Time: 7:10 CDT
TV: FSN HD
MLB.tv and radio
Starters:
Lucas French (2.98 ERA, 7.9 K/9, 2.2 BB/9 in 81.7 IP in AAA)
vs
Kevin Slowey (10-3, 4.41; 119 tRA+)
Yes, Frenchie, err, Luke is left-handed. Sorry, he's not a Jeremy.. yet. Mediocre numbers in the minors until this year in AAA, when he basically morphed into Scott Baker. Maybe Rick Knapp taking over as the Tiger's pitching coach has transformed more than just the big league club. My initial thought was him going from a hitter's league to a pitcher's league, but not really. The International League is only slightly more pitcher friendly than the Eastern League. However, he's been a year younger than average at every step, so the light bulb must have flicked on for him.
Slowey, meanwhile, has fallen off the truck. 10 walks in his five June starts. 10!!!!11. A win tonight might "earn" him his first All-Star appearance. He still has a small chance at winning as many games as walks, but it's not looking so good now.
Finally, with a loss on Monday and a win Tuesday, order in the Universe has been preserved this week. I am confident it shall continue tonight.
Hello, friends. I'm hoping to catch most of this game. (I do need to take a shower soon, though, since I took a nice run around sunny Green Lake.)
Okay, so much for that...mlb.tv is "unable" to verify my current location so I'm blacked out at the moment and don't feel like filling out their damned form to put $1 authorization hold on my account. What a frustrating product.
While I understand the blackout restrictions are due to contractual obligations, I also think they're stupid. Do they really think that if I could watch the game on my 61" tv I'd choose to watch it on my 13" laptop screen instead?
The worst for me is when the Saturday blackouts. How many people have this product so that they can follow one particular team? 90%? More? It's just dumb to think that I'll watch whatever the local Fox affiliate is going to show if I can't watch the game that I really want to watch. And that's the best time of the week for me to watch a game. I would pay an extra $25-30 just to be able to watch the blacked out games live.
There's also the games that are only on mlb.tv in certain markets, and what, they have to black out those games to protect the local broadcaster's rights to not broadcast games? It seems pretty silly.
Sometimes power cycling your cable/dsl modem will get you a new IP and fix that issue.
Thanks for the tip, but I don't want to be nuisance to the other people in my house at the moment. I filled out their stupid verification form and they had better not charge me...
I'll be around, too
oh, come on Smalley, don't mimic Bert
Smalley is a breath of fresh air compared to Bert.
he is, but he already implied that a low ERA means nothing if you don't get wins
Well, duh! We all know that the W column is the only stat that matters. It's totally under the starter's control. You just have to keep the ball down (or inside if your name is Perkins) and have the desire to win. Then you get the W.
ERA? Get off my lawn!
There's no hope for MLB announcers to catch on to advanced metrics when, a hundred years into the league, they're still bucking ERA for Wins.
There's hope if Brian Bannister becomes an announcer!
That is a brilliant idea. It'd certainly entice me to watch no matter who's playing.
Wednesday I worked out at the gym and lifted my legs, really pushing my calves thinking they should be recovered for weekend hiking.
Fast forward to this morning when my calves were still as stiff as the flag in a North Dakota wind and I decide to hit the trail anyway. 8 miles and about 4,000 feet in elevation change later I felt good, but after the 45 minute drive back to town to pick up my daughter from daycare they locked up on me and when I stepped out of my pickup I fell flat on my face in the parking lot... with plenty of observers. I now look like Forrest Gump before he ran out of his leg braces and I feel like someone set off a string of black cats inside my calf muscles.
The calf cramp is a bitch. One time after rugby we're jogging back into the training room, which is in the basement of The Pav, the student bar. My calf cramped up and I hit the deck, right in front of a lot of girls. It was embarrassing, to say the least.
Did you get any sympathy hugs? sympathy calf massages?
Unfortunately, I got a couple of sympathy glances, but that's it. I had to have one of the guys pick me up and help me into the locker room.
Well, this is a blast so far.
With Cuddy, Kubel, Mauer and Morneau hitting well you'd think the Twins would win more games. Then you remember the guys they have at bottom of the lineup. Young, Punto, Tolbert, Gomez. Yuck.
Apparently, Vavra said earlier that with a young pitcher like this, the hitters need to "either jump on the first or second pitch, or just wait him out and take a lot of pitches."
This man is employed as a hitting coach. Oh, to hell with it: this man is employed, period.
Yikes. I had an uneasy feeling about this series as it is...if that ball had been fair, I might've bailed for the night.
Ugh. Slowey doesn't have it tonight at all.
