Month: July 2011

GameChat – Rays @ Twins, 1:10

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Happy Fourth of July, everyone and a special “thank you” to all past and present members of our country’s Armed Services!

For the second season in a row, the Twins will be hosting the Tampa Bay Rays on Independence Day. The Rays have been playing pretty good baseball lately, winning seven of their last 10 games and coming off a series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.

On the injury front, Jason Kubel is returning to the Twin Cities but, unfortunately, it’s not to play baseball. He’s still feeling discomfort in his foot after re-aggravating it in his first rehab game last week. He’ll be checked out by the Twins’ witch doctors. The news isn’t terrific on Denard Span, either. Denard had a bit of a setback in his recovery from his concussion when he tried to do some running, etc., in the extremely hot weather late last week. Hopefully, both of these guys will take just a small step backwards before forging ahead toward full recoveries. It would be great to get them both back quickly, but that doesn’t look likely. The important thing is that they fully recover so they can contribute at full strength when they do get back.

I hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July. If part of your holiday celebration includes watching the Twins this afternoon, here are the line ups for the game and, as usual, we’re opening up a chat window during the game. – JC

RAYS @ TWINS
Damon, DH Revere, CF
Rodriguez, S, 2B Casilla, A, 2B
Longoria, 3B Mauer, C
Upton, B, CF Cuddyer, RF
Ruggiano, LF Valencia, DH
Kotchman, 1B Hughes, L, 1B
Shoppach, C Repko, LF
Joyce, RF Tolbert, 3B
Johnson, E, SS Nishioka, SS
_Price, P _Duensing, P

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Tampa Bay 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 1
Minnesota 0 3 1 0 0 0 0 3 x 7 7 0

When you looked at today’s match up, I’m not sure many people saw this kind of thing happening! It’s not that getting a W was impossible, but that was nothing short of a dominant performance over a very good team with an All-Star starting pitcher.

Michael Cuddyer continued his hot hitting with another home run and Danny Valencia, once again, couldn’t let Cuddy do anything without proving he could do it, too. In fact, Danny V came away with 3/4 of a cycle, which is good enough to warrant strong consideration for Boyfriend of the Day honors.

But complete game shutouts must be rewarded! Brian Duensing struggled a bit early to find the strike zone but as the game went on, he got even better. That terrific performance earns our BOD today!

Brian Duensing

 

The Final Countdown: 80 Games

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We knew it was too good to last, of course. You simply don’t continue to gain several games on your competition every week the way the Twins had been closing in on the teams above them in the standings. It’s actually a bit surprising that they didn’t lose any more ground than they did, considering the competition they faced over the past 10 games.

We here at Knuckleballs started this little “Countdown” exercise a few weeks ago when the Twins had played 62 games, leaving 100 remaining, and we’re continuing to check in every 10 games to see what sort of progress the team is making. With 100 games remaining, the Twins trailed the Tigers by exactly 10 games. A little quick math revealed that they needed to gain one game in the standigns on the Tigers for every 10 games played to catch up to them by the end of the season.

We’re also keeping track of where our guys stand in comparison to the BitchSox, since we’ve pretty much assumed from the start of the season that Ozzie’s Southsiders will be in the race until the end.

While I’m still not willing to add them to the REAL AL Central Standings, for our purposes, I do have to give Cleveland credit for not folding as quickly as I thought they would. I still don’t think they’ll be contending by the end of the season, but they sure seem to continue to think otherwise.

Anyway, here are the REAL AL Central Standings at this particular checkpoint, with the Twins having exactly 80 more ballgames left to play:

TWINS GAMES REMAINING: 80

TEAM RECORD GB
Tigers 45-40 –
BitchSox 42-43 3
TWINS 36-46 7.5

With the All-Star break this week, it will be two more weeks before the Twins get another 10 games under their belts. Four of those games will be on the road at Chicago, but the other six will be at home against the Rays and Royals. During the same period of time, the Tigers will play seven of nine games on the road, while the BitchSox play seven of their next ten games against either the Twins or Tigers.

