97 thoughts on “May 16, 2011: The Blues”

  1. The Twins are 12-26 and they are overperforming. Pythag says they should be 10-28. My head hurts.

    1. Do we have a race to the bottom (worst record evah) ticker going on the Twins yet? Looks like 60-102 (.370!) back in 1982 is the bar they have to beat, at least as Twins. Going all the way back to the Senators opens up more possibilities of terribleness.

      1. I'd wait until Mauer returns and see how the Twins respond to that or the Twins do a white-flag trade before doing that.

        1. Exactly. If we were doing this at full strength, I'd be all over a race to the bottom, but at this point there's no reason to believe the Twins won't improve significantly from sub-.333 baseball.

          1. Plus, you don't want to start it too early, because then you have to update it for a long time. Not that it's all that hard, but you are updating a list keeping track of how many losses your favorite team has. Not much fun.

          2. If they get even somewhat healthy again, even .450 the rest of the way out might be a trifle pessimistic. Not that I'd be doing cartwheels over a 67-68-win season, but it'd be a far cry from a 50-win season.

      2. Senators/Nationals/Twins worst records:
        1904: 38-113-6, a 42-120 pace
        1909: 42-110-4, a 46-116 pace
        1903: 43-94-3, a 51-111 pace
        2011: 12-26, a 51-111 pace
        1907: 49-102-3, a 53-109 pace
        1949: 50-104, a 53-109 pace

        *I counted ties like the NFL does: half-win, half-loss. Judging from b-r, they are not counted in winning record at all. That would make 1904 and 1909 look one game worse when projected to 162 games.

  2. I knew the Twins were on yesterday, and I didn't even care. Granted, I was doing landscaping, but usually, I'll still bring out the old Panasonic portable to listen to the game. That didn't even enter my thinking yesterday.

    Imagine my sadness when that turned out to be the right decision. Bah.

  3. I was up at Mom & Dad's so I had the chance to watch FSNorth. We ended up packing up the car and leaving in the 6th or 7th to get back down here. I didn't even bother with listening to the radio on the drive.

  4. I spent the time during the Twins game drinking all of CH's beer at his commencement party. For some reason, I was not motivated to try to find out what the score was.

    1. Heh, I didn't even know they were playing. Ignorance is bliss.

      And thanks for coming! I hope the Mrs. has thawed out by now...

      (and thanks, Andrew!)

      1. She survived, barely. Actually, it was quite pleasant in the sun, I just wish we would have realized that earlier.

  5. I grew to despise relentless cross-promotion when I worked in TV. I've gotten over it, though.

    1. I don't even notice it anymore, sadly. Ditto product placement, although I definitely noticed when my writing partner and I were asked to seamlessly mention "1-800-FLOWERS" in a dramatic scene about people dealing with the death of one of the leads.

              1. Natch, since they provided the flowers for the funeral scene.

                It came down to something like this: the two lead males - one who doesn't deal well with showing emotion, and one used primarily as comic relief - are talking. The former points out that he looked all over but he couldn't find the right thing, and the comic relief guy says "Dude, 1-800-FLOWERS. I used their [same-day delivery service; I forget the name] and Jackson thought I was the most thoughtful guy here."

                People said they thought it worked seamlessly, but we felt gross. No anger, though, since they really did a great thing for the production.

                1. could you have gotten away with showing a flyer with 1-800-FLOWERS on it and have one of the guys dial the number?

                  1. Probably, but I didn't actually rewrite the scene (I wasn't on set that day), so Josh did it the quickest way he could with the smallest amount of changes when it was demanded on-site.

      1. I assume product placement has gotten more popular since the advent of DVR, but it's pretty ridiculous. That being said, product placement gives me more Fringe so I won't complain too much.

        1. Yeah, it's become more desperate, but it was always popular on the part of filmmakers because it's free money for the production, which can be hard to come by.

          A director (and especially a producer) will jump all over a product if it means that company will pay a good chunk of production costs, particularly if that company pays for the product to be used but doesn't demand that it gets worked into the lines. That's one reason soda and cars are used so often...they show up looking desirable in believable situations and nobody in the film has to mention them.

          1. Whenever I'm in a photo someone is taking at a restaurant or wherever, and a soda is present, I always make sure to hold it up with the brand in plain sight. Still waiting for the money to trickle in, though.

            1. They've done it a few times throughout the show's run. Other films have done the same (Wayne's World is a popular example, though what they did was a straight ripoff of Return of the Killer Tomatoes, of all things). It gets me every time. If you're going to shamelessly flaunt a product, you may as well say "We know what we're doing, audience, so we'll let you in on the joke."

