Date: 7/19/09

Opponent: Texas Rangers

Home/Away: Away

Starting Pitcher: Liriano

Final Score: L 5-3

Record: 47-45

Best Moment: Nick Punto homers. Am I in Crazy Land? What is going on here? Nick Punto was 3 for 4, but the top 5 in the lineup only had 1 hit combined. And that was from the Black Hole himself, Alexi Casilla. I'm not sure I can stand to live in such a world. But maybe Punto is finally starting to heat up. According to New Telly, some of the guys in the dugout were crediting the homer to his new belt buckle, which he bought while shopping with Cuddyer and Buscher (Does anyone else find it really funny to imagine those 3 on a shopping trip?). Some heckler in the stand also apparently yelled something about Punto not having homered since the 80s right before he hit it. We didn't have a whole lot of offense. Young had 2 hits, and then Casilla and Harris each had a hit to bring the total to 7. Liriano looked a lot better, but he still seemed to really be laboring from the 5th inning on.

I'm quite a bit frustrated at this game. Yes, I'm glad we got the series win, but we could have easily won that game, and if we had, we would have been 2nd in the division and only 1 game back of the Tigers. Cursed missed opportunity.

Most Questionable Moment: Brian O'Nora rules a foul ball a home run. Maybe having his testicles up in his chest cavity is clouding his judgment. My other big problem: Why did Gardy leave Liriano in to start the 7th inning? He struggled through the 5th, he struggled through the 6th, and then naturally in the 7th he started with 2 base hits. Why did we not bring a reliever in to start the inning. I know I ripped the bullpen a lot earlier in the season, but they've settled down. I'm fairly comfortable with Mijares, Guerrier and Nathan. Keppel has been good in a small sample size. I feel like we would have a pretty good shot at keeping the 1-run lead intact if the bullpen started the inning. So, despite our major offensive struggled, I'm inclined to blame Gardy for this one.

Worst Moment: Our knuckleballer decides to throw his overpowering 85 mile per hour fastball right over the heart of the plate to Ian Kinsler. Bye bye baseball. Adios sweep.

Quotations of the Day: 

• "Ultimately the pitch rests in my hand, and I threw the wrong pitch." - R.A. Dickey, owning up to his mistakes.
• "I just didn't expect him to throw a fastball there." - Ron Gardenhire, horrified at the pitch selection. Gardy was definitely throwing Dickey up the bus today.
• "Our bullpen came in and did a really good job. Until that last pitch." - Ron Gardenhire

Suck-Ass Performance of the Game: Joe Mauer (0 for 6, 2 strikeouts, 1 passed ball, 4 left on base) and Michael Cuddyer (0 for 5, 2 strikeouts, 4 left on base). What the fuck is going on with Magic? He needs to pull his shit together. And Cuddyer, well, I kind of expect him to epic fail in high-leverage situations (he is Mr. Anti-Clutch after all). But he's trying to put some space between himself and Casilla in the rankings...

Date: 7/18/09

Opponent: Texas Rangers

Home/Away: Away

Starting Pitcher: Baker

Final Score: W 4-1

Record: 47-44

Best Moment: Bakerbaker has a good outing! He didn't even fall apart in the 6th. He went 8 innings with only 6 hits and 8 strikeouts. His only run came off a solo homer in the 4th. Nathan pitched the 9th for his 25th save, and the Twins get another series win on the road. A sweep sure would be nice...but then again, it is Liriano pitching. Luckily Baker's long outing means we should have the good members of the bullpen available for the final game.

On the offensive side, the peculiar alignment of the planets in the sky led to a rare occurence: Casilla and Punto BOTH had hits. In the same game. Even more miraculous, Punto managed an extra-base hit, his 5th of the year. He also retained TOP COW status with a walk (still don't get it). Cuddyer went 2 for 4 with a home run and RBI double, and Morneau and Gomez each had 2 hits and drove in a run.

Most Questionable Moment: Nelson Cruz gets called safe at 1st on an infield hit fielded by Joe Nathan in the 9th inning. Nathan tried to tag him, but missed, and then threw to 1st. I thought he was out on the throw, and even if he wasn't I do think he was running out of the baseline. Gardy got ejected arguing the play, which was fun, and the play ended up not mattering.