In other words, the Twins have an excellent opportunity to make up more ground before we check in again at the 70-game mark!

– JC

 

Game Chat – Brewers @ Twins #3, 1:10

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Michael Cuddyer

Congratulations to Michael Cuddyer on being named to the AL All-Star Team for the first time. Cuddyer has toiled in the shadows of guys like Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Joe Nathan, Johan Santana and others over the years, so he hasn’t gotten the broad recognition that others have, but more than once he’s had to step in to a leadership role with the Twins and for all the shit some people seem to enjoy dumping on him at times, he’s never demonstrated anything but class and a solid work ethic. Congratulations Cuddy!

One of the toughest things to do in sports is put a tough defeat, like last night’s loss to the Brewers, behind you and not let it have an effect on another game less than 24 hours later. That’s exactly what the Twins have to do today, however.

Let’s hope they find the intestinal fortitude to do the job.

[I’m planning on enjoying a Cedar Rapids Kernels vs Burlington Bees ballgame this afternoon, so I won’t be around for much, if any, of the chat. I’m not sure if Babs will be either, but for those who do join in, enjoy the game! – JC]

BREWERS @ TWINS
Weeks, 2B Revere, CF
Morgan, CF Casilla, A, 2B
Hart, C, RF Mauer, C
Fielder, 1B Cuddyer, RF
Gamel, 3B Thome, DH
Betancourt, Y, SS Valencia, 3B
Kotsay, LF Tosoni, LF
Lucroy, C Hughes, L, 1B
Counsell, 2B Nishioka, SS
_Greinke, P _Blackburn, P

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Milwaukee 0 0 1 5 0 1 0 0 0 7 10 2
Minnesota 0 1 0 3 1 0 4 0 x 9 9 1

This game is exhibit A for why you just don’t want to overreact to one bad game. The season is 162 games long and you’re going to give up some late leads and lose some games you should have won… you’re also going to have some games… like today… where you’re offense has to just keep hitting baseballs until you come back on a team and steal a win.

Since I was at the local minor league game today, the best I could do is follow along on my phone, but from what I could tell, there was no shortage of heroes today. Big Jim Thome cracked home run number 595 (and his second of this series). Rene Tosoni got the Twins back in to contention with a 3-run HR of his own. Danny Valencia had a couple of hits including a double and an RBI. Joe Nathan threw a perfect 8th inning and Glen Perkins entered in the 9th with two men on and Prince Fielder coming to the plate, but struck out the two batters he faced to nail down the win. That’s a group worthy of a dessert buffet if I’ve ever seen one.

But on a unanimous vote of those in the GameChat, the Boyfriend of the Day award goes to Michael Cuddyer, who came up with a key RBI single not once, but twice, on the day he was announced as the Twins’ representative in the 2011 All-Star Game!

Michael Cuddyer

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GameChat – Brewers @ Twins #2, 6:10pm

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Ok, quick injury update:

  • Morneau’s surgery went very well and the news is good although he’s still not going to be back until August sometime.  He had a fragment of a herniated disc removed from his neck (which honestly sounds ridiculously painful) and is apparently experiencing IMMEDIATE pain relief. He’s on light duty for a couple weeks and when his stitches are out, he can start increasing his work load as his body tolerates.
  • Kubel’s most recent aggravation of the sprain is merely that. Nothing but a bump on the rehab road – a little good behavior DH’ing only in Rochester for a couple games instead of playing the double header in the field and he’ll be back on schedule.

and courtesy of the StarTrib –

  • Righthander Kevin Slowey (abdominal strain) will start on Tuesday for Class AAA Rochester. He should be able to throw 60-70 pitches as he builds his stamina.
  • Outfielder Delmon Young (right ankle) took batting practice and ran on the field before the game. He will head to Rochester on Sunday to begin a minor league rehabilitation assignment.
  • Outfielder Denard Span (concussion) worked out with the team on the field before the game but didn’t take batting practice. The Twins hope he will take BP sometime this weekend.

