Month: August 2011

I don’t have much in the way of witty commentary (Babs might have some a bit later), but I figured I could at least get the post up. Who knows, maybe I’ll even have a chance to watch the game!

God help us, that sucked.

ooooookaayyy…. yeah. Tonight is going to be INTERESTING and I mean that in the most Minnesota sense of the word.

Poor Gardy has a bit of a situation – and I don’t mean the kind that can’t wear Abercrombie & Fitch – he’s missing a LOT of people. We called up Luke Hughes last night knowing that we were going to need the extra person in the roster anyway.. we were thinking ahead right? Yeah, he went to the wrong gate and missed his flight… he’s not here yet. He was supposed to be taking the place of Kubel who is gone tonight dealing with a family emergency. Then there’s Cuddyer – who apparently has a herniated disc in his neck that he wants to play through… Ouch. But regardless, he can’t play tonight. And Denard is back down dealing with more concussion symptoms (and/or drug reactions). Tolbert still can’t swing a bat – we were darn lucky that when he came up to bat last night, the bunt thing was appropriate. The worst part about the Tolbert situation? HE’S THE ONLY PERSON WE HAVE ON THE BENCH!! If you check the lineup, you’ll see that Mauer gets to appear in yet another new position tonight – over in right field. I guess at the rate he’s going, he’ll be completely ready for whatever position he needs to be in when Catcher is no longer his primary… I hope he manages the change as well as he did covering 1B.

So, um, let’s hope that a) no one gets hurt tonight or we’re going to try to find bullpen members to field positions, b) Thome needs to hit almost all homeruns so he doesn’t have to run too much and c) Duensing can pitch a near or complete game in order to allow the above mentioned bullpen members to fullfill other duties!!!

And Thome will be honored before tonight’s game for his accomplishments joining the 600 HR club. He gets a huge crowd for it tonight and perfect weather. Congrats Big Jim!

Have I mentioned we’re facing the Yankees tonight? Who knew that the Twins could actually manage to make THAT situation worse…

Well that could have been better but boy could it have been a LOT worse. We didn’t have to go to any desperate measures to put 9 guys on the field at any one time, Joe Mauer did well at his sub job in RF and the boys did actually try to bring the offense. It was a tough night for officiating calls and it seemed to put the fans in the stands in a morose mood, much less the players. Gardy got himself booted at the beginning of the game arguing the reversal of Morneau’s HR call but it wasn’t a particularly vibrant episode of Show Time. Nothing much anyone could do about it though.

The real pain for tonight was giving up the Homeruns to the Yankee hitters… yeah, that happens to better teams than the Twins. Let’s do better tomorrow shall we? It’s a four game series afterall.

Ok, catch up from yesterday – the PTBNL has been named. We added RH Lester Oliveros to the Rochester Redwings today. Considering how much we’ve raided the AAA pitching staff, I hope he’s able to start really contributing right away. Welcome to the Twins, Lester.

And it’s good to see Thome getting some nice attention.

One of our chatters shared this during the game last night (can’t quite remember who) but I enjoyed it so much I wanted to share it for you guys. This is Jim Thome’s very first HR in the big leagues – against the Yankees no less – back in 1991. Ahh… the good old days!

And if you want a full story – then to now – the Twins have a great video on the website: Thome’s HR History

Anyway, back to tonight, Tosoni is up, Span is still benched, and Mauer is taking the DH spot tonight.. another goofy lineup but I have become inured to lineup oddity.

um… yeah, the Twins got Verlandered…. ouch.

SEE?? the Injury Curse has struck again!

I don’t know what it will take to break the curse. All I know is that somewhere, Nick Punto & JJ Hardy are looking on and saying, “hmmm…” and the bad energy continues to build in Twins Territory.

It’s sad when the best I can hope for is to not get swept in Cleveland.. *crosses fingers* However, it is the return of Kevin Slowey who can probably speak indepth about the injury curse. I hope he is able to shine and give us that 6th starter ability that we’ve always said the Twins were going to need.

So Kevin Slowey got off to a rough start in his first three pitches but then did OK… for the two innings this game lasted before the rains came. The game got postponed until some time when it will probably matter even less (to the Twins anyway). – JC

So Alexi Casilla’s return from the DL lasted exactly one game. He’s back on the DL and the Twins will be adding a new infielder, but they’re apparently looking at options beyond the group in Rochester who’ve bounced up and down all year long. Should be interesting to see who comes up. [UPDATE: Phil Mackey reports Trevor Plouffe is on his way back up to replace Casilla.]

Michael Cuddyer is still nursing a sore neck and may miss the whole series. LaVelle E. Neal III of the Strib reports that Drew Butera was taking ground balls at 2B before the game. This is what this season has come to.

I’m headed to Perfect Game Field here in Cedar Rapids to see the Kernels take on Kane County in Midwest League play, but here are tonight’s Twins/Tribe lineups and the GameChat window for anyone interested in hanging out during the game:

I have no idea what happened in this game other than what the boxscore tells me and it tells me that, outside of a gopher ball, Brian Duensing had a decent night, as did the bullpen guys who followed him. The offense did not, however, have a very good night. (Why does this keep sounding familiar?) – JC

What a day of ridiculous emotional highs & lows for team Twins.  Morneau is BACK!! heck, even Lexi is back… considering what we’ve been dealing with, the concept of actually having our entire starting lineup on the field at the same time is too much to hope for! No, really it actually is. Not only did we put Jason Repko on the DL with a shoulder issue to make room for Morneau (did anyone else know he was hurting?) but then Cuddyer developed a serious neck issue during early BP today .. so.. yeah, he’s sitting for at least tonight and maybe the weekend.

I think there is a curse… interestingly enough, listening to Reusse & Mackey today, it appears they have considered the same thing. They blame it on the Target Field squirrel who played with Harris saying he’s mad because they cut down his trees… yeah, I don’t buy it. I think there is something far more … close to the subject. I think there’s specifically an injury curse because JJ Hardy and Nick Punto (some of our solid infield providers) were moved on because the FO thought they spent too much time being on the DL despite their incredible skills when on the field.  Yeah, you know how negative energy can build up in a place? Yeah, I think Target Field became possessed by a poltergeist that is injuring our players and making sure we know what “being on the DL too much ” REALLY means. And it’s now attached itself to the team. Of course, I could be wrong…

I really wish the Twins had won this game… of course for the obvious reason of getting a win in the division but more importantly because Pavano really deserved a BOD. Once again, sloppy fielding and errors behind him ended up costing us the game. I’m sorry but as many big bats as we have (under-performing though they may be), it is just NOT going to make up for crap like that in the field when you’re facing good pitchers.

Oh yeah, the curse is definitely in full effect too because guess who pulled up lame during the game? yep, Lexi. I just might have to go research how much time JJ & Nicky were actually down last year because I honestly thing Nishi and Lexi have beat them this year. Can you tell I might still be holding the tiniest bit of a grudge?