Knuckleballs

Gardy’s wasting no time getting the new guy in the line up. Clete Thomas is manning right field for the Twins today as Liam Hendriks gets his first start of the season.

Liam Hendriks deserved better. Let’s be honest here, Glen Perkins coughed up a big ole’ hairball today. We can certainly question whether he should have been used after throwing quite a few pitches in the Saturday game, but there’s no questioning that he completely bombed today. A walk, a triple and a home run and “poof,” there goes a 3-1 lead.

Clete Thomas, newly arrived from Detroit, did his best to impress his new team mates with a two-run home run in the fifth inning, to give the Twins a lead and Hendriks made it stand up through his six innings of pitching. Jared Burton threw a scoreless seventh, before Perkins came in to do his thing in the eighth inning.

Now, it’s on to New York this week and hoping for the best. – JC

Quite the way to start the day… the unveiling of Kent Hrbek’s statue outside Gate 14 at Target Field.

But what about the ballgame?

The Twins take on new Rangers import Yu Darvish this afternoon. It looks like a return to the original A line-up backing up starter Nick Blackburn.

Let’s hope for a little better result today! – JC

The Hrbek statue unveiling turned out to be the highlight of the day for the Twins. Nick Blackburn pitched well enough in his 5.1 innings, but left with a stiff shoulder and is “day-to-day” which, as Twins fans recall from last season, means we’re unlikely to see him in uniform for a month. The bullpen didn’t do their job today, as Brian Duensing and Glen Perkins each coughed up a couple of runs (though only one of Perkins’ was earned).

But the real story of this loss was, once again, the assbats. Specifically the assbats that were used whenever runners got on base, which was pretty much every inning. Twins hitters, collectively, stranded 15 runners and managed only 2 hits in 16 at-bats with runners in scoring position. It’s REAL tough to win games with that kind of futility in the clutch.

Let’s see if they support Liam Hendriks a bit better than that tomorrow afternoon.

By the time Hendriks takes the mound, he’ll have a new team mate. Outfielder Clete Thomas, who was Designated For Assignment by the Tigers a couple days ago, was claimed today by the Twins. Scott Baker was moved to the 60-Day DL to make room on the 40-man roster for Thomas and after the game, the Twins optioned Ben Revere to AAA Rochester, where he’ll get steady playing time instead of sitting idle on the Twins’ bench, to make room for Thomas on the active roster. – JC

This weekend, it’s “The Return of Twitchy,” as former Twins closer Joe Nathan pays a visit along with his new team, the Texas Rangers. Joe’s already blown a save and took a loss when he came in to a tie game and gave up the game-winner, causing many in Rangerland to wonder if someone else should be closing for the Rangers.

Late game drama notwithstanding, this is still the defending AL Champions coming in to Target Field and Anthony Swarzak may find this line up to be a bit more challenging than the one he faced in Baltimore last Sunday.

Let’s hope the Twins’ hitters keep clubbing the ball. A couple of notable lineup changes: Joe Mauer is at 1B tonight, with Ryan Doumit behind the plate, and Luke Hughes gets the start at 2B.

I’m not sure how many of our Knuckleballs crew will be in the chat tonight. I know some have other plans and I, personally, plan to go see what kind of trouble combining cold medication and alcohol can cause.

Enjoy the game! – JC

OK I’m gonna be honest… I sorta watched the game at a bar, but I can’t say I watched it with any intensity at all. I saw Anthony Swarzak pitch pretty well. I saw Danny Valencia hit a sacrifice line drive. I didn’t see much else of any significance. I do know the Twins lost. That sucks. We’ll try again tomorrow. – JC

The big day is finally here! We are shortly to have BASEBALL in Minnesota again! Yes, we are playing the Angels.. yes, that means the return of Torii Hunter. It also means we are visited by the likes of CJ Wilson (yum) and Albert Pujols (yikes) and what is likely to be one of the toughest teams in baseball this year. The Angels spent a FORTUNE this off-season in an attempt to be one of the toughest teams in baseball so unless the wheels fall off the bus early for them, this is likely to be a challenge our somewhat inconsistent defense isn’t quite ready for yet.

ASIDE: Most of you know that I am willing to give a lot of leeway on BA if the glove-work is on point. Yeah, my bias is clear in that I’m just not willing to go the other way. I will look crosswise at any player who thinks that big hits will makeup for shoddy fielding. It’s just how I am. Call me the balance of all those who love the long bomb no matter what. So to a couple of our new guys: I am definitely intrigued by what you have to offer but get your shit together in the field or we’ll have to have a chat.

Back to positive thinking. Yes, it turns out the Twins ARE having an impact on opposing teams. Even CJ Wilson is exclaiming on how impressive Target Field is.. now if only they were intimidated by it. But despite the finally having March weather now that April is here, it should be a really nice day for afternoon baseball! I wonder how many of us are taking sick days to either be at the park or otherwise having the time to watch the game. I’m lucky enough to be “working” from/at/on home so I know what I get to do! I might be a horrible fan but I’ve gotten to the stage in my life where I don’t really enjoy attending the Home Opener anymore. Yes, it’s a fantastic atmosphere but if you are there to actually WATCH baseball, you have to contend with a lot of bandwagon/casual/not fans who are just there because it’s a special day and really don’t care about the game at all. It’s kind of a pain in the patooter. The only thing that I think I am kind of wishing I was participating in is the celebration of the 2002 playoff team.. (although I think that is a really weak excuse to have a player reunion/celebration,) It’s fun to see the likes of Dougie Baseball (he’s still my baseball first love) return to Minnesota and remind Minnesotans that the Twins have far exceeded our expectations in previous years so here’s hoping they can do it again this year!

Let’s hope the Twins are able to get a nice restart after that not-so-successful first series against the Orioles.

Well according to Rhett Bollinger, this is only the 3rd time in team history that the Twins have started the season 0-4… I don’t know what happened in the rest of the other two seasons but I’m afraid to go find out.

There were a couple good things to point out – Willy hit yet another HR – just an inning too late to multiple RBI.  And actually, Blackburn pitched a pretty darn good game. The first inning was rough but he really settled down and pitched great after that. Sadly, it was mostly the fielding that let us down.. again. Seriously guys, get your shit together.

But to end on a positive note, check out his fantastic grab by Blackburn since this infielding was letting him down: Blackburn with a fantastic behind-the-back nab!