It’s a phenomenal day for baseball (and pretty much everything else) here in Minnesota. Sadly, I won’t be able to join you for the game today as I am performing in a July 4th celebration tonight & tomorrow morning. I don’t know if JC will be joining or not but I’m hoping he will be able to watch the game whether he’s chatting or not.

Milwaukee @ Minnesota
Weeks, 2B Revere, CF
Morgan, CF Casilla, A, 2B
Braun, LF Mauer, DH
Fielder, 1B Cuddyer, RF
Gamel, DH Valencia, 3B
Betancourt, Y, SS Hughes, L, 1B
Kotsay, RF Repko, LF
Lucroy, C Butera, C
Counsell, 3B Nishioka, SS
Narveson, P Pavano, P

Very tough way to lose a ballgame tonight. I’m not feeling all that inclined to even write a summary.

Bounce back Sunday, guys – JC

Boyfriend(s) of the Month

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You may have noticed that we didn’t give “Boyfriend of the Month” awards for April or May. (OK, honestly, you probably didn’t notice.) The BOM is our way of keeping track of who’s been leading the charge for the Twins.

Jason Kubel

Frankly, the folks who join us for GameChats had relatively few opportunities to even vote Boyfriend of the Day awards in April and May, but a couple of players did stand out. It seems like a long time ago, now, but in April, Jason Kubel was one of the few bright spots for the Twins. He was also the only Twin to receive more than one BOD award here at Knuckleballs, making him the April Boyfriend of the Month.

Nick Blackburn

In May, there weren’t many more opportunities to hand out those BOD awards. It was clear that what little success the Twins had in May was due to their starting pitching. Nine of the ten BODs handed out in May went to starting pitchers and Nick Blackburn collected three of those honors, making him our BOM for May.

June, as we all know, was a considerably more successful month for the Twins. Five different players were bestowed multiple BOD awards last month. Two of them came through with three such awards. Once again demonstrating the critical role that starting pitching has continue to play for the Twins, Carl Pavano and Scott Baker are our co-Boyfriends of the Month for June.

 

Scott Baker
Carl Pavano

Game Chat – Brewers @ Twins, 7:10

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I remember the old days when the Twins used to beat the Brewers occasionally. I’m not sure all of you were even born then, but take my word for it… sometimes the Twins would win these match ups. Seriously!

Maybe we’ll all be fortunate enough to see it happen again.

Maybe it will be soon.

Maybe tonight.

BREWERS @ TWINS
Weeks, 2B Revere, CF
Gomez, CF Casilla, A, 2B
Braun, LF Mauer, C
Fielder, 1B Cuddyer, RF
Hart, C, RF Thome, DH
McGehee, DH Valencia, 3B
Betancourt, Y, SS Tosoni, LF
Wilson, Jo, 3B Hughes, L, 1B
Lucroy, C Nishioka, SS
_Gallardo, P _Liriano, P

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Milwaukee 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 4 1
Minnesota 3 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 x 6 7 0

Whaddya know? Our guys beat the big bad brew crew!

Jim Thome struck the big blow with a three-run HR in the first inning and, once again, the Twins got a couple of nifty innings of relief pitching. Joe Nathan and Glen Perkins each looking sharp in relief of Francisco Liriano. Frankie’s 7 innings of work was good enough to warrant strong Boyfriend of the Day consideration, striking out 7, while walking only 2 and giving up just 2 runs on 4 hits.

But, in the end, we were all glad to see a strong offensive game out of Joe Mauer, who reached base every time he came to the plate, singling 3 times and reaching on an error. The Chairman scored two runs, as well, and all of that makes him our BOD!

Joe Mauer

 

Twins Caption Contest!

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Still a couple of hours to take part in the Twins Caption Contest – you have until 2 pm Central time to submit your best caption in 105 characters or less! Click the picture below and you’ll be taken straight to the contest application!

photo courtesy of Minnesota Twins