GameChat – Twin @ White Sox, 7:10

Here it is – the final series with the White Sox. From a math perspective, the White Sox are quickly losing any balance in the odds. However improbable the numbers are now, they aren’t impossible so every game counts. PLUS, the rest of baseball is finally starting to join me in looking up the line instead of back – whoever takes the AL East doesn’t really matter to me, but the home field advantages do! So let’s keep winning.

Minnesota @ Chi White Sox
Span, CF   Pierre, LF
Hudson, O, 2B   Ramirez, A, SS
Mauer, C   Rios, CF
Cuddyer, 1B   Konerko, 1B
Kubel, RF   Ramirez, M, DH
Young, D, LF   Quentin, RF
Thome, DH   Pierzynski, C
Valencia, 3B   Vizquel, 3B
Hardy, SS   Beckham, 2B
Liriano, P   Danks, P

 

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Minnesota 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 5 0 9 12 1
Chi White Sox 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 3 8 2

 

Not many nails remaining!

Well THAT was fun!

It may just be me, but that game epitomized the Twins and the White Sox seasons. Both teams got solid starting pitching for a few innings. The Twins scored first, the Sox answered and even pulled ahead. The Twins answer, with the bottom part of the order coming through.

The Sox turned right around and threaten to pass right by again. The Twins bullpen has a hiccup but then slams the door in the Sox collective faces and then the hitters start taking advantage of Sox mistakes to pull away to a 9-3 win.

Joe Mauer was, as usual, right in the thick of things with three hits, including the 1000th of his young career, earning him a nice, moderately priced bottle of wine to celebrate the occasion (after all, we’re expecting a couple thousand more of those things out of him). JJ Hardy had a couple of doubles, earning himself a big ole hunk of double-chocolate cake. JJ wasn’t the only one with an extra base hit tonight, though. Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel and Denard Span all added doubles, as well, and Delmon Young launched a home run, as well.

But for the first time this season (I think), the GameChat crew voted a relief pitcher Boyfriend of the Day honors. Jesse Crain entered the game in the 7th inning with nobody out and two men on base with the Twins nursing a 4-3 lead. Not only did he prevent the Sox from scoring, but he struck out Paul Konerko and Manny Ramirez back-to-back to end the inning and preserve the lead before the Twins went on to put up a 5-spot in the top of the 8th to put things away. Crain has just been outstanding for most of the season and tonight’s performance showed just how important he has become to the team… and why he is our BOD! – JC

So how big is Twins Territory anyway?

It’s always true that the bandwagon gets a bit more crowded when a team is being as successful – especially late in the season – as the Twins are right now. But here at Knuckleballs, we’ve understood from the outset that many of our regulars would not be lucky enough to be in Minnesota. 😉  That’s part of the appeal of joining with other fans online when you are away from regular access to fellow fans. 

So, we added one of those fancy little tracker thingies to see how many people were stopping by to visit AND it tells us the various locations in the world people are logging in from.  WOW.  We were REALLY surprised to find out how many people out there from all over logged in.  But yeah, we know that most of those visits from overseas are probably not actually Twins fans and we just discounted them as bots… 

But then we started getting messages from minor league family members in Australia.  And we noticed that some of the locations are very regular and repeated.  Who knew that there are Canadian Twins fans!  How fabulous!  And while we know a few of the people come regularly and comment or join the chats, most of our readers don’t ever speak up.

So if you’re a frequent reader but haven’t ever felt the need to vent/vex/chat, here’s your chance to make a mark.  We really want to know where people are and how they found us or the Twins.  Select the option that best applies to you in the poll, and please, feel free to add more – especially if we haven’t heard from you before!  If you are further afield, we’d love to hear if you became a Twins fan here in MN and moved away or if you managed to discover them despite being outside their home broadcast area!