GameChat – Indians @ Twins #3, 12:10, FSN & am1500

These are the days of our lives…. 

It’s no wonder that I really find no need or interest in daytime dramas – I get my fill with Twins baseball!  The emotional ups and downs are darn near reaching levels where medication should be considered.  Sheesh. 

There are some bright spots – FSN has picked up the telecast of several days games in the season that weren’t on their original broadcast schedule, including today.  So, for those of us that are able to be near a TV, we get to SEE the game.  Let’s hope they give us something worth watching.

More news:  Kevin Slowey’s outting last night was enough to keep his bacon out of the fire.  It helped make the decision of WHICH struggling starting pitcher was going to need to be replaced.  Nick Blackburn will trade over to the bullpen and do the long relief job for now that will be vacated by Brian Duensing as he moves into a starting role.  Obviously, we’ve anticipated this move coming for awhile.  It’s all presented as temporary to give Blackburn a chance to get his balls down.  #isthataeuphamism? 

Both Mauer and Gardenhire are not in the game today – Gardenhire is attending to a personal matter and Mauer is riding the pine.  Butera will be catching Frankie and Thome is DH’ing.  After Mauer’s mental break last night, a day off is probably a good thing.  He did respond to questions last night about WTF?!?! from the media.  His response really didn’t make me feel any better.  Basically he said that it seemed like a good idea at the time and he just didn’t do it well – if he had, well then everyone would have thought it was a good idea…  uh… really?  Tom Pelissero at 1500 ESPN had a nearly perfect response to that, IMHO.  Didn’t Execute??

Let’s hope that Liriano can shine today and the boys can put their hits together to get runs.  I like runs.  Runs are good.  *sending positive vibes*

A WIN!! A WIN!! A WIN!! 

It sure is nice to head off for the road trip on a good note – and it was a shutout on a getaway day game too!  Lots of good things today.  Slama got to make his MLB debut in front of his parents who were at the game today.  All his buddies down on the Fort Meyers Miracle team were gathered in the clubhouse to watch the mustachio’d man in stirrups throw k’s.  He was definitely nervous so it was good that the Twins offense had done such a good job to give him a nice good cushion which he didn’t need but must have felt good.  So many guys deserve pastries today that I think we should buy stock in a bakery.  Thome had FOUR untinentional walks today; Hardy, Cuddy & Butera had great timely hits.  And the Twins remembered that leaving men on base doesn’t really help your game much. 

But the big standouts today were Delmon Young and Francisco Liriano.  Frankie gave us exactly what we needed – a fiery, dominant 7 inning performance that kept the hitters off-balance.  It was really a thing of beauty.  Delmon also kept up his new Delmon pace – hitting and running and doing things to keep things hopping and earning more RBI.  It’s a beautiful day!  The gamechat has determined that the game deserves both a Defensive and Offensive BOD:  Delmon on Offense and Frankie on Defense.

** final note of the day – Twins have sent Manship back down to AAA and re-instated Alexi Casilla off the DL.  We knew that was coming for all the debate that some thought it would be Blackburn going down. **