GameChat – Twins @ Rangers #3, 3:05 pm (FOX)

Of course, the big news in baseball today is about the trade that’s gone down between the Red Sox and Dodgers, with Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and former Twin Nick Punto all headed straight in to a pennant race. while the Sox get James Loney and a number of minor leaguers in return. The amazing part of this deal, tome, is that the Red Sox were able to not only shed over a quarter of a billion dollars of future payroll (they are only sending $12 million to the Dodgers), but also get several supposedly quality players on top of the salary relief. Are the Dodgers becoming the “new” Yankees?

The LA Times story on the trade also mentioned that the Red Sox went after Gonzalez after efforts to acquire Justin Morneau from the Twins last week were unsuccessful. I haven’t seen any confirmation concerning exactly how those discussions played out. I suspect the Dodgers weren’t offering a whole lot for Morneau over and above taking on his salary. Then again, they had to take on a lot more salary in the Red Sox deal and still gave up some good young pitchers. Then again, perhaps the Twins simply don’t want to part with their first baseman. That would certainly say something about their confidence level in Chris Parmelee, wouldn’t it?

The other possibility would be that the Twins hadn’t yet sent Morneau through waivers when the Dodgers approached them and someone else claimed Morneau ahead of the Dodgers, nixing a potential deal.

In any event, I have to admit I find it amusing that Nicky Punto finds himself once again in a position to make a deep playoff run. Talk about a guy who just seems to find himself in the right place at the right time.

Anyway… on to the Twins. Scott Diamond has been suspended for six games for throwing a ball near the head of Josh Hamilton. Seems a little harsh and he’ll appeal, but in the end he’s going to end up missing a start at some point.

The Twins face Ryan Dempster this afternoon. Dempster hasn’t been terrific since being traded to the Rangers, but he did pretty much shut the Twins down earlier in the season when he was still wearing a Cubs uniform.

Josh Willingham is back in the Twins lineup, as is Denard Span, so I guess that’s something.

I’m going to be honest, I stopped listening to the Twins game when it was 9-0 after three innings. I have no idea what happened after that, but looking at the boxscore, it’s clear that nothing good happened. Though I suppose the fact that the Rangers ended up with just those nine runs would indicate the bullpen did a job, so there’s that. Way to go bullpen.

However, I did see the Beloit Snappers beat the Cedar Rapids Kernels 13-2 and it didn’t start raining until about the 6th inning. It was a good time, even though the game wasn’t terribly exciting. – JC