Worst Moment: The home plate umpire gets nailed in the balls by a foul ball. This, of course, was the Worst Moment for him. It was more like the Most Hilarious Moment for me. I laughed for a really long time after that and watched the replay multiple times. It's probably a little funnier for me since I'm female and feel no sort of sympathy pains. He had to keep running to the dugout during the game, which naturally set me off into peals of laughter again.

Quotations of the Day: 

• "I wouldn't say it was crucial or anything, but it's definitely in the direction I want to be headed. I want to have a big impact on this team the second half." - Scott Baker, after the game. I want you to have a big impact, too, Bakerbaker. Hopefully a positive one.
• "We started off so bad, we knew that was an aberration. You know you're not that bad of a road team. Now we're trying to make up ground and get back to .500 on the road." - Ron Gardenhire, on the team's road performance. Gardy used the word "aberration"?!?! I am...speechless. Are we sure it was actually Gardy speaking?
• "[The umpire] said [Cruz] didn't go out of the basepath. Well, which one are we talking about? Because he went all around the one down the middle...That was great baserunning, because if you get away with that, you get away with murder." - Ron Gardenhire, on the play in the 9th inning.
• "I don't know. I think he pulled it out." - My sister, referring to...I actually have no idea what she was referring to, but rest assured Matt and I took it the wrong way.
• "I could here the grunt up here. I don't know if it got him up around the collar bone.........I'm told it did not get him in the collar bone unless he's had some terribly disfiguring accident." - Dick Bremer, initially mistaking where the home plate umpire was hit after he was smoked in the groin by a foul ball.

Suck-Ass Performance of the Game: Denard Span (0 for 5, 3 left on base).

The Twins kicked off their second half of the season last night versus the Rangers, but I thought I would take this opportunity to look back at the first half. So enjoy!

Top 10 Most Memorable Games (Keep in mind this is not necessarily memorable in a good way...)

1. Game #5 (W 12-5 at White Sox): Joe Crede's first game against his former team, he homered in his first at bat. Also featured some memorable walk-up music in the form of "All Out of Love", "She's Like the Wind" and "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go".
2. Game #12 (W 11-9 vs. Angels): Jason Kubel hits for the cycle, capping it off with a grand slam in the bottom of the 8th. We were down 5 runs going into the inning and rallied for 7 to get the win.
3. Game #23 (W 7-5): Magic Mauer's first game back from the DL, and he hits one out of the park on his first swing of the season.
4. Game #34 (W 14-10 in 13 innings vs. Tigers): Joe Crede hits a walk-off grand slam to push the Twins over the top. This game also featured multiple blown leads from Perkins and the bullpen that we kept climbing back from.
5. Game #38 (L 3-2 in 10 innings at Yankees): The Yankees have their 3rd walk-off victory in a row against us, despite Joe Mauer's awesome diving tag of Brett Gardner at home plate.
6. Game #42 (W 20-1 at White Sox): The Twins explode for 20 runs to snap a brutal 6 game losing streak.
7. Game #43 (W 11-3 vs. Brewers): Michael Cuddyer hits for the cycle.
8. Game #49 (L 3-1 vs. Red Sox): The Mad Ejector (AKA Todd Tichenor) ejects our catcher and manager in the top of the 7th with little provocation before ejecting the Red Sox catcher and manager in the bottom of the same inning for arguing balls and strikes.
9. Game #53 (W 4-3 vs. Indians): Mauer goes 3 for 3 with a home run and 3 RBIs, Gomez has a great catch in center field, Harris and Morneau combine for a great play, and (most importantly), Harris dislocates Asdrubal Cabrera's shoulder with his ass.
10.  Game #81 (L 11-9 in 16 innings vs. Tigers): It was 16 innings! What's more memorable than that? And we lost, that kind of makes it stick out in your head as well.

