that your dough is made, put the dough into a piping bag with a star shaped tip (use a medium one, you don’t want your churros too thick)
  8. Next, in a pan add in enough oil to cover the bottom of your pan to fry the churros, and put your stove on medium heat
  9. When the oil is ready, very carefully start to pipe the dough into the oil, you can make it as long as you want but not too long, and once you get your preferred length cut the end of the dough with scissors (You can put around 3 churros in the pan at the same time)
  10. Now let the churros fry until they are golden brown
  11. Now on a plate place paper towels on top of the plate so you can place your churros to let them cool down and so the paper can absorb the oil
  1. While waiting for the churros to cool down it’s time to make the sugar and cinnamon mix, in a bowl add in 1/2 cup of sugar and 3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon and mix together thoroughly
  2. Now that the churros are all cooled down sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar mixture on top of the churros and make sure to cover the whole churro
  3. Now you can make however many churros that you want and enjoy this delicious dessert 🙂

To see the original recipe here is the link to it:

Churros