Hmmm....this may break the record for shortest game log of the year
Okay. Tomorrow, then.
So, apparently I didn't choose a very good day to try to watch. Bremer is especially intolerable when the team is losing.
I guess if it is a blowout, it'll be easier for me to switch over to see Manny's re-appearance in San Diego.
Can I say that I hate the red caps? I understand that there's almost nothing more American than cheap marketing ploys (and cheap marketing ploys go hand-in-hand with baseball), but if we're going to do this, we ought to go all the way. Forcing red caps on everyone just looks awful. If we're going to have Independence Day uniforms, they need to change more than just the caps.
I like how they're celebrating Independence Day on the third. Why not, you know, on Independence Day?
They'll do it tomorrow and on Sunday as well.
Trying to torture us.
Looks like Duensing coming out of the 'pen now?
I think the Tigers scoring early is my fault. I have a little jab at spooky and bam. Karma is a bitch.
Here's the quiz question on the TV right now:
Is one of the girls driving the bus?
Did the girl leaving the bus forget her basket on the bus?
Is there a pile of dismembered legs somewhere on the bus?
Yes! That would be important, too. I mean, what kind of girls are these? Perhaps they are the Bennett girls from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, they ran across a herd of unmentionables and were forced to put their proficiency in the Deadly Arts to the test.
Dunno, were sitting here waiting for someone to call in with the right answer. I want to go to bed, but I NEED to know the answer. I got 2410, or 2412 if you count the driver. (Highlight for my answer)
Huh, I got 2 less than that for each case.
Yeah, me too.
Nope, I do too now. Spreadsheet glitch. Your standard Eye-Dee-Ten-Tee error
Those are some big baskets. 625 small cats per basket! Must be shrinking the space between nucleus and electrons.
Only 25 small cats per basket. Still, 5 baskets each with 5 cats and 25 small cats can't be very easy to haul around.
Wait, that's the number per girl. Too many 5s. Need more ones.
I wish had an edit, could make it seem like I knew what I was doing.
Did the grounds crew turn on the gale-force-wind-fans too early today?
Whoa, Cuddyer almost tore his rotator cuff on that catch, I think.
Ugh. I think I may join the rats stampeding off this sinking (sunken?) ship.
Putting Duensing in for the 4th inning is kind of a white flag. Second short start in a row for Slowhand.
W00t! A Delmon Young HR!! It happens roughly with the frequency of a lunar eclipse!
That looked suspiciously like and _elmOn home run.
That was an interesting point that SmalleyDick was making about Delmon spinning that bat in his hands. It can't be good that he's sometimes making contact with the trademark side of the bat facing the pitcher or facing straight away from the pitcher.
I heard that Killebrew chastised him for that, saying he then would not know what part of the bat is going to hit the ball. I could've sworn Young stopped spinning the bat for a while, but might just me.
They were mentioning that Killer pointed it out to him, but all indications from the media seem to be that he is on his own planet, ignoring everyone else's advice.
Yeah, sadly. I really wish he would listen. I think he could be a passable hitter if he listened to what others were saying. Still strikeout a lot, but maybe have power that was once a month rather than every eclipse.
My patience with the Twins has been awarded with a Joe Mauer single(tm)
Sometimes Bremer is so over-the-top that I wonder if he realizes that we can see what is happening for ourselves.
No, I can't!!!!!
A 5 run lead, 1 out from French getting his first major league win and they pull him? Sucks to be him.
Quite weird. He was a starter in AAA, so shouldn't be under a strict pitch count. At least not one so low.
Cabrera has gotten much better at first. Last year that would have skipped by him and he would have fallen over.
He may be much better at first, but his starting point was pretty miserable.
Definitely. I didn't want to imply he was anywhere approaching mediocre. Hmm... Just looked him up on fangraphs.com and he has 6.9 uzr/150 this year. -5.2 last year. Morneau is at -6.9 this year. I'm not sure that uzr is really all that important for first basemen. The ability to actually catch the balls thrown by your teamates is going to come in to play way more often during a game than range for a 1B.
A good 1B doesn't just not make errors, he helps his fellow infielders avoid making errors by catching off target throws.
Actually, I think that range is more important than catching throws from your teammates. There may be a lot of throws per game from your teammates, but the vast majority of them are routine. I don't have any links off hand, but people have studied how important receiving throws is for first baseman, and IIRC, I think it usually ranges from +5 to -5 runs or so for most first basemen with the very extreme guys at +10 to -10.
Cabrera last year was certainly one of the extreme guys. Another case where the notion off the top of my head doesn't match up with the real numbers.