Top 10 Quotations: Players/Coaches/Managers (Mainly just random quotations I enjoyed) 

1. Game #32: "Coming in he's a little different, you know? He kind of waddles in." - Ron Gardenhire on Delmon Young.
2. Game #33: "If he keeps hitting them there, we're going to have to rename it the Mauer Porch." - Justin Morneau, regarding Mauer's tendency to hit home runs to the left-field home run porch.
3. Game #39: "I can't wait to get out of here. Not just the stadium, but the whole city." - Denard Span, after the Twins were swept by the Yankees in New York.
4. Game #51: "They have an in-game host, a DJ, strobe lights, cowbells. I feel like I'm at a rave, not at a baseball game." - Kevin Slowey, describing Tropicana Field.
5. Game #65: "You try to find the right situation to put him in ballgames, but when you get to this point, there's no right situation." - Ron Gardenhire, on Jesse Crain, foreshadowing his demotion to Rochester.
6. Game #72: "Dickey was huge." - Ron Gardenhire. I couldn't really do this without a good unintentional double entendre, now could I?
7. Game #82: "He's one of those dirtballs that just knows how to beat you." - Tigers manager Jim Leyland, regarding Nick Punto.
8. Game #87: "They like to play behind him. They get a lot of action." - Joe Mauer, on the defense liking to play with Blackburn on the mound. Okay, make that without 2 good unintentional double entendres.
9. Game #88: "I think that's my first win here in the last 10 years I've been managing the team. I never have a nice vodka. Every time I go out [in Minnesota] I get drunk because I'm [upset]." - Ozzie Guillen
10.  Game #89: "We can definitely play better than we've played. We haven't really gotten a hot streak going or played how we are capable of. We are a team that can get hot and I think we have a chance to win this division." - Justin Morneau

Top 10 Quotations: Everyone Else (Once again, just random quotations that amused me)

1. Game #32: "Hawks will want..." - Janet, Spoonerizing "Walks will haunt".
2. Game #33: "It will probably spontaneously combust tomorrow; they can't stand success." - Matt, on the bullpen's relatively good outing.
3. Game #34: "I told you they couldn't stand success. Do you see the crater? It's huge." - Matt, after the bullpen proved his prediction correct the next game.
4. Game #56: "He should be wearing a 'Gardenhire for Tolbert' t-shirt." - Matt, after Gardy got upset over a ball Tolbert put in play being ruled an error instead of a hit.
5. Game #69: "He was fumbling around like a teenager with his first girlfriend." - Me, after Brendan Harris made an awkward tag on a stolen base attempt.
6. Game #70: "So even though Gardy threw Harris up the bus, he isn't benched?" - Janet, apparently not realizing that you throw people under the bus, not up it.
7. Game #74: "Some fucker needs to get a hit. His average is falling fast. It's Joe Mauer, by the way." - Janet, dissing Magic.
8. Game #74: "It's your fault. You wanted to see the fucking slide!" - Janet, blaming me for the Brewers' home runs in the game after I commented prior to the series that I wanted to see the slide.
9. Game #81: "Oh wow. This is rather graphic. This is not family-friendly anymore. This is borderline pornographic." - Matt, referring to Harris's somewhat obscene-looking stretching routine with the trainer.
10.  Game #88: An exchange during the game, between my sister and me. We were both speaking from Punto's perspective during his first plate appearance.
    • Me: "I'm going to watch that pitch cuz I like balls."
    • Janet: "Especially Gardy's."

Top 10 Suck-Assiest Twins of the 1st Half

1. Alexi Casilla (10 SAPotGs): He almost immediately earned the nickname the Black Hole. And it was completely deserved.
2. Nick Punto (7): Horrible offense, bad baserunning, tendency to injure himself on headfirst slides, need I say more?
3. Jesse Crain (7): He's currently taken up residence in Rochester after the Twins finally realized that he couldn't hold a lead (be it 10 runs or 2). Sadly he was given way too many chances before the move was made, and he lost numerous games for us before his demotion.
4. Matt Tolbert (3): The most offensively pathetic of a trio of offensively pathetic infielders, Princess nonetheless received gratuitous praise for his bunting skills.
5. Delmon Young (6): Possibly the worst every day player in the MLB when combining offense and defense.
6. Scott Baker (6): Baker was supposed to be our ace, and instead he has given up a ridiculous 18 home runs while racking up 7 losses.
7. Michael Cuddyer (11): His numbers look good, but true Twins fans have come to recognize his feebleness in high leverage situations. Mr. Anti-Clutch indeed.
8. Francisco Liriano (4): Leads the team in strikeouts, but also in losses. He has flashes of brilliance followed by agonizing outings with skyrocketing pitch counts.
9. Luis Ayala (3): Signed to be a possible set-up man, he blew 3 saves before being bumped down to earlier innings. His lack of talent led to his release.
10.  Sean Henn (1): Don't let his lack of SAPotGs fool you, Henn was terrible. He managed to blow a save and lose 3 games in only 11 innings pitched. That's an impressive rate of suck.