              Edit: Well, you can do that in a broad comedy. I wouldn't advocate such a thing in Schindler's List or anything.

              1. you may as well say "We know what we're doing, audience, so we'll let you in on the joke.

                That's pretty much what Baldwin's character did. Eventually the film he was in charge of had so much product placement that it had made it's budget back without even needing to release it.

                1. Okay, I wondered which episode you were talking about. Yeah, that was gold.

                  Previously, Tina Fey went on and on about a product, then at the act break, she looked into the camera and said "Can we have our money now?"

              2. I wouldn't advocate such a thing in Schindler's List or anything.

                i dunno, i thought the placement of "herr pibb" in the płaszów scene was both subtle and tasteful.

      2. It just means you know where you're getting paid. Embrace it just like NASCAR drivers.

        1. I used to hate that stuff and I feared it happening to baseball, but my age (and cynicism?) have me not caring anymore. No amount of ads can make me stop loving the game I'm watching. I don't even notice Samsung anymore when I'm watching the Chelsea matches.

    2. I've noticed in subtle ways that advertising seems to bother me more than I thought. I was watching 30 Rock on DVD and it was jarring to not have NBC branding junk all over the screen. I recently was watching some Top Gear and Top Gear USA. The former has a 60-minute, no commercials format, and lately I have found it to be really engrossing, even though some of the content gets pretty formulaic after a while. Watching the latter, even skipping through commercials, it was easy to get distracted or bored because when they come back from commercial break, they recap what was happening before they went to break. There's less time for longer segments and it's awkward for them to work around the breaks.

      I always adjust to whatever the new advertising regime is, but it's nice every now and then when I can escape to a place where no one is trying to sell me something.

  6. Michael Rand of the Strib puts the Twins season in perspective v. 2010:

    On May 16, 2010, exactly one year ago today, Jason Kubel belted a grand slam off Mariano Rivera as part of a five-run eighth inning, helping the Twins win 6-3 at Yankee Stadium to improve to 23-14 on the season.

    Justin Morneau also homered in the game -- his ninth of the season at that point, more than double what any Twins player has this year, nine times what Morneau has this year and half of the entire team's total through 38 games this year.

    Nick Blackburn picked up the victory, his fourth of the season -- twice as many as any Twins pitcher this year.

    Jon Rauch gave up a pair of hits in the ninth but then struck out the side for his 10th save -- twice as many as any Twins pitcher this year.

    Joe Mauer didn't have any hits, dropping his batting average to .349. He did have a pair of walks, however.

    1. Okay, the Blue Jays one is hilarioius.

      There should be a Beatles cover band named Blue Jay Way that plays Beatles songs rewritten with a Blue Jays theme. "Jesse Barfields Forever." "I’m Just Happy To Rance With You." "Dave Stieb Came In Through The Bathroom Window." Get on it, Canada.

        1. "and it would be an acoustic album because there's no power" is Gold, Jerry.

  7. I see the Twins are on the West Coast this week, meaning 9:10 p.m. CDT start times. That's a pretty good excuse for going to bed early.

    1. Twayn, tonight's game should go quickly, since Pineda's fastball averages 95+ MPH. You should stick around for a few innings. Misery loves company.

        1. From a quality-of-baseball standpoint, the rain in Cleveland on Saturday and Sunday pushing Pineda and Felix to today and tomorrow means that there should be better pitching in this series. On the other hand, I'd rather get the Mariners' 4-5 pitchers and a couple of wins.

          Had their not been rain in Cleveland on Sunday, it would have been Liriano-Hernandez again, which seems to have happened a lot, though Liriano didn't really get off lightly with Pineda instead of Hernandez. The knock on Pineda is that he doesn't have a great pitch to put away lefties with, so we'll probably miss Mauer and Thome a little more than usual tonight.

          1. Mariners are 9-7 when Felix or Pineda start, 7-16 otherwise. Not that the rest of their starters are all that bad. Looking at the M's lineup, it looks like Justin Smoak is the M's Jason Kubel. Ichiro has pretty much been the M's version of Span.

      1. It's a lot, for sure. The more teams there are, the harder it will hit teams that have a losing year. It's easy to be a fair weather fan when there's another game in town.

        The way that MLS is currently structured as a single-entity league, teams should be able to weather dry spells thanks to the salary cap and healthy revenue sharing. And if they had an owner-operated stadium from day one, that helps a lot with cost control.

      2. Is it less likely to support one than Denver? MSP is basically Denver. Similar population, television market size. Has all of the big four franchises, plus a middling BCS school.

        Are the demographics different that Denver would support one where MSP couldn't?

        But there appears to be multiple better markets that the Twin Cities anyways.

        1. what is the middling BCS school in Denver?