This quiz show is wrecking my head. No one is even close. Each of us figured it out separately in less than 5 minutes, but not one of the callers is even in the ballpark.
Have you tried calling in? Is it expensive?
It's €1.50 per call, and I'm not sure I'm technically eligible to win since I'm not Irish. I can't convince my roommates to call in though.
OK, this is ridiculous. Someone just guessed an answer that ended in "3".
Maybe he thought that with so many total cats involved, there must be at least one three-legged cat.
Wooot! Crede's first homer against a lefty in three years.
Crax, it's Miner now. Dammit. And figures.
Crede!!! That was such a meatball, but it's nice to have some guys who can punish meatballs.
I tuned in just in time for Crede's shot, so I'm claiming credit for that and the _elmOn hit.
Are you sure you want to start taking credit for anything associated with Delmon?
It will definitely limit his credit.
Haha, you just walked Nick Punto!
DSPAN2!!!!!
Wow, that was nice. Way to go bottom o' the order and Span!
I like triples.
just so's it's clear, the key to this inning was me bunting.
I was just thinking how they would never make the key to the inning the home run, but if it was a bunt where Crede eventually came around to score, it would undoubtedly be praised as the key to the inning.
perhaps we could all contribute by air-bunting at the start of each Twins' inning??
Will it count on our Wellness Challenge totals?
For as much as it sucks to have teams go lefty on lefty against Mauer and Morneau, at least it keeps them from intentionally walking Mauer in a situation like this. Actually, it wouldn't be totally crazy to put Mauer on to set up the DP. Tough call.
I'm having flashbacks to the Tiger series earlier this year where the locals came back twice in about 10 hours. Crede had the big hit in both games.
I'm also having flashbacks to that Bonderman game where he was shutting us down for 7 innings and suddenly lost it in the 8th.
122(?) pitches and a whole mess of K's. Bert prolly called him a pansy under his breath.
Howdy, fellas.
Howdy, '-6.
That was a wacky turn of events. Cheer-e-oh's!
Brian Duensing is the greatest pitcher evah!
Eh, he won't get the win. He sucks.
And not even a hold or a save.
We've given up on the quiz show. John was gonna call if the pot got up to €4,000, but they stopped at €3700 for the longest time and we got fed up.
Yes, clearly with the game on the line and heart-of-the-order righties coming up I want Keppel pitching.
Good thinking.
The farther away we get from the Romero/Hawkins/Guardado bullpen, the more I think that Gardy is just good at handling bullpens when they are pitching well. When he starts to get pitchers who struggle, he seems to "shake things up" a bit much for my tastes.
There's no "Neshek Button" to push this year.
Yeah, and even when he did have the Neshek Button, he leaned on it really hard and broke it.
'WIG in the gamelog!
I used to not mind this Lee Greenwood song, but then it got played every 7th inning stretch after 9/11, and if I hear anything that many times, it is probably going to get on my nerves.
Lee Greenwood's jingoistic anthem, or "This is OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUR Country!!!"???
and death is not an option.
Is horrible, ringing tinnitus an option?
Don't give SBG any more ideas for sadistic "You Choose" questions!
I'd prefer the Langley Schools Music Project.
Un-be-freaking-lievable! _elmOOOOOOOOOOOOOOn! with the cripple hitting, but, hey, it's _elmOn, so ok.
Delmon *barely* got to second on that. So. Slow. Nice to see him driving the ball, though.
Umm, WTF happened to _elmOn? I have no idea, but I like it.
Maybe we need to focus on developing DHelmon.
If his brother's, um, physique is any sort of preview then DHelmon will be even more necessary in the very near future.
The general trajectory of his physique is not encouraging.
Speaking of The Meat Hook, I was looking through the tshirts on offer from The Dugout store. I think for a combination of great name and great storylines, a "SteakGrowsOnDmitri" shirt would be the best.
Yeah, that one is a classic. Too bad that DUDEYERGETTINADELMON is the only Twins option.
If we could only get The Dugout to start using Baby_Jeebus as a screenname I'd be all over that shirt.
Huh, Cabrera vs. Keppel is a mismatch that favors Cabrera. Go figure.
Loves to face: AAAA relievers
Hates to face: quality pitchers
Calling Keppel a AAAA reliever might be a reach...his 5.50-6.00 ERAs over the past three seasons in AAA don't have me feeling great about his potential.
Bobby Keppel is the greatest pitcher evah!
Having Span in LF instead of Delmon probably puts a real dent in sales of antacids in and around the TC metro area.
Around the 3rd inning, I thought this game was gonna suck.
Around the 3rd inning this game did suck.
Yeah, that was the concensus.
And here I totally forgot about Manny and missed his first PA back.
