Game time: 7:10 CDT
TV: FS-N
Radio: TRN
Probables: Sir Sidney Ponson (ERA: 5.79, xFIP: 4.21) vs. Kevin Slowey (ERA: 4.44, xFIP: 4.89)
I think I speak for everyone when I say, Welcome back Joe!
The Twins meet up with Ponson once again. Signed by the Royals to be their inning eater, he's only had to bow out of one buffet early. This made him extra hungry in his most recent start with 8 innings, 3 R and 7/0 K/BB in a loss against the Tigers.
Last year Ponson was 2-1 with a 2.93 ERA (4.33 RA) in 27.7 IP against the Twins.
There's not a whole lot to say about Slowey. He was lost, but now is found. Welcome back too.
This comment got me intrigued about the distribution of catcher heights:
| Height | Number of catchers with minimum of 100 G career | Some notables |
|---|---|---|
| >= 6' 6" | 0 [1] | |
| 6' 5" | 7 | Sandy Alomar; Joe Mauer |
| 6' 4" | 19 | Jarrod Saltalamacchia |
| 6' 3" | 50 | Mike Piazza, Ernie Lombardi; Brian McCann, |
| 6' 2" | 103 | Carlton Fisk, Bill Dickey, Gary Carter; Jorge Posada, Victor Martinez |
| 6' 1" | 96 | Johnny Bench, Gabby Harnett; Geovany Soto, Kelly Shoppach |
| 6' 0" | 126 | |
| 5' 11" | 111 |
Joe is tall, but not really freakishly tall. Considering average white male height (20-39) in the US is 5' 10.4", he's well above-average anyway. A quick count of every player 6' 6" or taller comes up with 253 total. Out of 13,643. Tall catchers are rare because a) tall people are rare and b) tall position players are rare: 228 of the 6' 6"+ and 76 of the 410 at 6' 5" are pitchers. Joe is tall. He'd be tall no matter where he played. Get over it.
Hmmmmmm! Now that I read the linked to article, I see Matt Wieters is also 6' 5". I am contemplating sending MacPhail an email urging him to keep Wieters at catcher as long as possible.
1: A quick search for any game with a catcher 6' 6" or greater turned up nothing.
Oops, seems like I scheduled a retroactive post. Thanks for fixing it (at least that's what I think you're doing)
Yep I fixed it.
all hail chairman mauer!
Are you preparing a whole postcard set of these?
I'm going with Happy Easter.
haha :lol:
I just had the pregame on while I was in the kitchen... did you guys know this is Mauer's first game back?
Yeah, but he's only got one RBI
/Barrerio
Oops, this was supposed to be lower.
In honor of Ryan's 7th no hitter
I remain amazed at how Nintendo games can take the awesome, and make them awesomer.
epic!
Go Minnesota Mauer's!
Whoo!
John Gordon is back in the booth. yay
speaking of Joe, in today's Sac Bee story on the Oakland A's game yesterday, there was a Joe-like moment. The writer commented how there was "concern" about whether Ryan Sweeney could play CF, given his long frame. Huh? MOVE HIM TO THIRD!!!!!!ONE11!!!!!!!
Huh. Apparently, Jose Morales has been Earl Battey'd by the crowd already ;-)
Un-be-freakin-lievable!!!
we really need someone with Photoshop skillz to fix that picture up.
is Gardy playing the role of Mary?
Whoo!
I believe!
JOE!! *bows*
Wow. I turn on the TV, Casilla lines out to center, and then Joe swings his boom stick. This is turning into a good night.
Kevin Slowey seems inspired as well.
Does anyone have the triangles ready?
bookmark this entry at Rhu_Ru's blog.
Credit also going to Mauer and his game calling skills? Maybe it's just having his aura behind the plate?
It should be quite interesting to see how the pitching staff responds to his calling.
Probably embeds small magnets into each ball with a giant natural one in his glove.
I'm not sure what's going on or if it's just me, but I seem to have the large print edition of the WGOM right now.
looks normal to me. try zooming out.
If you have one on your mouse or mousepad, hold down the control key while using the scroll wheel. Going in the down direction might fix the problem.
