Ok, guys, I’m putting this up and then running off to build my puppy a sandbox. But then I will be back to catch up with the game. We can always hope that this is a bad night for Dempster but regardless I hope it’s a good night for Diamond.
That was, overall, a very professionally executed ballgame by the Twins. Not perfect, but we would take about 100 more games like that without a complaint.
We’ve kind of been waiting for Ryan Doumit to step up his game (though, admittedly, he’s been getting less regular playing time since Oswaldo Arcia’s promotion), but tonight Doumit certainly made a case for more at-bats. 2 for 4 with a double and a home run absolutely warrants some BOD support.
But Scott Diamond threw seven shutout innings and gave up only three hits in the process. He also called it a night after sitting down the last 15 hitters he faced. For Twins fans who aren’t familiar with seeing that kind of performance, that is called PITCHING. In fact, around here it’s called BOD pitching. – JC
Sorry about getting this up at the last minute. Knuckleballers are busy today!
The big news in this game is Clay Buchholz and his maybe, kinda, sorta, might be cheating by having what may or may not be a foreign substance on his non-throwing arm.
Once again, the Twins had opportunities to win this game. When you get two men on base and have your third, fourth and fifth hitters in the order coming up, it’s reasonable to expect at least one of those runners to be driven in. When all three strike out, it certainly constitutes a lost opportunity.
Brian Dozier deserves kudos for his dramatic game-tying home run, as does Anthony Swarzak for his three innings of shutout relief work. It’s a shame it all went for naught. – JC
Apparently Justin Morneau showed up at the ballpark feeling a little stiff and asked to DH today. Ironically, he may have improved the defense behind starting pitcher Mike Pelfrey in the process as Chris Parmelee moves to first base and Oswaldo Arcia moves in to right field.
Pelfrey will need all the help he can get today as the Twins attempt to avoid a sweep at the hands of the Indians this weekend.
So.. yard work took a little longer than I thought it was going to so I ended up missing the first half of the game.. I knew it was a Pelfrey start though so a) I figured that they would probably be on the 3rd inning at 1:30 and b) wasn’t sure that I would have missed anything good anyway. Imagine my surprise when I cam in and found we had the LEAD! And we never gave it up! Glad that we were able to pull a win out.
And just because it was such a great surprise, I give BOD to Pelfrey with hopes he’ll keep it up!!!
Episode 36 of the Twins baseball podcast, Talk To Contact (@TalkToContact), is now available for download via iTunes or by clicking here.
Cody Christie (2nd from left) enjoys a recent tour of the Talk to Contact office space with a few of his close, personal friends.
Talk to Contact is proud to bring you another episode packed full of Twins talk. This week Cody and Eric discuss the magic of Kevin Correia, Ron Gardenhire‘s mismanagement of the pitching staff, Gardy’s tenure with the Twins, when and why it might be time to cut ties with Mike Pelfrey, and generally blather on about all things Minnesota.
We’re joined this week by the Rochester Red Wings play-by-play man, Josh Whetzel, whose broadcasts are streamed online at Sports 1280 WHTK, www.whtk.com. He gives us a quick run down of who’s hot and who’s not in Triple-A, and identifies some names to watch for in the not-to-distant future.
More or less shennegians this week when we go Down on the Pond, take some questions from the internet, and name Brad Swanson (@bridman77) the Listener of the Week.
Tune in for almost 100 minutes of Twins radio gold.
You can follow Cody on Twitter (@NoDakTwinsFan) or read his writing at NoDakTwinsFan. You can follow Paul on Twitter (@BaseballPirate) or read his writing at Puckett’s Pond. And of course, you can find me on Twitter (@ERolfPleiss) and read my writing here at Knuckleballs!
The Hammer is back in the line up and playing left field and Kevin Correia sets out to prove, once again, he’s not putting up his numbers with smoke and mirrors.
The Twins have dropped in to fourth place in the bunched-up AL Central for the first time in over two weeks, sitting 3 1/2 games behind Division leading Detroit and our guys need a win today to pull themselves back up to .500 on the season. – JC
It’s really hard to win baseball games when you fall in to a pattern of giving up a couple of runs for every run you score yourselves and that’s pretty much what the Twins did today. They had plenty of opportunities, but couldn’t take advantage. What was most frustrating, perhaps, was that the bottom of the order seemed to do their jobs and it was the top and middle of the order that consistently failed to follow through.
Regardless, the Twins are now a couple of games under .500 and have already lost this series with the Tribe. They’ll try to avoid a sweep on Sunday.
So Cleveland is a roll right now. This is their 5th straight win if my count is correct. That being said, it was a really close, well-fought game on both sides. There was also some interesting late-inning roster manipulation on both sides – a scorers nightmare for keeping track of who is in for who and where they went. Sadly, we just came out on the losing end of things at the end.