Who?
I'm not sure the Doggers are better off with ManRam. Prolly should just keep start JuanPierre.
Um, I think in June, the real Juan Pierre (.264/.319/.309) showed up and the Dodgers are going to appreciate MannyBeingManny. Pierre can still be used as a pinch-runner/defensive-replacement.
in first place when he left. in first place when he returned. He has little marginal value.
Booooo. There, happy LA Times?
Plaschke is such a jackass.
Oh it was Plaschke? That explains it. I read Craig ripping it and that was as close as I wanted to get.
I didn't realize it right away either until I saw Plaschke on SportsCenter this afternoon.
I'm going to be so pissed if this goes against us. I swear that this only goes against us.
That rule is a huge jopke.
Also pretty hilarious that the first base ump made the (wrong) call without Cabrera catching the ball at all.
He did veer inside the baseline, though.
Eject him already.
He must have been on his best manners.
The baseball gods ordained that GIDP.
I was watching BBTN last night, and I decided that the Giants must have a case for the fattest infield of all-time when the run out Benji Molina, Pablo Sandoval, Juan Uribe, Edgar Renteria, and pretty much any first baseman in the same game. Someone needs to arrange a trade to send Prince Fielder to San Francisco.
I'm sure Brian Sabean would be in favor of that.
Even if it meant trading Tim Lincecum?
That won't happen.
Sure, that's what logic would dictate, but what if Sabean really, really wants the fattest infield of all-time?
Everybody knows that Matt Cain would be on the block!
sabean's main problem is that his minor league system is barren (other than a couple of guys at Fresno, like John Bowker).
For a guy who has signed guys early just so that he could lose his first-round draft pick, that sounds like a self-inflicted wound.
The SF Gordos
Gigantes.
I'm pretty sure Prince makes whatever infield he's playing in the fattest by himself.
I don't know...Sandoval and Molina are livin' large.
Joe Nathan in a non-save opportunity???!!!!one1111!!!!
bitch sat down.
Hey guys...for the first time all year, I shut off the game. After Laird's homer. Now I come back to Nathan?
heh. was that Gordo calling for the "strike 'em out, throw 'em out" with 2 outs already?
Maybe he thought Mauer would drop strike 3?
The Twins should just win the game here. I don't wanna face their good hitters again.
Please score some runs. It's nearly 4AM and I have a long day of drinking ahead of me tomorrow.
I like this matchup.
I can haz walk off?
Jeebus, Gordo.
Eeeargh!
DAMN
So, a lazy fly ball?
yup...but it was caught at the top of the wall
Damn man, that was cloooose.
evening folks.
Tex.
heh.
Nu Mex.
no-more. No.Col. for now. Then So.Mn. for a while.
Enchanted, no more?
We've relocated to colorado, for the weekend. then to MN.
mm, beerado.
Broken Hearts.
Zum zum. I hope Cuddy can catch up. We need to get to elmOn this inning!!!!!
I think that Delmon would hit about .003/.002/.003 against Zumaya if he got a large enough sample size.
That's cold, probably true, still cold.
I thought it was pretty generous to give him a few sac flies to lower his OBP below his AVG.
some walk off would be good.
Hrm. Free baseball. un-w00t.
Seems more exciting to get the free baseball when the team is on the road.
After being down 6-nil, I'm OK with some free baseball. (Just not too much of it, though. This bullpen is not gordo.)
Glad to get Cabrera out of the way easily.
Weird--I don't think I've ever seen a runner jam his thumb into the ground like that.
At first I had no idea what Dick meant when he said "deep short short left" but it made sense after a second.
WERE GOING TO LOOSE THIS GAME BECAUSE GARDY WASTED NATHAN IN A NONSAVE SITCHATION! FIRE GARDEY!!!!!!!
I'm sure that SF101 would have found more than one reason to fire Gardy already in this game.
woot! Gomez walkoff?
Gomez was so far back it was more of a "no triples" defense than a "no doubles" defense.
he tracks pop-ups well, but one of these days he's going to be running so fast that when he hits the brakes he'll fall over and the ball will drop behind him
in fact, he tracks fly balls like my Mom drives. Speed to the stoplight, then slam on the brakes
Not very fuel efficient, but in Gomez's case, he doesn't seem to be facing an energy crisis.
That's my favorite part of his defense. After the catching everything part at least.
Fernando Martinez style? That face-plant was high-larious.
Oh yeah, that was good times. I really badly want him to turn out to be a butcher in the field, but the early stats don't back that up yet.
I predict DelmOn wins it with an UNO walk-off.
