I believe this is the earliest I've posted a game log. I almost forgot it was a day game today.
Boof's last start was his first this year with fewer than 2 HR allowed. Can today be his first game with no HR allowed?
For your consideration, some 2007 pitching stats:
| Overall | ERA | FIP |
| Twins | 4.29 | 4.58 |
| AL | 4.31 | 4.30 |
| As Starter | ERA | FIP |
| Twins | 4.43 | 4.74 |
| AL | 4.45 | 4.41 |
| As Reliever | ERA | FIP |
| Twins | 3.98 | 4.25 |
| AL | 4.12 | 4.25 |

According to GameDay, there's an anti-wind (-1 mph) blowing in the Metrodome. Apparently, the stadium has found a brand new way to suck.
+10
With Boof on the mound, need the fans blowing in.
there’s an anti-wind (-1 mph) blowing in the Metrodome
Only when the Royals bat.
Hell, +25...
No Sweeney today, so we got that going for us...
which is nice.
Boof Silva!
GameDay is FUBAR for me, doesn't show the current batter.
My computer at work doesn't have flash--the sys admins won't install it--so I can't even use gameday during the day.
According to GameDay, Boof got out of the 1st inning with only one out, and Casilla never batted.
Great stuff here.
Baseball's a crazy game, donchaknow!
nice showing for LNP
Walks are a good thing.
Getting caught stealing with the heart of the order coming up is a bad thing.
as good as a hit
bad LNP
The story that the Twins are a fundamentally sound team continues to unravel.
Good patience for the Twins in the first, until Morneau.
Cuddyer and Mauer saw 12 pitches and swung once.
Atta boy, Boof. Pitch to contact? Nah.
Snapper mow-em-down inning +/-
Boof "Ambiorix" Bonser with all Three True Outcomes that inning--BB, SO, BB, SO, SO--as we see those bothersome strikeouts rearing their ugly head.
Takin' one for the franchise.
Oh no...
Crap, where did the pitch hit him?
in the mouth
That sounds really nasty. Concussion? Broken jaw? Just some missing teeth?
No word yet. Dazzle said he was spitting blood. The FOTF might not be as pretty tomorrow.
he walked off under his own power with a towel to his mouth.. seemed to be relatively OK
Gordo and Dazzle indicate that it hit him in the face.
Who?
Torii.
According to Gordo: Greinke hit Torii in the face/mouth with a pitch, Torii took a step toward the mound, then fell to the ground.
Hunter. Crap.
rub some dirt on it.
I retract the previous comment. I am "watching" the game on Gameday.
The piranha count is off the charts now.
On the bright side, this offense would be really awesome in the dead ball era.
Bartlett his square in the back. Ouch.
"hit" not "his"
JB got hit with a pitch now, too?
Now Bartlett hit. This could get ugly.
I swear I saw the ump warn both benches after Hunter was hit...
And I get the feeling that Boof's the sort of guy who isn't above a couple of message pitches.
Shouldn't Greinke be gone now?
DeJesus should be the target
This is totally going to jinx this, but Casilla should be tough to double off if he can get the ball in play here.
Ubelmann!!!
Wow, if only I could harness my powers for good.
-10 for that jinxing. Sorry.
I deserve it.
nice call
BabySBG makes her first appearance at the site here.
Excellent
Waiting for the first post. Perhaps her first word will be "Boof?"
I think I heard her say "No Bunting" this morning, but that might have been a burp.
BabySBG is way ahead of you on this one.
Thanks for the pics because we gotta see the baby:
It's so much harder to beat the Royals when they aren't kicking the ball around. Where's Angel Berroa when you need him?
Walks will haunt
I hate giving up the BBs. I hate giving up the SBs.
I also hate the E's, but until Ubelmann jinxes them, I hope we're not seeing any of those.
Yeah, if he was going to walk Gordon anyway, he should've just done it with one pitch in his back.
The Royals' 5-9 don't have a ball-in-play so far today.
O.M.G. This is the nightmare Anderson woke up sweating from this morning.
I think Sweeney was at the plate in Anderson's nightmare.
Gardy's worst nightmare
Redmond is tough
Oswald shot, Mike Redmond met all three bullets with his shoulder, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.
this just reinforces Gardy's 3rd catcher paranoia...
Now Redmond is smoked on the shoulder by Pena's backswing. Trainers are busy today.
Get L-Rod's catcher gear ready.
So who is left on the bench? Luis Rodriguez, an injured Luis Castillo, and Josh Rabe? Good grief. The Twins don't even have enough bench players to pinch-hit for the pitcher if they needed to, and Rabe/Rodriguez hit like pitchers anyway.
At least the Twins have decent arms in the minors to replace [insert non-Johan SP here], but the Twins' position player depth is, well, not deep.
Non-existent is the word you're looking for, I believe.
Bonser plays with fire, avoids the burn.
Big sigh of relief there, since we definitely didn't want to be facing DeJesus with the bases loaded.
That is, facing DeJesus with the bases loaded was a bad situation that we were lucky to get out of.