That made it smaller, but not like it usually is. I'm not complaining--we old guys like the larger print.
I have it too. I switched to "smallest" and it's still damned huge.
Schmendrick.
Mauer Pauer. This game is easy.
Soooo, everyone's happy Joe's back, right?
So, so happy. The grass is a little greener. The flora smells nicer. The fat chicks in the valley are less fugly.
The Twins are having better luck bringing this kid up from A ball than they did the last time they tried it.
I know I had my doubts that the kid was ready for the bigs.
Mountie gets his man (home).
Dude peed on his own rug.
Cuddy!
That Mauer kid sure is inspiring.
It's raining Twins offense!
Atta boy Harris. Pumpkin time for El Sid.
everybody hits!
Craptastic. Everybody hits..
Whoo! Even Punto
Twins-for-the-cycle this inning. Yikers.
Oh, wait. I'm a tool.
This is the Sir Sidney we all know and love
Difference is, he's finally helping the Twins.
That was my next comment, nearly verbatim.
Ponson is gonna need a drink.
That's cold...man
Hitting Ponson well tonight. Everybody wants to get into the act!
Tomorrow I get to mow the lawn for the first time this season. I'm more excited about it than I should be.
I'm already tired of nagging the Boy about what a cr@ppy job he does at it. Which prolly means I need to get my mower blades sharpened.
If there's anything I never would have believed as a youngin, its that I would come to really enjoy mowing the lawn. Then again, at the time, the term "lawnmower beer" had no meaning for me.
Also, sharp blades are, indeed, a good thing.
Nearly every single one of my best writing ideas happened while mowing the lawn, including both my optioned projects. At one point, I was doing it when it was barely necessary in the hopes of more inspiration.
Well, it does rival the morning constitutional for solitary thinking....
'specially when you are pushing.
I think you need an orange triangle, too.
That deserves this
Ok. Time to go home. Out for thai food this weekend, maybe tonight.
I did Thai tonight--Chix Pad Panang. Yummy.
This guy (me) hasn't had nearly enough Thai food in his lifetime.
A really nice little Thai joint opened just up the road from me last fall. I go there at least once a month.
I gotta believe there's one in or around Madison somewhere. I'm a little too broke to find it right now, but someday.
I've probably had more than my fair share of Thai food. I like it, and I'm not about to stop, but living in Seattle, it's hard to walk two or three blocks without running into a Thai restaurant or two.
I had Thai in Seattle a few days ago. It's true...the amount of Thai there can't be overstated.
So I should try to find a client in Seattle that needs visiting?
Just make sure you come sometime between mid-June and mid-September. Otherwise the weather is liable to offset the Thai.
Crap this is going to be one of those 9-8 Twins-Royals Games
More opportunities for Joe's heroics.
Game winning triple to complete the cycle, perhaps?
I think I'm bad luck doing the strike out counter. Slowey's given up a run each time.
Casilla's been fairly unlucky lately. He has been hitting the ball, just right at people.
Déjà vu on this game. Slowey pitching at home, offense hitting and scoring behind him and he can't seem to slow down the opposing bats, what's this the 3rd time that's happened? Frustrating. He's buzzkilling Easter
Canadian Club!
Mauer and Morneau!!
Wow he crushed that.
CANADA!
Cool, a subliminal mushroom cloud in the reflection.
Last time the m&m boys homered in the same game? Ever?
Last time was July 19th, 2008. Not sure how many times it's happened.
by my count, its happened 6 times
Cool.
July 19,2008
Dang, there goes Ponson.
In the Yahoo game tracker, Ponson still has a TC hat on.
NOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Note to Nick Punto: that is how you get to first base as fast as possible.
Can I assume that Harris simply ran through the bag?
Yes, yes you can assume that.
I'll put this in a more appropriate place later, but I just saw a note that the Twins traded Joe Gaetti to Texas for a player to be named later.
So long, Joe. We hardly knew ya.
Probably the best for him, we're pretty deep in outfielders. Though I don't know how deep Texas is in outfielders.