I'm also smoking crack rocks of the size of KG's earrings.
ooo...gimme some
This strike zone has gotten very erratic in the last few innings. Strike 1 to Mauer in the 9th and Strike 1 to Crede here both looked awfully questionable.
According to Gameday, Crede's called strike looks fine. Ditto Mauer's I recall.
Okay, Mauer's was borderline but decent. Delmon's was slightly more outside borderline.
Something about the camera angle must be really decieving about how low these pitches are, or gameday is drawing a super low strike zone. I thought a lot of those pitches looked low. Strike 2 to Kubel was *definitely* outside, though. Although, so was strike 3 to Anderson just now. It'd be nice if the umpire would just call the correct zone consistently to both teams rather than some arbitrary zone consistently to both teams.
Yeah, definitely. I've had to check Gameday after seeing a couple of low called strikes. All of them have seemed decent at least. I don't know how accurate the top and bottom of the zones are though. I trust the left/right boundaries but not so much the top or bottom. I recall they setup the zones before every game when calibrating the cameras, but getting the top and bottom right for every single hitter is nigh impossible.
Someday we will have the technology to outline the strike zone with lasers so that everyone can see what the zone is more easily.
I'm not about to let facts get in the way of my hometown bias!!
Zumaya struggling with his velocity.
Boo, Delmon got robbed on that.
Can anyone hit Zumaya with a strike zone the size of Alaska?
Give the ump a break. He prolly can't see Zumaya's pitches.
Now the called strike for Kubel was considerably outside.
zoinks, this game log got a lot longer.
Hey, Guerrier gets Alaska!
On the plus size, the strike zone doesn't seem to have the shape of Alaska, which would make things considerably more confusing.
throw it to the Aleutian Islands, and your team automatically wins the game
If it were, wouldn't the ump have had to resign from office in about the 6th inning?
Wouldn't that make both of a left handed hitter's knees strikes?
Yes, but obviously it would be fair as long as he did it consistently. Or so I'm told by 90% of TV broadcasters.
Cheese is groovin', sez Gordo.
Now this is starting to remind me of the game against the Braves a few years back where the Twins scored 5 runs off Maddux in the first inning and it took them 15 innings to win it.
I was at that game. I was able to move up to pretty good seats by the 15th.
I was at that game, too. I had a 2-hour drive home that night and then had to be at work by 6am. Still totally worth it.
You might've moved to bullpen had the game gone any longer.
three innings for Zumaya? Does Leyland have terminal lung cancer or summat?
Hasn't he done this in the past when we've played them? Maybe Leyland thinks that Zumaya can only get injured by Guitar Hero and moving accidents.
Every time I see him, inside my head I yell "Play Freebird!!!"
Hopefully he's shut down for the series after this one.
Reminds me of the last extra inning affair with the Tigers when Lyon went 8792 innings (or so) and lost.
in that game, Zumaya threw 2.2 innings and 51 pitches, Lyon 2.2/60
even if we lose this game, it will be nice not to have to face Zumaya the rest of the way. He's over 30 pitches.
Please, Joe, end this. I need sleep. I've invested enough time in this game I want to see it through.
just two more wild pitches....
okay, Span, steal home!
just one more wild pitch....
i'll take a dazzleman special
Balk 4tw
That would be pretty appropriate after Crain's balk that scored Granderson earlier this season.
Say goodnight, Joey.
Yeah, I don't think you can IBB both Mauer and Morneau and expect good things to happen, even if there are 2 outs already.
Okay, I still don't think it's really a great gamble.
We'll see about that!
Booooo!
Cuddy ftw.
Respect.
Time to pay the cudpiper.
I like how Zummy's IBB pitches to Morny were all in the mid- to upper-80s.
They were definitely fast for IBB pitches.
I'm loving the heart-thump that they're playing over the PA system.
aww, crap.
Yikes, that pitch was nowhere near the strike zone.
I feel like Cuddyer has particular trouble with RHP that throw hard, but I don't have numbers to back that up and I also suspect that that is a common problem for right-handed hitters.
for his career:
250/369/463 vs. "Power" pitchers
266/313/430 vs. "Finesse"
Dammit. I still think it was not a good plan to walk Mauer and Morneau the way that Zumaya was throwing it all over the place.
6 more outs.
heh
Kuddy makes the threat disappear.
Mijares over Dickey?
With Duensing used up for the next couple of days, Gardy would probably like to save Dickey in case he needs long relief Saturday or Sunday, or for the 16th-20th innings.
That was an awful at bat.
Alright, I have to give up on this. The goram sun is coming up. Later.
You were a trooper for sticking with it this long. We'll do what we can in your absence.