          It has a WCHA school, but no "football" schools. Those are in Boulder, Ft. Collins, and Colorado Springs, respectively.

          1. Well Boulder is essentially the Denver market. You put the U of M campus in Alvertville and it's still a part of the Twin Cities.

            1. Not to pick a real fight, but ALBERTVILLE counts as part of the Twin Cities now??

              Boulder is 25-30 miles away from Denver, which is about the distance from Minneapolis to Albertville (or to Forest Lake, or from St. Paul to River Falls, WI or Farmington, MN) or Racine to Milwaukee, to pick some examples.

              So, yea, I suppose you can say they are in the same TV market.

              1. I consider it so, but different strokes. Point being, CU is competing for the Denver markets sports attention and money.

        2. I would say not less likely than Denver, but the Rapids haven't exactly been a huge success story in the stands. And the knock on the Rapids' stadium has always been that it's not near enough to downtown/public transit, which could also be a problem for a team in Arden Hills.

    1. How embarrassing. On first glance I read your LTE as "...the Milfs might actually be interested in fielding an MLS team..."

      Actually, spooky should run with it. There's at least a dozen video production companies in the San Fernando Valley waiting for that script.

  8. A very good day at Casa de Leche. The Milkmaid had an abnormality (I'll spare the details) that threw up a lot of red flags, but we just found out that it isn't cancer.

    This has been running me a little ragged, though I had mentioned it to literally no one. I should probably stop bottling everything.

      1. I just finally got one and filled it with some dangerously fantastic IIPA that lasted an embarrassingly short amount of time.

  9. Per Joe Posnanski on Twitter:

    Your morning wakeup: this year exactly half the fly balls Jose Bautista has hit to left field have sailed over the fence.

    So, he only doubled his rate at Target Field.

    1. His latest blog is about Harmon. Haven't read it yet, but looking forward to is, as profiling legends is one of Joe P's many strengths.

  10. we got this going for us (twitter)

    SBerthiaumeESPN Steve Berthiaume
    From Elias: #Yankees DHs batting a league-low .179 this season, 43 points below 13th-ranked #Twins at .222.

    1. We're ranked 13th only because Kubel has been playing more in the outfield due to injuries and other's ineptitude.

        1. Thome has brought the average down at .214. The OPS on the other hand ...

          Then there's catcher, where the Twins' split OPS+ is 7. Seriously. I'm pretty sure I could hit that well. I'm pretty sure a crash-test dummy with a bat taped to his hands could do better.

            1. His overall OPS is -18. Holm and Rivera also are both negative. That's a whole lot of suck. Meanwhile, Delmon currently has a lower OPS+ than Casilla (40 to 42).

                1. Minus, negative, below zero, subzero, whatever you want to call it, they are historically awful.

                    1. I think they should adjust the slash stats so that GIDPs count as two outs were made for one AB. Therefore, if you got 5 ABs: one triple, one walk, two Ks and two GIDPs, your slash would be -.200/.000/.200/.200
                      (with .400 ISO!).

  11. Ya know what bums me out? The Twins are just over the mountains tonight and tomorrow, and I don't even care that I can't afford to go.

    1. You don't want to see this clash of the Titans? I used to tell my wife it was OK for the boys to cheer for the Twins over her Mariners because the Twins were in a divisional race. Now, what do I say? FWIW, Junior is cheering for the Twins and Trey is cheering for the M's, although I'm convinced he's just trying to make Mommy feel better. I can't pull the usual trick of saying, "You mean you aren't going to cheer for Joe Mauer?"

    2. I got a 6-pack of tickets with my fiancee and a couple friends before the season: Twins (tomorrow), Braves, Phillies, Padres, Red Sox (that one against my wishes), and A's. I wish I had done this in years past rather than trying to just pick out a game here or there, as I'm really looking forward to just watching some major league baseball. The Mariners are unlikely to be good this year, but they've got some interesting players, which is generally about all I ask of a team if I don't have a real rooting interest. And having a terrible offense usually keeps the game moving along.

      1. Oh yeah, my point was that had I known half the Twins would be injured and playing this terribly, I would have gotten a ticket to a different game.

  12. Twins lineup per LEN3 Twitter: Span, Plouffe, Kubel (RF), Morneau (DH), Cuddy (1B), Young, Valencia, Butera, Cassilla.

    1. The nonkubels are dominating the lineup. Again. We should clone some dudes.

    1. I remember when Pujols first came up and started hitting the snot out of the ball, the TV talking heads insisted that he needed to settle down and play just one position if he was going to maximize his value to the Cards. I still don't understand that line of reasoning. A player who can hit and play two positions is more valuable than a player who can hit and play one position.

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