Top 10 Crazy Predictions for the Second Half

1. Michael Cuddyer hits 20 more home runs...but all of them will be solo shots in blow outs. All of the other Twins players will petition to have Least Valuable Player become an official award.
2. After suffering multiple concussions from crashing into walls, getting squashed in revolving doors, and bunting balls into his head, Carlos Gomez retires from baseball and become a balloon animal artist.
3. Joe Mauer hits over .400. Later it will be revealed that the Twins were using a combination of bribery and blackmail to get opposing pitchers to throw BP fastballs and opposing players to let balls get through the infield or drop in the outfield. The scandal will result in the complete overhaul of the front office. Mauer denies all knowledge of the scam, and MLB throws him a parade to honor his integrity.
4. Joe Crede is put on the DL after being attacked by a feral cat mysteriously stuffed in his locker. Brian Buscher is later arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. Ron Gardenhire asks if the cat is available as an infielder. "Boy, was he battling his tail off! That kitten sure had some grit."
5. Scott Baker rattles off 8 wins in a row after the outfielders start sitting on the top of the outfield wall in order to prevent home runs. Major League Baseball finally puts an end to this after multiple teams protest, and Baker goes winless the rest of the season. 
6. Nick Punto goes on the DL after sliding headfirst into 1st base and breaking his right hand. While on a rehab assignment, he breaks his other hand doing the same thing. A heartbroken Gardy tries to institute a rule-change to replace all bases with actual feather pillows.
7. Denard Span, sick of being stranded on base, requests to be benched until "you know, an actual, you know, professional hitter, you know, bats behind me instead of, you know, all these automatic outs".
8. R.A. Dickey legally adds Ulysses to the beginning of his name and starts going by U.R.A. Dickey. When asked why, he says, "People are going to make the joke anyway. At least this way they know I thought of it first."
9. Alexi Casilla continues to bat sub-.200. Harris, benched 80 percent of the time, finally snaps in September after Casilla strikes out for the 4th time in a game and begins to bludgeon him with a dictionary and a bat. Harris is committed to a mental institution.
10.  Joe Nathan doesn't blow a save the rest of the regular season. Unfortunately, after the Twins make the playoffs, he blows 3 saves in a row versus the Yankees. The Twins refuse to play any games against New York in the 2010 season, claiming, "It's just as unfair as that stupid coin toss! They've cursed us or something. That has to be against the rules!"

Beth's Awards for Current Players

• Scott Baker: Most Likely to Improve (or perhaps Player Beth Really Really Hopes Will Improve)
• Nick Blackburn: Best Starting Pitcher
• R.A. Dickey: Best Sexually Suggestive Name
• Brian Duensing: Most Likely to Make Me Remember Luis Ayala with Fondness
• Matt Guerrier: Most Likely to Have His Arm Fall Off
• Bobby Keppel: Biggest Surprise (in a good way)
• Francisco Liriano: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of the Twins
• Jose Mijares: Most Bovine
• Kevin Mulvey: Scariest (mostly due to lack of knowledge about him)
• Joe Nathan: Most Likely to Make an Opposing Player Piss His Pants
• Glen Perkins: Worst Facial Hair
• Kevin Slowey: Most Worrisome Injury
• Anthony Swarzak: Best Debut
• Joe Mauer: Most Magical Player
• Mike Redmond: Least Likely to Hit a Home Run
• Brian Buscher: Most Likely to Have a Numb Ass
• Alexi Casilla: Biggest Surprise (in a bad way)
• Joe Crede: Most Fragile
• Brendan Harris: Most Valuable Butt
• Justin Morneau: Most Canadian
• Nick Punto: Most Likely to Injure Himself
• Michael Cuddyer: Most Likely to Strikeout with the Bases Loaded
• Carlos Gomez: The Human Blooper Reel
• Denard Span: Most Likely to Overuse "You Know" as a Phrase
• Delmon Young: Most Awkward Looking
• Jason Kubel: Best DH