GameChat – Twins @ Blue Jays #3, Final 2012 Game, 6:07pm

Welcome to the Final Game of the 2012 Twins Season! gotta admit, it suddenly hit home that there’s no game tomorrow.. weird. I’m not ready yet. The off season always seems so.. empty. I admit that I always seem to discover a tv show or something that I didn’t know existed to go catch up on with the empty time that I’m usually watching a game.

Before we get into the game though, thought you guys might like to join me in congratulating former Twins, Pat Neshek, on the birth of his first child. Gehrig John Neshek was born last night and managed to wait long enough for his daddy to fly from California to Florida so that he could be there for the birth. If you wish to hit him up, he’s on both Facebook and Twitter at @PatNeshek.

As for tonight, I think it’s now out of the range of possibility for Mauer to take the lead in the batting race but he WILL reach 147 games played which is a career high for a single season. Considering we were wondering how many games he’d play after the last couple seasons, I would have to say he’s set a few complaints to rest even if he only finishes 2nd or 3rd in BA – what a slacker. I’m kind of sad that we don’t get to see a little out of Willingham just to kind of have a chance to see him on the field one more time but we get what we get. I would love to see what Scott Diamond can do with his final outing of the year too – I’m pretty sure he’ll be back next year but this was the season that he surprised all of Twins Territory so it will always be special for him I think.

Would it have been nice to win the last game of the year? Yes, yes it would. But that didn’t happen and to be honest, I don’t know how many of us actually expected it. Highlights from this game included Terry Ryan in the booth with Dick & Bert having a startlingly honest conversation about the pluses and minuses of the current team by position (player) and what he thinks they need to do this off season. I never judge the winter until Spring Training starts but it does at least give me hope that we might see more activity this year than we could otherwise expect from salary limitations. It makes me wonder if he had a similar conversation time with the radio guys.

The other highlight from tonight is the final game for Omar Vizquel. He seems to be one of those guys that was loved by every fan of every team he ever played for and is pretty certain to be in the HOF at some point. The crowd at home got a great opportunity to share their appreciation and I think Mr. Vizquel can be very proud of his accomplishments as a professional baseball player.

POST SEASON officially starts tomorrow. I’m sure that we’ll be doing a gamechat here and there during the month of October so keep your eyes peeled for the subject line. I can’t say that I’ll be sad to say goodbye to the 2012 season but I will miss baseball… Spring Training, you’re in my thoughts!