GameChat – Royals @ Twins, 1:10pm

So my plans changed and instead of watching the game from Huberts with Kristie over by Target Field, I’m home in bed wishing my head didn’t weigh 20 lbs.  There is an Unplugged event at Huberts tonight after the game so our plan was to be sure we had good seats by getting there before all the people let out of the game.  Oh well.  Next time. And it’s starting to get a bit.. moist.. at the field today so let’s hope that the rain passes quickly.

News about our call-up situation continues to dribble out.  Ben Revere is with the team now and seems practically speechless that it’s happened for him this year.  Fox and Delaney have both been sent down so that we have room.  I’m sure we’ll see more of them in coming years.  Joe C. was kind enough to make sure that a question was answered that has hung in the back of my mind all year.  No, Jacque Jones won’t be up with the team this year.  Apparently, while they would really have loved to see him up here, there just wasn’t enough machinations they could make with the 40 man roster.  Ok, but we needed Ben Revere?  I like the kid but I don’t see it.  But I know Jacque was glad just to be with a team playing ball this year – and have a big league chance – even if it was only the Rochester Red Wings.

As Slowey’s first start coming back from the DL, I’m glad to see more and more starter names coming back into the lineup.  Yes, we still have Tolbert out there though.  Valencia is being handled very carefully – to make sure that he doesn’t actually do serious damage by going back out too early.  I’m fairly certain that Gardy doesn’t want to have another Punto situation.  Btw, Punto is much better and eligible to come back but the team says it’ll probably be another week before he could go full out – they may do so sooner than that though if they need him for a pinch. 

hmmm..  Nick Punto as a pinch hitter??  LOL  Ok, so we know he’d be a defensive replacement.  But let’s hope that the wins continue – our cushion with the White Sox isn’t nearly big enough. The offense just needs to keep up their thing – a very successfull thing as it turns out. The Twins have the highest team BA in the league. Who would ever have guessed.

Today’s game started out in a bit of a frustration for everyone.  I know we all wanted to see more from Slowey, including Kevin himself, but as far as injury returns go, that was NOT a bad outting.  He just didn’t have what he wanted with every pitch.  He still was getting the job done for the most part though.  I knew he wasn’t going to be able to go deep in the game but past the 4th would have been nice.  But Jeff Manship came in and did a great job of holding down the fort for us.  So it’s good to have that expanded bullpen right now.

The offense really did do its thing.  We were all wishing it would have done just a little more because these 1 run games are always tense.  But a win’s a win.  Tense, easy, blow out, close… these wins are all necessary to keep on track since the White Sox don’t seem to be slowing down at this point of the season either.  Gardy did verify that we’ll be adding Neshek and Perkins into the bullpen now too.  But today, the offense story was .. HOMERUN!!!  Delmon ALMOST got one, Kubel NAILED one and Thome… well, I’m not really sure there is a word for what Thome did.  Field staff put out an estimate on the distance and then put out a REVISED distance – 480 feet.  Wow.  Of course, that’s an estimate of where it would have landed if the travel would have been unobstructed because he HIT THE AMERICAN FLAG POLE!  Just a ridiculous mashing of taters there.  For that, Jim Thome is today’s BOD.