Minnesota sports chatter

Arden Hills remains the favorite but Minneapolis seems to have a second chance now to land a new Vikings stadium, Minnesota sports blogger David Shama reports.

The Lynx get a mention on sbnation.com: "(the) Minnesota Lynx showed why they have a league-high four players named to Saturday's All-Star Game at San Antonio" when Phoenix "with two All-Star players, couldn't contain the Lynx in a 106-98 loss" Wednesday in Arizona.

Danny Valencia has had some holes in his game — a team-leading 12 errors and a .231 batting average, for starters — but he's had big clutch hits this week. You no doubt saw his numbers for 2011 with bases loaded (6-for-11, 10 RBIs in 11 at-bats) but he is a full 24 points better than his overall average (.255) with runners in scoring position and is hitting .297 in the eighth inning.

Last year he hit two grand slams and had 12 RBIs out of nine plate appearances with bases loaded.

— Craig Swalboski