So today, the St. Paul Saints are having their yearly try-outs in which they take all comers. Yes, it is snowing – which is why I think they postponed the activity from yesterday to today – but from what I have heard, they are going ahead today. At least the website still says that they are going today.
So if you’re dying to play professional baseball and think you have the stuff, you should head over to Midway Stadium – at least if you’re young and vigorous, right?
Paul Risso, a 60-year-old pitcher from New Mexico who will try out for the St. Paul Saints on Thursday, May 2, 2013, is shown pitching during the Mens Senior Baseball League – Phoenix 55+ World Series in a 2009 photo. (Photo courtesy of Paul Risso)
So here’s the thing. One of the guys who will be “auditioning” today is 60 yo Paul Risso. Yes, you read that right. He’s 6-0 years old – as in “born in 1952.”
According to the Pioneer Press story, Risso had a promising career back in college when kids normally are drafted to play professional baseball: son of Giants prospect, Albert Risso; promising right-handed pitcher from San Mateo College in California; drafted by they Pittsburgh Pirates in the sixth round; but… A torn rotator cuff ended all that in 1973 as they didn’t have the medical technology to make those diagnoses or repairs.
Paul Risso, a 60-year-old pitcher from New Mexico who will try out for the St. Paul Saints on Thursday, May 2, 2013, in a 2011 photo. (Photo courtesy of Paul Risso)
Mr. Risso went on with life without baseball as a civil engineer but always with the shoulder pain that had killed the baseball option – that is until about 10 years ago. For whatever reason, the shoulder had repaired itself, gotten stronger and the pain went away so… he started throwing again. He still throws a fastball around 84 miles an hour, which is nothing to sneeze at.
Risso is the oldest player ever to try out for the Saints but he’s certainly not the only “old guy” who wants to play baseball over there. And he’s NOT the oldest guy to actually play for the Saints. Other senior players include a 53 yo Knuckleballer (always a fav) named Jon Secrist and Minnie Minoso who was signed each in 1993 and 2003 with at-bats as a designated hitter so he could record professional play in 7 decades. Minoso is now 87 years old and you wonder if maybe they’ll throw him out there now that it’s 2013 to give him one more decade to make 8.
Of course, those are names none of you have ever even heard of so who else wants to play for the Saints this year? According FSN, Jose Conseco. Anyone else think it would be more entertaining to have Minoso again? At least Conseco is honest enough to admit that he is making the proposal purely for promotions’ sake – although whether it’s for his OWN promotion or the team would be hard to differentiate.
And the Saints have been known to do crazier things with players on the backside of their careers. Darryl Strawberry was attempting a legitimate comeback, which worked since he ended up back with the Yankees the next year.
So with all this attention to the Saints possible roster additions, has anyone reminded them that our dear friend, Jim Thome doesn’t have a home yet?? Now THAT would sell WAAAAAAY more tickets than Jose Conseco. Anyone have his email address??
I’m all for it! Let’s get some Old Guys Playing Baseball!
Boy, am I glad the Twins are on the road right now… We Minnesotans get enough crap about living here without a game possibly being postponed AGAIN for snow – on the first of May. It’s only raining at my office right now but we’re supposed to get a slushy mess of crap through this afternoon. I’ll try to distract myself with following the game on Gameday – oh yeah, and work, that too.
At any rate, I would love to see Scott Diamond go deep into the game (would have liked that from Vanimal too but oh well) but I’m sure a lot will depend on how he fares against a pretty potent hitting lineup. Hicks is back in the lineup today and Mauer is getting a day off but that is basically to be expected since he caught last night. We have Carroll coming in at 3B so no Plouffe today.. let’s see what happens!
Now THAT was a fun game to watch!! err… sort of “watch” since I was limited to gameday tracking but you get the idea… WINNING is GOOD! It was very good to see the Twins offense show up and do well up and down the order. I wish I could have SEEN the stolen base by Doumit! It’s good when baseball is fun – especially when I look out the window and it’s snowing here in Minnesota. And right now, that means we have an even split on the season series between us and Detroit at 3 apiece if I recall correctly. AND it also means the Twins are back to .500 for the season as well… honestly, given the expectations during Spring Training, this is a dramatically better result.
Today what made me the happiest though was the performance by Scott Diamond. He’s definitely making his way back. His top number for velocity was only 90 mph and I only saw that once (wasn’t watching TOO closely) but there didn’t seem to be anyone on the Detroit roster who was going to hit off him until the 5th inning! That’s pretty unusual given the way the Tigers have been hitting us lately. So for that, the GameChat unanimously elected Scott Diamond as today’s BOD!
