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Twins Win! Twins Win!

Eddie nearly killed me today, but he got the job done, I’m sure he got some butterflies out, and the Twins, as far as I’m concerned, are in the drivers seat for the ALDS.

Now, the series is forced play two games in Minnesota, with 55,000 screaming fans and one dirty, dirty roof. Next game, Thursday!

One hour and thirty minutes from now, history will be made. The first ever meeting of the Twins and Yankees in postseason play.

I will be enjoying the first third of the game at our local Buffalo Wild Wings, while staving off stress induced panic and heart attack getting the baseball game delivered as a telegram that we commonly refer to as the internet for the last two thirds.

This is an example of “watching” the game on the net…

“Hit into play…”

(hit refresh on your browser window about 45 times)

Wait…. wait… wait….

“Batter J. Jones flies to CF B. Williams.”

Grumbling and other noises emanate from my cube.

Repeat…

So anyways, good luck to the Twins. We’re going to need it.

This has to be about the strangest things I’ve ever heard about. Apparently during the sausage race at Miller Park, as the sausages came around third, a Pirates player playfully clobbered the Italian Sausage in the head.

Or not quite in the head, but up on the sausage costume, she fell over, another sausage crashed, and chaos ensued. Scratches and bruises.

Full Story:

MILWAUKEE — In a bizarre scene during a popular costume race at Milwaukee Brewers games, Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Randall Simon bopped a woman dressed as a huge Italian sausage with a bat and was arrested.

What has happened to my Twins? They were crusing along, winning games, and generally in command of things. Then I made the fateful remark to a friend that hopefully the Twins would be 10 games up by the all-star break and we could cruise to the playoffs.

How wrong was I?

Terry Ryan goes and shoots his mouth off, Latroy and Eddie go and shoot their mouths off. And we’ve been in a downward spiral ever since. Something like 5 – 19 in our last 24 games.

The All-star Break is coming up, and a few of our deserving players didn’t get picked (Torii Hunter?) Maybe, just maybe a little rest and a renewed focus will help us turn it around. Maybe we need to make some trades and put some players in positions where they can excel?

There is still a lot of baseball left to be played.

The Twins have been on a roll recently, taking two of three from the Oakland A’s. They now head to Seattle for a 3 game series against the Mariners. This stretch of the season will prove to be a huge test for the Twins. The previous three games with the A’s, three with Seattle, back home for 5 more against Oakland and Seattle, and then a 3 game series in San Francisco against the Giants.

Two Twins-related blogs I read semi-regularily:

• Twins Geek
• Aaron’s Baseball Blog

Both provide some unique commentary from dedicated fans.

Twins lose again. Look generally pathetic. David Wells must have been only 1/4 drunk as he held the twins to 3 hits.

On the positive. Johan Santana was lights out. 8K in 4IP. 0.00 ERA in 9IP this year. I hope we can sign him to a long term contract.

Tomorrow is another game… The Gambler takes the mound.

I know it’s just detroit, but if pitching is anywhere close to what it has been this first series, we will be very strong this year.

In our opening 3 game series we’ve held the Tigers to 9 hits. In three games. I know it’s just the Tigers, but 9 hits? That’s absurd.

Our team WHIP (walks and hits / innings pitched) is 0.41

For any one pitcher to be under 1.00 it’s pretty good. For the whole team to be at 0.41? Nuts.

We won’t keep it up… but it’s still a great start to the season.

Update So about two seconds after I click Post, Eddie G. gives up a two-out single to Shane Halter, before closing out the ninth. Which makes the WHIP a still-absurd 0.44. This also goes to show you that in baseball, never click Post until the game is over…