MNTwins Blog

Let’s just get the team off the road and get back home to the dome.

This road trip just flat out sucked.

After about the 6th inning of the Twins/Blue Jays final game today, it looked like the Twins confidence was just shot. These guys need to get back home in from of the home crowd of the dome and try to play some good baseball against the Tigers.

Losing 0-9 to the Blue Jays in the final game of the road trip? Well, that was just pretty much the worst way to end the road trip. It’s gonna be a long trip home.

At least the White Sox have been playing just about as bad and it’s actually still a tight race between the two teams. If either the Twins or the White Sox had gone on a year over the last few games there could easily be a gap of a few games between the two.

Let’s get home, play the Tigers hard. Get some confidence back in this team. Hopefully the September call-ups that have been added to the bullpen can provide a little rest for some of the heavily worn pitchers as of late. Guys like Humber and Korecky could provide some valuable releif time to give the bullpen a little rest and a boost.

Hopefully Humber doesn’t let this first Twins appearance get to him and can keep his stuff together and help out the Twins. The same goes for the rest of the new guys (including Everyday Eddie!, who is starting to remind me more of Terry Mullholland than the Eddie I remember of they early part of the decade.

Holy smokes. I can’t believe I just typed the words “holy smokes”.

Is it just me, or is it getting harder and harder to watch the Twins games beyond the 6th and 7th innings? Wow. The White Sox have been basically just asking us to gain a 3 game lead on them over the last couple weeks, but the Twins just cannot get it done.

There’s been a lot of good moments. Close games. Good ball play. But the Twins are just getting squeaked out of wins in the late innings.

And to make it worse it’s against teams like the Mariners and the A’s. It seems like those two team just like to take it to the Twins when they play.

Let’s hope that the upcoming home games plus September call-ups breath a little exhuberance into this struggling Twins team. I guess for as bad as it has been it could be a lot worse. The Twins and White Sox are still in a dead race to the finish.

And the Twins get the play the White Sox at the end of the season at the dome. Wow, the dome is gonna be crazy if the division race is still this tight at during that series.

How about that. Punto bobbles the ball one play. The next play the Twins let a runner score while handing out a slick double play. Trade ya 2 outs for a run? Sure.

Game tied. Lead gone. Game will continue.

Just another Twins/Mariners game.

I wonder if there was any chance at all to nail Beltre at the plate? Probably not.

Either way. Nathan knocks out the next hitter and we’re off to small-ball our way into a 1 run lead for the 10th inning. That’s the way it goes.

I probably wouldn’t bet money on anything I just rambled about here.

Imagine that? With the track record these two teams have playing against each other this year, it’s amazing to see that it’s only 1-1 going into the 6th inning.

In the 6 games this year so far:

Twins Lose   6-11
Twins Lose   7-8
Twins Win   7-3
Twins Win   9-3
Twins Win   7-6
Twins Win  11-8

Not a lot of low scoring ball games there. Who woulda thought Liriano get’s into a late season pitchers duel with Miguel Batista?

So I guess the Twins have gone out and got Eddie Guardado. “Everyday Eddie” is what I remember him being called during his last stint with the Twins. Great to have him back, he should shore up a struggline bullpen quite nicely.

This season Eddie has had a 3.65 ERA in 55 appearances with the Rangers. Not too shabby. I’ll take that from a lefty in our bullpen.

The Twins sent to the Rangers Mark Hamburger.

It’ll be interesting to see if that guy ever turns into something. Everything in Minnesota is clouded by the shroud of Everyday Eddie. At the moment. Yeah.

As I had mentioned earlier, today was a fun day to watch both the Twins and the White Sox. I was hoping for a better outcome, but what can you go?

The Rays failed to sweep the White Sox and the Twins gave up the lead late in the game for a disappointing loss.

Nuts.

The Twins bullpen puts me on the edge of my seat in every single game (unless the starter goes the distance of course). I’m getting used to getting all kinds of “bonus suspense” during the late innings of Twins games.

I guess we got to see how explosive the Angel’s offense can be at times though, huh?

The Twins and White Sox have always a nice rivalry to a certain extent. Today is a rare day where the rivalry is playing out on TV in two different ballgames (at least in my geographic area).

The Rays are playing the White Sox on one channel and the Twins are playing the Angels on another channel.

So far, the Rays/Sox game is tied. I’m hoping that the Rays can pull out and win, and a sweep, over the Chicago White Sox. Then, to top that off nicely, the Twins could hopefully beat the Angels. Tough chances for that happening as all these teams are pretty good, but we’ll see how it plays out within approximately 1.5 hrs.

The Rays are looking pretty good. I haven’t had much chance to see them play on TV, they fun to watch. They remind me of the Twins style of play.

Pena sliding into first base head first looked like something the Twins do all too often. Plus a lot of defensive flounders by the White Sox is also a familiar sight.