I've already had a second beer. In your honor.
I need to fix myself some food, but I can't do that and watch the game at the same time. Decisions, decisions.
Now have a third--in my honor.
I just may do that. 'cept I don't think I have any more in the 'fridge.
Sweet dreams, laddy.
My lord, that pitch was high
I don't know why the announcers want the belt to be the upper limit of the strikezone. The rulebook strike zone has an upper boundary halfway between the letters and the belt.
I agree, but it was above the letters
Blame Alaska. It does have that little point that sticks up.
Gameday did have it way high, though.
Is having a cone-shape at the knob of the bat legal in MLB? I was reading some softball rules the other day and I think Polanco's bat would be illegal for softball.
OMG, he ran inside the line!!!
oh, for goodness sake.
an error?
surely, the Baby Jeebus is without
sinerror at home???I was watching Manny's press conference earlier today. At some point they were asking him generic questions about his suspension because he clearly wasn't going to answer specific questions about it, and he was trying to frame his positive test as a mistake and in order to describe that everyone makes mistakes he said: "Everyone but one person makes mistakes, and they killed him, so (awkward pause)" I didn't even catch what he said after that I was laughing so hard at how awkward he made it sound. (Also thinking, does this mean that Manny just compared himself to Jesus?)
he's comparing himself to the thief who got voted off the cross.
Whew.
Man...I got 4 hours of sleep last night, and was hoping to be asleep by now.
8 scoreless innings by our bullpen.
Leyland >> Gardy. He still has his closer available.
He would have used his closer by now if we were in Detroit.
we are scoring this inning
or not
Woot, closing in on 300 LTEs. Take that holiday weekend.
I think the holiday weekend has hurt us in terms of number of participants, but potentially helped us in terms of how long each of us can participate.
can we officially change his name to DHelmon? (kudos to ubes for that, I think)
Seriously, Delmon should always be sitting change-up.
He's not already? I was just assuming that he's behind on everything because he's sitting on off-speed pitches and he doesn't realize that he can't get away with that against pitchers that throw hard.
well, he took a second pitch change-up. Maybe he was taking all the way on it
goddamn pee on rug.
I'm never going to be able to eat at this rate!
Mags looks weird without all his hair.
A bit like Samson?
ha ha. I read "salmon"
Leyland has one non-starter pitcher after this: Freddy Dolsi. We'll probably see him after Rodney in, oh, the 17th inning.
And so do the Twins.
that would be cool. I'm comfortable with making Rodney throw about 40 pitches tonight. Rubber Arm could go 8 or so.
Magglio Ordonez, "struggling mightily," has compiled a .663 OPS going into today. DHelmon Young has compiled a .599 OPS going into today.
oh, shaddup you Debby Downer
I'm just sayin'.
yea, but Magglio is "good".
but DHelmon's only 23 years old!
I left when it was 6-0 and figured I'd catch the final score later. Hello, 13th inning.
welcome back...I came back in the 9th
I just put the game out of my head and I've gotten so much since then, I can hardly believe it's the same one.
...more scoreless innings from Keppel, eh? Weird. And no Rubber Arm...wow, the second I said that, they showed him.
In good news, Mijares is nasty tonight
Yeah, he's a wildcard. I don't really know how good he's going to be. It seems like he has good potential and there's always the temptation to think that Rick Anderson can get him to throw strikes, so hopefully he'll be good. Some days I'm convinced that he's obviously the second-best pitcher in our 'pen.
I'm taking preemptive action.
Can anything done in the 13th inning really be considered preemptive?
Maybe putting in tomorrow's starter.
Good call.
This turned out to be premature ecapulation.
Lucky 13th imo.
Tolbot walk-off???
why, yes. He did walk off.
Right into the dugout.
off the stage in shame
5 for 6?! Damn, I shouldn't have missed that.
So if Harris gets a walk, do you then walk Mauer and Morneau to get to Cuddyer?
Probably not with Harris on first. In a tie game, Mauer's a lot more dangerous with a runner on third. If Mauer gets on, though, you probably walk Morneau.
I was joking (half)
Yeah, it is one of those half-joking situations where the thought probably crosses the manager's mind, if only for a few nanoseconds.
one more time through the order, and Joe qualifies for the leaderboard (or did he make it already?)
So is Mauer pretty much out for tomorrow now?
DH, mebbe? who's starting tomorrow for Detroitlet?
RHP Edwin Jackson in a 3pm start. So yeah, maybe DH.
Prior would have never had to sit out a day game after a night game.
since its a 3pm FOX-tv start, I would say yes
And since it's on FOX, I won't be able to watch it, so I guess it doesn't matter.. Sigh.
