The boys are back in town.. and it smells like someone walked in dog do on the way into TF.. oh wait, that’s the WSox. Never mind.  Moving on…

Other big news today is that the Twins apparently offered Michael Cuddyer a wo-year extension worth $16 million. At this point it appears that it’s early in the discussion and I think Cuddyer would like to wait until after the season to talk about it but I don’t think that precludes an actual deal at some point. However, I think it’s pretty much guaranteed that neither the front office or Cuddyer’s people will say anything at all to the media/public until something IS done. But at least it’s something to work with as far as number ideas.

So it’s the 20th anniversary weekend for the ’91 World Series! Yes, there have been lines outside the park to get tonights give-away bobblehead all day. It actually looks kind of funny given that particular play has been fairly well immortalized. I have you the better view because I honestly don’t think the front looks much like Hrbek. But I still understand the appeal of the statue. JC drove up for today’s game but I don’t know if he stood in line for the promotion or not. I know he’d want one though – he’s been drooling over the set since they announced it. However, from what those in line have said, the majority are probably going to try to SELL the darn thing so it will be readily available by tomorrow is my guess.

[EDIT] I guess JC DID stand in line or at least got there early enough because guess who got one!

The fun part is that they have all the players from the ’91 team gathering together for the celebrations.. It’s going to be fun for the fans to see them all out there I think.

As far as the actual game tonight goes, the good news is that Thome is down to 2 HR left to hit the big 600.  It would be GREAT to see him do it here at home.. it would be even better to see him do it against the WSox.  However, he’s not in the starting lineup tonight so if he’s going to get #599 today, it’s likely to be late in the game if Gardy pulls him in for some late inning power. I think I would like that.

You know who else isn’t in the lineup? Span. Yeah, that one is a bit more worrying. The boys didn’t get in to the cities until most of us were getting up for the day so I’m sure they are all a bit on the bleary side. Span was feeling a bit more than bleary and that worries me. For caution’s sake, he’s asked for the day off because he was feeling a bit woozy. During his rehab stint, he didn’t play games on travel days because travel has a strong effect. So raise your hand if it worries you a little bit that our boy recovering from a concussion is experiencing woozy symptoms. *raises hand* However, they are making no judgements at this point, just letting him rest a day. And that means Revere gets a day at CF.

Casilla was taking grounders today during BP and they say he’ll be ready to play when he’s elligible to come off the DL on the 12th. I am NOT a Lexi backer in much of any way but at this point, I think I would like to see the Twins send Nishi to AAA for a little more work on how we do things here when Casilla is back in the lineup. I know I’m must wishing to dead air though but.. after the last week of play, I really think it’s time.

see.. I told you I smelled dog doodoo..

I’m glad that JC got his bobblehead because that was about all that game was worth. Kube’s HR was fantastic but between the errors and bad pitching and general lack of good baseball, it wasn’t the best game.  And yes, I think this game proved the other point I made in pregame – Nishi doesn’t get American baseball and needs to get it figured out. PLEASE send him down to AAA and let him figure out the nuances there!!