The Twins welcome the Astros to Target Field for the first time as American League opponents. The Twins haven’t won a baseball game for almost a week, so don’t expect a lot tonight, but against the worst team in baseball, a little something would be nice.
Oh, sorry, I’m a little negative today.
Anywhoo, the sun is shining and it is a beautiful day in Minnesota, exactly the kind of day that makes Target Field a great place to take in a ball game.
Aaron Hicks will be replaced in centerfield by Clete Thomas, and I while that doesn’t seem great, it is an offensive upgrade.
Go Twins!
| Astros |
@ |
Twins |
| Villar, SS | Dozier, 2B | |
| Elmore, 2B | Mauer, C | |
| Castro, Ja, DH | Morneau, 1B | |
| Wallace, 1B | Doumit, RF | |
| Corporan, C | Arcia, LF | |
| Krauss, RF | Plouffe, 3B | |
| Dominguez, 3B | Colabello, DH | |
| Barnes, B, CF | Thomas, C, CF | |
| Grossman, LF | Florimon, SS | |
| Cosart, P | Deduno, P |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | R | H | E | |
| Houston | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 1 |
| Minnesota | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 11 | 0 |
Ok, so I missed MUCH of this game since I ran off to the bar to see my little brother’s band play… BUT they did have it on at the bar so I was able to see things here and there and check score every once in awhile – I just couldn’t hear rulings or WHY things were done certain ways.. so I was pretty lost – and then heard the bottom of the 13th on the way home from the bar.
Can I tell you that I wasn’t any less confused at all!?!?!? I had to go read the play-by-play!!! (It didn’t help) How on earth are we in the position that we’re grabbing starting pitchers (admittedly former NL guys) as pinch hitters when it’s ONLY the 13th?!?!! Yes, I know that is still a lot of extra innings but come on guys, it’s not like we never do that. I definitely missed some things and yeah, I feel like there was some poor roster management in there as part of it. I would very much appreciate any comments you guys can add to help explain wtf happened.
All THAT being said, it sure made for a DRAMATIC ending! I have a feeling that if we had LOST after all that, I would be pretty damn crabby this morning.. seriously.. losing to the Astros is nothing to sneeze at especially when it looks like things got very loosey-goosey down the stretch. But all that being said, I’ll take a win. And THANK YOU to Dozier for finally ending it! For that, he gets today’s BOD!
I’m the last guy to try to explain what happened to you, Babs, since I was trying to follow most of the game on the puter while covering the Kernels game in Burlington. The Twins had just tied the game 2-2 when the Kernels ended and I went to do interviews and then wrote/submitted my story.
I got in my car to drive back to CR and checked the Twins score on my phone. They were tied 3-3 in extras, so I tuned in to the audio on my MLB At-Bat app on the phone.
SE Iowa, it turns out, is not exactly filled with overlapping cell phone towers. The last thing I heard was Dozier was coming to the plate in the 13th. When the signal came back, the game was over.
As for roster management, I actually was glad Gardy seemed to be getting aggressive and taking some chances with pinch runners and such, rather than being his usual ultra-conservative, don’t-dare-make-a-move-because-it-might-be-the-wrong-move self.