Lucky 14th?
Bold prediction: The guys in the red caps will win, eventually.
just setting up the loaves-and-fishes act for Baby J in the 14th.
In Dickey We Trust.
I assume Dickey is in the game for life now.
Damn. Too bad he couldn't get a grip on the ball right away--he would've had a play at second.
Hey fellas, did I miss anything?
Nope.
I have a bad feeling about Polanco...
Right now Polanco has a bad feeling...
Did Polanco just foul that into his nuts?
A strange night gets stranger.
dazz asks whether he was wearing a cup. that's not good.
Tough to say. Is it customary for middle infielders? Over at Lookout Landing, they claim Beltre plays with no cup, which seems pretty insane for a 3B.
it's insane for any IFer!!!
OW!!!! Poor Placido
like I said
Christ.
Shit. I knew he was going to hit it after that groin-injury break.
how many times do you see a guy take a shot in the nuts,and then....
Um...one, I guess.
aww, nuts. so to speak.
blarg
Well, unlike previous games down by 1 in the last inning, at least it's not Delmon, Tolbert, Punto coming up
Damn, I feel like I'm the bad luck here.
On the plus side, we've got Mauer-Morneau-Cuddyer-Crede coming up. On the negative side, we don't really have any pinch hitters for anyone after Crede.
Pretty good chance the game is over by then anyway. My hope is that it will be over after Morneau hits.
Ramon Santana hit a home run for the Snappers tonight, maybe they can call him up super quick like.
Dickey just got tested... wait, that was Polanco.
that one was a reach
With andrew in bed for the
nightmorning, I thought it was safe.+2 hard hit balls.
Dolsi looks short.
8-7
boo.
Trust in Jeebus.
I'd rather trust in blended Canadian Whiskey
C'mon, Morneau. End this thing.
lefties are a career .356/.484/.479 on Dolsi
This just in, Mauer is good at baseball.
DazzL: Morneau should look innner half in and touch someone
Me: I'd be excited about that.
Ral-ly! Ral-ly!
CANADIAN WHISKEY!
Not over yet, boys!!!
Mauer is such a great baserunner. I swear he gets the right read on the ball more often than anyone else.
Oh, hell yeah! Even a Twins-type run-scoring DP isn't completely terrible here.
Dolsi has been quite good against righties, on the other hand
C'mon Cuddy, tell me what card I have.
w00t ... and then crap.
Morneau, you're not fast enough for that! Bah...
YAY MAUER!!! HAHAHAH INGE!!! WTF MORNO?!?! You are not Gomez!!
That play was a case of "Crap! Yay! Crap!"
DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK!
that's gold, sir, comedy gold.
8-8 w00t!!!!1one!!!
At least Cuddy at 2nd
If Crede gets two game's worth of at-bats, is he also allowed to get two hits?
I guess the out at third is a little less costly with a runner behind him and a tie game...tough to say...
it's gonna be DHelmOn ftw.
Gotta walk Crede now right?
No, because then DY can do the intentional strikeout, and then we've got Kubel (Lefty matchup).
I dont understand what happened on the Cuddy play, since I am following on GameDay tonight. a single to SS and Morneau got out at third base?
liner off Inge, rolled off and Morny tried to take an extra base.
line drive...almost caught by Inge, popped out of his glove down the left-field line
Cuddy hit a hard (one-hopper or something) to Inge at third base, bounced off of his glove into foul territory, Mauer got in and then Morneau got greedy and was thrown out at third base.
ahhh.
damnit.
Ha! I think the catcher was just cussing out the pitcher for not backing up third base on that.
Been a good night, Delmon. Make it a career night, yeah?
Well, _elm_n has a chance to not be an asshole here.
God, I hate that guy.
He really is the bane of Twins fans the world round right now, isn't he?
hrumoh. _elm_n FTW?
Twins baseball!!!!
Okay, pitcher? Batter? Which one of you is high?
ooooh. setting up the walk-off balk?
Cuddyer's not exactly Granderson...
...though he did just make an aggressive move towards home...
That would make my night.
Dolsi: 1 balk, 4 wp last year (47.2 IP)
I could go for a little placement here.
touche'
Says Mr. Young.
Prayin' for placement.
Hello, 15th inning...
Well, I still like our pitching situation better than theirs.
I concur. Like Laudner said, If it goes to 26, I like our chances.
No more commercials left to run!
Setting up Kubel for the homer next inning...
(Hope springs eternal, I've stayed up this late, ignored my wife, the Twins better damned well get a win out of this.)
It takes a lot for me to get tired of watching baseball, but I'm getting to that point.