First to 10 LOB wins? Off to a pretty good start.
Boof with a 5.10 FIP through the first four innings. Yikes.
Bad news: 6 BBs
Good news: 0 HRs
Up to 7 BB and 7 SO now. This is Bizarro Boof today.
This must be how Orioles fans feel watching Daniel Cabrera pitch.
I'd be more comfortable about Cabrera not allowing a HR, but it's probably a similar experience overall.
Is anyone out there watching the game? Is Boof getting squeezed, or is he just having trouble with his location?
Games not on anywhere. Jack Morris said on the radio that Boof was missing badly early in the count and then not getting close calls late in the count. Morris defended the ump (Reliford) because, "A pitcher doesn't deserve the close ones until he proves they aren't an accident"
Redmond/Anderson had a mound conference in the 4th in which they wanted Reliford to come to the mound so he could be berated. Instead, Reliford just stayed behind the plate the entire time forcing them to break up the meeting themselves. "A little bit of gamesmanship," according to Gladden.
Gleeman somehow got his MLB.TV feed to work, but I'm blacked out. Pretty confusing.
Are you normally blacked out?
This is the first non-televised game of the season when I've had access to MLB.TV so I guess so. In the past I haven't been.
You're in Minnesota now, though, and you were in DC before, right? I think that the blackout doesn't care if it is possible for you to watch the game on television, just whether you are within a certain team's broadcast territory. AG probably found a proxy server somewhere, or something.
Which was a refreshing bit of honesty, I thought. While neither Morris or Gladden have any acumen for play-play, I
do
like the fact that neither is afraid to rip on a Twin when deserved. (And of late, they've been given ample opportunity.)
I'd like an ump to call a ball a ball, and a strike a strike. That old umpiring tradition of making a pitcher prove he has fine control before giving him the corners is bullshit. They don't call a batter out if he accidentally gets a hit on a check swing, do they? The rulebook doesn't define the strike zone with exceptions for pitchers who look wild early in the count. If the ball is on the black or anywhere else in the strike zone, whether the pitcher has great command or not, it should be called a strike.
I agree with that sentiment, though I also think there is a practical matter at hand. Some umpires are definitely better than others at tracking the ball, and the ones that aren't the greatest at tracking the ball are going to have an even harder time if they don't have an idea where the ball is going to be in the first place.
Ideally, all umpires would be good enough that this wouldn't be an issue, but I have a feeling that it's part of the problem.
I’d like an ump to call a ball a ball, and a strike a strike. Natch.
I believe Morris was talking about "close" pitches not necessarily "strikes." From what I gathered listening to the radio, Boof had Red Dog flopping around like a hockey goalie yesterday. If you were watching the game and felt that Bonser was obviously getting squeezed by the home plate ump, well then, yeah, that is bullshit.
Boof: 100 pitches, 53 strikes through 5 innings. I'd pull him. There's no way he's making it through another inning without jacking up that pitch count higher than I'd like to see, and he's already been pitching a lot from the stretch and had some awfully high stress innings.
If it's possible to have a terrible start without giving up a run, Boof had one today. But then again, I've got to give him credit for effectively pitching out of jams.
It's tough for me to say without watching him, but I'd say this probably goes in the "not good but not terrible" column. Yeah, missing the strike zone so much is bad, but this is also the first game of the season he hasn't given up a home run. And with runners on base, you have to be a little more careful where you're pitching.
BOOF! Got that K/BB ratio back above 1.
Kubel is on the verge of a breakout, I think. Even a lot of his out have been line-drives.
"outs" not "out"
can't type today
Good: no HRs
Better: no runs
Best: no more innings
Geez. Dazzle, that's what you get for keep saying "This is a bunt situation."
Cuddyer hit that on the nose
I don't know everything there is to know about Minnesota law, but I'm pretty sure it's not illegal, you know, to actually score runs.
I think it is a petty misdemeanor
Hey, looks like I'm just in time!
Garussa.
WTF? I just looked at the box score. SEVEN free boofs vs. eight bonsers?
Boy, the winds must really be swirling in the Dome today.
Twins batters have their A Game going today. I'm sorry, I meant A's Game.
Speaking of catchers, anybody else notice that the A's demoted adam melhuse to Sacramento yesterday.
Yes, they now have 1.5 catchers on the 25-man roster (the corpse of Jason Kendall, plus DH Mike Piazza).
Billy Beane: the anti-Terry Ryan.
That was a big inning. A single given up there could be the game winner. And enough to win the next game as well.
espn's gamecast highlights the plays that result in outs in red--except apparently for sacrifice outs, since we all know those aren't really outs.
pretty half-assed effort by Teahan there
This at bat is a free-be for Morneau
3 stitches for Hunter (inside of the mouth)
That sounds like a pretty good outcome as far as getting hit in the face goes.
I'm starting to feel okay about Kubel and Bartlett, but I still can't bring myself to expect too much out of Casilla and Punto's been struggling. Having Hunter out of the lineup is no good.
