Day: August 27, 2010

GameChat – Twins @ Mariners, 9:10

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So… it’s amazing what can happen in a day when you aren’t expecting something.  And I think what happened today should just go to prove that the non-waiver trade deadline really doesn’t mean doodly for the Twins front office.  Just in case your laptop/phone/twitter is not surgically attached to your fingers like it is for some of us, here’s the news today:  Twins acquired left-handed closer, Brian Fuentes, from the Angels for a player to be named later or cash.  Wow.  According to Gardy, he’ll be mainly doing the lefty setup duties for Capps (and providing a nice backup in case it’s necessary). 

This is really an impressive move by the Twins in my book.  Not sure who I’m going to recognize any relievers coming out of our pen in a couple days!  But I think this is clear that Perkins is not expected to be a long-term Left-handed option in the bullpen.  But that’s just my opinion.

In other news (not quite as interesting), the Twins announced that they’ll be putting a statue of Calvin Griffith on the plaza with the other player statues.  Apparently the big news of that situation is that Rod Carew is ok with the statue being near his.  Good?  I guess I appreciate the sensitivity of the situation and how they handled it – WAY more of a soft touch than I am even capable up.  However, I just can’t get away from the part of it that makes me feel like the Twins can put whatever statue they want whereever they want.  And I LIKE Rod Carew!!!  I’m pretty sure that his permission wasn’t really necessary.  Like I said, it just goes to prove that the Twins are nicer people than I am.  Big surprise.

As far as tonight’s game.. oy, another west coast game.  They are never good for my sleep schedule because once I start staying up late? I have a hard time going to bed early for awhile.  Let’s hope that Baker is up to form tonight – both the for the sake of the Twins AND my fantasy teams!

Minnesota @ Seattle
Span, CF   Suzuki, I, RF
Hudson, O, 2B   Figgins, 2B
Mauer, DH   Branyan, DH
Cuddyer, 1B   Lopez, J, 3B
Young, D, LF   Kotchman, 1B
Valencia, 3B   Gutierrez, F, CF
Repko, RF   Moore, A, C
Casilla, A, SS   Tuiasosopo, M, LF
Butera, C   Wilson, Jo, SS
  Baker, S, P     Vargas, J, P

 

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Minnesota 1 1 0 0 0 3 1 0 0 6 12 1
Seattle 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 3 8 2

 

There was some hilarious comments made about the game tonight and I wish I could actually remember more than a couple of them.  My favorite was from Dick Bremer regarding the radar gun hitting 96 mph for Scott Baker: “Mariners are borrowing the radar gun from the Wisconsin Highway Patrol..”

And on the postgame radio interview, Danny Valencia even had TC laughing when asked how he chooses who to throw the ball to at the end of an inning: “First I look for a Twins fan, if I can’t find that, I look for a female…”  Well, Danny, at least you are honest.

There were a couple other things that had me rolling tonight but given the lateness of the hour, my brain is sleeping and I don’t remember what they were.  BUT, it was a fun game.  We got to see our new lefty, Flores, go out there and throw the ball a bit – and he fits right in our bullpen facial hair wise.  I think they were testing him out a bit tonight and he had some bad-luck grounders but I think we’ll see him used primarily as a situational lefty.  Especially since Fuentes is supposed to arrive tomorrow.  The official roster move was made post game and was exactly what most of us suspected and Glen Perkins was sent back down to AAA to get innings there.  Scott Baker had a decent outting which I greatly appreciate – it wasn’t his best by the end of it and he’s still throwing too many pitches for my liking but it definitely got the job done tonight.  And Matty Guerrier just MADE my DAY!!  Coming into a bases loaded situation left for him by Flores, he nailed it down and got us out of the inning with a minimum of drama.  For that he gets a Cheesecake on a stick in honor of the State Fair.

And the offense actually showed up!!!  Go figure but Joe Mauer is hitting .399 since the all star break.  Wow.  He was 3/5 again tonight with 2 RBI.  He’s definitely quietly moving his way back up the leaderboard.  Go Joe!  For such a fabulous outting tonight, you are warded an entire bucket of Sweet Martha’s cookies and all the milk you can drink.

Hard to believe that someone could beat that but I think the GameChat voted purely on entertainment value tonight giving our BOD to Danny Valencia – and NOT for his post game comments.  The entertainment started early with a very fun catch in the Twins dugout which he held on to the ball but nearly required BOTH Twins catchers to keep him from a headlong dive over the rail.  Then he hit a HAWT triple  – because all triples are hot.  And he ended up tying Mauer for RBI tonight.  So for all that flash and dash, Danny Valencia is today’s BOD.

Minnesota State Fair!

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Hey folk, it’s that time of year again!  I thought I would make sure you knew where to go to get your baseball fix while doing the Fair thing.  The Twins and FSN have their little shindig set up on the South East corner of the fair by the Snelling entrance.  If I remember correctly, it’s a big tent on the East side of Judson between Underwood and Cooper.   How about a helpful Map? 

Of course they have tons of Twins gear and such that you can pick up.  They have official Minnesota Twins Baseball licensed merchandise plus an exhibit of Twins baseball memorabilia and interactive activities for children and adults.  They also have free stuff and prize giveaways.  At the very minimum you can get Twins bags and schedules for next year!  Here’s the Fair promotional guide that you can look through for deals – baseball and otherwise!

I will admit that I really did only the most basic of searching for this and while I tried to find out if there was a schedule of player appearances at the Twins site and they didn’t have any Fair related info for current players.  But here’s a link to the alumni players who are going to be there. 

I did at least grab the link to the daily schedules.  If you know what day you are going, you can check to see what’s going on that day.  Of course, I have gotten the word from TC Bear that he will be in the parade every day at 2 pm so if you haven’t gotten your Twins fix by that point in the day, you know where to go.

And just because I found it and couldn’t resist sharing, here’s a little insight from April this year into what some of our Minnesota boys think about all that food on a stick!

A kind concessionaire named Brandi looked at the menu behind her and summarized it thusly: “How much more Minnesota can you get? Everything on a stick!”

Such adventuring spirit hasn’t quite infiltrated the home team, which, during the yearly Minnesota State Fair, tends to find itself in pennant races. Finding a walleye-on-a-spike veteran was harrowing.

Manager Ron Gardenhire? Nope.

“I’ve seen my buddy Walleye walk with a stick because he’s so drunk,” he said.

Reliever Brian Duensing? Negative.

“I don’t know if I could trust it,” he said. “The stick scares me. If it’s one a plate, sure. I might try it. I’m sure it’s not bad.”

Second baseman Orlando Hudson? You can’t be serious.

“I ain’t eating no fish on no damn stick,” he said. “I eat bass, crappy, walleye. But not on no stick. That don’t sound right.”

Everything else was fine. “This is a great town,” Hudson said, and it got even better when the threat of baseball contracting the Twins forced the city’s people to save their team. They could’ve said no. They could’ve done a bootleg job. Instead, they’ve got this new jewel in the middle of their city, set up and finished with a spike.

You know, I really think it would be fun to walk around the Fair with a couple of these guys on their first time!