I feel like this has been above-average entertaining for extras. A lot of the time when the game goes really long it's just because teams are going 3 up, 3 down. I will say that with NL rules the extra-inning games are even spicier.
It's not that it hasn't been entertaining, it's just that I'm ready for it to be over. Some of those extras were rather dull though.
Well, regardless of how it ends, it's been a game...
At this point, it's been almost 2 games.
Looking at the pitch counts... Slowey, French, Ni, Seay, Keppel, and Nathan should be available for tomorrow night.
Oh, and R.A. "Mulholland" Dickey.
Dickey doesn't even have a UCL to damage!
Maybe he could be a donor to other pitchers.
Do the Twins send Deunsing down tonight and grab whoever they can from Rochester for a few games?
Who's tomorrow's starter? With an off day Thurs and another on Monday, could everyone just be bumped up a day?
Or put Tuesday's or Sunday's starter out there and skip him in the rotation.
Yeah!!!!
just like they planned it.
Whoo-hoo! I'm still excited. Granted, I missed the fourth through twelfth innings.
double plays are sexy
Even sexier than Ordonez's hair?
so far, this game is no longer than a west coast game
heh. tru dat.
That's the right attitude! They should always have the most exiting baseball between 7pm and 10pm Pacific.
Erm, exciting. Though it would be nice for the team if they can exit with the win.
Kubel is slower than Span, but The Dude made it! My plans to re-watch Lebowski for tonight are probably off, though.
Did you at least eat yet?
I had a banana. If we go to a 16th inning, I am essentially going to give up and eat bread, lunch meat, and beer.
So how often does a guy pinch-hit, have a couple of bad at-bats, catch a fly-ball to end the top of the 15th, then hit a walk-off in the bottom half?
I smell a walk off bunt.
Alright, can we all agree that if the Twins don't win this inning, we will disband and all become fans of other teams?
443 pitches thrown so far this game
about 1 per LTE in the game log!
Bert's single-game average!
Maybe Baker is just the nicest guy out of all the starting pitchers and they wanted to make sure that someone kept the bullpen catcher company?
are you telling me that Baker is looking at the bullpen and he's not even pitching?!
lol
Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, why would you put a guy like Baker as the last pitcher in a game like this when he so clearly doesn't want to finish the game?
No! Don't change Span! We love him just the way he is!
Who's changing Span? Steve Phillips isn't hanging around the Twins clubhouse, is he?
They were talking about the Twins' coaching staff encouraging Span to be more conscious of being aggressive in certain situations and less conscious of the walk.
Really? I hope they were being intentionally dunderheaded to confuse any scouts watching on tv. I love Span's walking.
Yeah, and as the lead-off hitter, I like that he sees a lot of pitches. He's been a fantastic lead-off hitter.
three or four more innings and we can turn the game log back over to Andrew.
Lucky 16th!
They really did run out of commercials. It's like a Stanley Cup game in OT!
Same thing happened during thee 5-set Roddick/Hewitt tennis match the other day.
I think that 15 inning game is the longest game I've ever watched. So this might be a personal best for me. Have the Twins had any games longer than this recently?
oh, good lord. They really ARE sending Baker out to the 'pen.
Told you.
There seems to be a chasm between Harris and Tolbert up the middle.
dammit
This is bad. This is very bad.
I smell an IBB here.
ruh roh.
Shouldn't we be walking him?
Tough to load the bases when you don't always know where Dickey's knuckleball is going to go.
But better to load than to give up the hit, right?
that was no good.
Polanco really is a great contact hitter.
I never liked Polanco because he always seems to hit Twins pitching really well
I never liked him because his jaw is for freekin square.
that should be game. damnit.
Well, Harris/Mauer/Morneau...
Harris-Mauer-Morneau due up in the bottom. A coupla bloops 'n' a blast?
Dickey hasn't exactly impressed tonight.
Mediocre pitchers usually don't impress.
Bruised Dickey, on the other hand, is killing us.
I think the wheels are coming off the Twins wagon this inning
S-H-I-T.
Okay. I over reacted.
Geez, ya freak...
Span - Harris - Iesus - The Mountie??
ok, keep it at one run. still a chance for yet another comeback.
Oh, STFU.
And on a 1-2 pitch! GAAAHHHH!
And to Ryan fucking Raburn.....
FUCK.
The plan was always for Morneau to hit a 3-run HR in the bottom of the inning. The second run doesn't hurt us.
craptastic.
Why the hell is the knuckler throwing his 85 mph fastball 3 pitches in a row?
Okay, the third run hurts.
Game over, season over. /sf
Cuddy salami and Crede for the back-to-back ftw.