Dazzle and Black Jack trading barbs re: Jack beaning Gene Larkin in the head.
FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
So if Redmond gets below the Mendoza line, will Gardy stop the Red-DH'ing?
the two teams have combined for 8 hits, 11 walks, 2 hit batsmen, and no runs in 6 innings. File this one under 'Ugly'
Update: 8 + 11 + 3
good pitch
Don't mess with the stinky cheese, Reggie.
Aww, craptastic. C'mon, Laddie. Hang onto the ball.
Redmond to Casilla: That's how you tag Reggie Sanders.
f6 6-2 double play
Some urgent leadership there by Bartlett.
Is there any other kind?
What this game needs is catcher's interference.
And a strikeout with the batter reaching on a WP. And a balk. No sloppy game is complete without a balk.
7 innings, 24 baserunners, 0 runs, I don't know if I could take more sloppiness...
should've been a hit, it was tough to tell in real time, but the replay was pretty obvious.
I'm referring to Bartlett's line drive for those who weren't sure.
Thanks.
What should've been a hit?
Bartlett's line drive. I realized that was unclear immediately after I posted it, my apologies
The left fielder (Brown?) trapped it.
3 walks today for Alex Gordon. Apparently Boof and Guerrier believe in his abilites to hit.
3 walks for a guy hitting .147?
Gordon's a legit hitter--better than .147 anyway--but they don't need to pitch around him that much.
Black Jack loves the umps
The ol' delayed throw em' out, strike em' out DP.
Nice outing by Guerrier.
Boy, Radke's spinnin' in his fishing boat with the way this game is going.
Heart of the order. Now or never?
Recent history suggests never.
Never mind, "heart of the order" doesn't count when Tyner's included in it.
It's pretty much official at this point: the first team to score gets the win.
More bunting?? (Attempt by Mauer in the first pitch of this AB.)
Morneau's due
I am changing his name to "More-due"
Jimmie Gobble--ace reliever.
Do they do a shootout after the 9th?
Hunter listed as day-to-day (for what that's worth)
That is nice to read.
This game is so far gone, it needs more of a savior than a hero.
My nominee
Wow! Using Nathan! Sure, it's not a road game, but still.
Win opportunity for Nathan
First rule of sportscasting: Don't be afraid to state the obvious.
Dazzle: "What Gardy wants here is Nathan to pitch this half inning, then the Twins score a run and win this game."
6-3,6-3,6-3, if you're scoring at home
6-4, 6-4, 6-4.
I think groundouts are probably a good sign that Nathan's slider is working. Or at least mostly working.
Drrrr, 6-3, as wfeino points out. WTF is wrong with me? -15
Tyny Hero?
Career .260/.294/.264 vs. LHP. 1 extra base hit against lefties in 227 AB. Make that 228 AB.
At this point, I don't even care about Tyner and Redmond for this inning. I just want Kubel to get a walk-off HR.
good thing you don't care, 'cause those were two uninpiring at-bats.
Not quite.
I'll take a double, though. Come on, JB!!
Kubel walk off?
That is a call, not questioning ubelmann's desires
Bartlett walk off?
wait, how does that work? more than one base on one hit?
single, throwing error. That's what we're aiming for here.
I guess they let you try to make it to the next base if you don't think you'll get tagged out. Seems kind of risky to me, though.
It's cheating! Alert the commissioner!
Excellent AB by Kubel. Alright, let's go Bartlett...
If Rabe isn't going to run for Kubel here, what is the point of him even being on the roster?
Under normal circumstances, it would be great to pinch-run for Kubel here, but our bench sucks.
Free baseball
...
Woot!Rochambeau?
If this goes much longer I am going to ask for a refund
Too bad we just had the best part of our lineup hit:
Hitters 1-3 are 0-8
Hitters 4-6 are 1-11
Hitters 7-9 are 4-11
Of course, first 3 hitters have been on base 4 times via the walk.
you mean "bat", not "hit" - right?
Yes.
"And the ball popped out of Casilla's glove."
It seems like Gordo has said that three times today.
After 12 innings, they should just count up the hits and decide the winner based on that.
Time for the Punto walkoff.
Sometimes, I slay myself.
Only walking off Punto will be doing is dragging his bat back to the dugout after a K.
Time for an 11th inning Tyny walkoff!
More-due is up again
Waiting for Kubes
Redmond!!!
Oh yes, it's over!
Thank God!
back-to-back-to-back, Minnesota style.
Red Dog FTW
We need to make a pact right here, right now. None of us will ever speak of what we witnessed here today. No good will come of it.
what game?
Agreed. (Though it's not every day your team throws a 10-inning, 5-pitcher, 10 walk shutout. In less than 5 hours.)
Another easy victory, led by our high-powered offense.
It's got to have been a long time ago when the Twins last gave up 10 BBs in a game. Yuck.
This is payback for that game in KC in 2005, when the Twins had about 30 baserunners and couldn't score.
File this one under ‘Ugly’
Moss believes the correct heading is "Fugly".
That's a top-notch quote. +10 to Gardy.