On 3-0 here, I'm thinking Casilla has the most red possible light ever given.
Save big money at Denard's! Second base is a steal!
Oh right, the most obvious possible place to insert a lefty against any lineup in baseball.
It would really be nice if Cuddyer, Crede, or Delmon could be trusted to hit between Mauer and Morneau.
Crede might make it, if he stays healthy.
I predict that Joe Mauer is awesome at baseball.
If there's a bright side here, it's that Horacio Ramirez sucks.
Dang.
I trust Harris so much more at third base than in the middle infield.
He sure looks a lot more comfortable there, and he's got a strong enough arm even if his glove lacks a bit.
That's some good cheese, Matty.
True or false: Morales does not make that catch.
I say false. It seemed tall enough that he could have gotten there.
Well, I guess no one ever accused the Royals of being a patient team at the plate.
Or the Twins.
i just got home. is anyone else have trouble with mlb.tv?
Yeah, it costs money.
thanks for this, banjo.
Cheaptoy needs to start traveling with his own drummer.
Mine's fine.
Never mind. I just lost my feed. Damn it.
It won't do the nexdef HD stuff right now, but otherwise I'm having no troubles.
Holy cow, Mijares has a caboose on him! Nice K!
Sweet, we have a Mijares K image.
That apparently didn't work.
That's some nice passive aggression, free. ;)
It's pretty good, but no one can step to Jonathan Broxton in the caboose department.
Sid Fernandez's load was pretty wide...
Evening gents, I leave the game in your capable hands. It was enjoyable. Family was out so I had the sound down, Wedding Present cranked on the Bose, shots of jagermeister and watching the game on high def tv. Who says life's all that bad?
Heading out to the Uptown Bar to check out the 757s if anyone's interested. They're a blast. Don't worry, the jag helps the bike ride go faster.
I corrected the /span missing in the writeup; should look much better now. Oh, btw, JOE'S BACK, AND HE MEANS BUSINESS
Thanks...it was affecting my entire page for some reason, and apparently Jeff's.
Interesting. I wonder when it got lost. I haven't had any unclosed tag issues, otherwise would've fixed it earlier.
well, technically it wasn't missing per se, it was <span> instead.
Well that makes sense. Just didn't want Span's day to end.
Well Dick, the walks were part of it, but it didn't help that Ted lost 3 years in his mid-20s to WWII. Plus 154-game seasons and a lot of trouble staying in the lineup in his 30s.
I was flipping around and missed the answer
Gwynn, Ripken, Clemente, Brett?
Cobb? Musial? Biggio?
American League players only. Brett, Yount, Ripken, Yaz...I forget the 5th.
Man, Mijares has filthy stuff
I'm loving Mijares. Just don't get any fatter than you already are.
It sure is nice to see that he's, apparently, figured out his sh*t.
when I think of big relief pitchers, I think of Rich Garces. I cant believe he only pitched 8 games for the Twins
what about the coolest big relief pitcher ever?
What the hell is he wearing?
He appears to be preparing to clean a port-a-potty.
Heh. Sounds like you could've used that get-up yourself tonight.
freakin' MLB audio and GameDay are kaput. Trying to use ESPN's GameCast, but it defaults to the BoSox game
audio's still working for me (but it will die after i post this, i'm sure).
They have no more shame in their East Coast Bias.
Wow, you destoryed my previous attempt.
Farnsworth! YES!
THIS STORY ONLY ENDS ONE WAY
What's joe's ops+ gonna be? Ops is 2.750
Ugh, damn cat crapped on the carpet, then the dog peed in the kitchen, then the other dog got into the bathroom and ate all the cat's food while we're trying to clean up the messes. It was a very nightmarish sequence in animal care.
(this is the last one i have, i swear)
welcome back, chairman mauer!
i didn't make these, by the way. i think i got them off of bat-girl's site awhile ago. i found them last week as i was cleaning up some folders.
that one is great too :lol:
we looove The Leader
this one is probably my favorite...
Joe's back.
looking at the box score, Matty G threw 12 pitches (11 strikes) to make 6 outs. Thats pretty efficient!