188 thoughts on “2011 Game 78: Dodgers vs Twins”

  1. Starting two months ago, the Twins lost six straight, then won three straight, then lost nine straight, then won three straight, then lost 10 of 12, then won 15 of 17, and now have lost six straight. It has been some nightmarish ride.

  11. while we are not paying attention to the game, I need some opinions on smart phone options. Governor Jerry is taking away my Crackberry as of thursday. I have a Verizon plan for my personal phone, which is ancient.

    Droid or Iphone? Do I really want to pay ~$200 for a frickin' phone? Is the Internet service over the airwaves fast enough to be useable (it is not with my Blackberry Curve)?

    2. There's another option - I've been duplicating a substantial part of the smartphone experience with an iPod Touch and Verizon's free mobile phone. It's a setup that works because I can log on to the university's system via the Touch to check email and whatnot. I'd love to be able to do that (and other wireless Internet things) anywhere, but I've sucked it up for four years. The only really annoying thing is having to carry two devices.

      1. Yea, but I'm doing this basically because my agency head "requires" her top managers to have smart phone connectivity at work. I don't want to carry two devices around to accomplish this.

              1. The iPod is 64 GB, my phone holds 16 GB. I hate, hate, hate the music app that comes built in with Android, and I just find it easier to keep my music segregated to its own device. I purchased the iPod before I got the phone, and the fact that I already had an iPod and could use the iOS apps, pointed me in the direction of ordering an Android phone.

                That being said, I'm strongly considering upgrading to the next iPhone if it has LTE and I can get one that's at least 32 GB. I don't get enough time to listen to music here to justify a full music setup. Should I find another job, I'd consider keeping a music setup strictly for my desk (digital music player, headphone amp, DAC, and probably a slightly better set of headphones) in addition to the iPhone, but I'd need to be compensated pretty well.

    3. I balked at paying for a phone, but have had a Droid X since last year. It's a great phone. I find internet pretty zippy on mine, I can certainly fire things through it at a fairly rapid rate. I had a Blackberry prior to this and the internet on that was horrible. I think the difference between the iPhone and the Droids is pretty small, though the newer Droid phones (Charge, Thunderbolt) are LTE capable and have extremely fast internet. I love the Google stuff on my phone since all my personal mail is Gmail, I make calls using Google Voice, etc. But the iPhone has a wider variety of apps for sure.

      I'd suggest if you're going to make a decision, it would be worthwhile to do so before next week as they will be changing their data packages to far, far less... hmmmmm... Let's just say they're not cheap now, but they'll be even worse in a week.

      1. Thanks, Zack. I'm making the move tomorrow, as my Crackberry goes away on thursday (end of the fiscal year).

        1. i friggin' hate my bluechuckblackberry. i'm in plans to try and swap it out for an iphone (work paying for it, of course; no way would i want to pay for one of those by myself).

    4. For somewhat ideological, somewhat practical reasons, I went with a Droid 2. The idea of typing on the screen horrifies me in various ways. I think the only problem I've had is treating the tiny physical keyboard like a real one and expecting characters to be where they aren't (primarily shift key characters). Cell coverage sucks at work and is mediocre at home, but fantastic everywhere else.

      1. i was very apprehensive about a touchscreen keyboard as well, but i've gotten used to it.

    5. I own an Iphone 3gs and to tell you the truth it's pretty awesome where I can retrieve data (even on At&t). I like the interface, took a little while to get used to the touch screen, but with my sausage fingers I've found a rhythm to typing out short to medium length e-mails. I would add that we're a pretty mac friendly family, as we own two desktops and a macbook, the iphone plays nicely with our other operating systems. I know several people who own pcs and they find no problem syncing an iphone with their computer apps, but I mention this because it's something to keep in mind. I'm in the process of de-teching my life, and have given some pretty serious thought to ditching the cell phone altogether... I just can't tear off that band-aid yet.

  16. gaaaaah! Laddie giveth and taketh away. Really, Lexi. Do you know who follows you in the batting order?

  18. Tonight's supper at Chez Hayes: a whole (butchered) chicken, seasoned heavily with kosher salt and pepper and grilled, accompanied by shredded kohlrabi sautéed in butter and garlic, a large salad of greens, sugar snap peas, and sliced radishes, and Arnold Palmers.

    1. I'm having a bit of homemade chicken noodle soup, still not quite right form last nights game, er, virus.

        1. I didn't have the wherewithal to make home made noodle. I went with the frozen egg noodle standby.

    2. They catered in Famous Dave's for dinner tonight since we're on lockdown all week. Ribs, brisket, chopped pork, chicken, beans, wedges, and slaw. Pretty good.

    1. hola, carne. hope your stomach isn't too loco tonight (and there's all the spanish i know).

      1. He did. He guessed 28, Dick talked him out of it, then re-guessed 25. When they read the answer he said he'd guessed 42.

        The best part was that Dick guessed Gwynn had only 7 career 4-hit games.

    1. And more than Ty Cobb. That somewhat surprises me, considering how many hits Cobb has.

      1. Nevermind. Of course it's because the search only covers 1919-2011, missing his peak and 2522 hits. In which case, holy crap is that a lot of 4-hit games.

      2. I suppose that's partially because the number of PAs per game has gone up over time, but yeah, even so it's a bit surprising. Moreso when you consider Cobb played nearly twice as long as Kirby.

    2. Is there a bag of baseballs and a bucket of warm spit on the waiver wire or somesuch?

  34. cc to 'toy, or any other brewers out here: have you ever used whitelabs brand yeast?

    1. I used to use it regularly, but then I got too lazy and cheap to make starters, so I went back to Wyeast. The smack packs seemed to give better fermentation without stepping it up than the White Labs, but overall, it was a good product. I think I got my first homebrew ribbon using one of the English Ale yeasts.

      1. I should also note that my local homebrew shop has stopped carrying it and now only has smack packs, for whatever that is worth.

      2. The batch I brewed last night should have had a sg of 1068 ish, I pitched a vial of heir saison on top without a starter and had fermentation within 6 hours. I'm pretty impressed.

  41. Evening, gents. I like this Luke Hughes kid. He swaggers even when he's standing still.

    1. Which is better than most of the callups, who ground into double plays even when standing still.

  45. OT, but I recall a CoC recently about home and craft brewed root beer. I had a Point Premium over the weekend that was pretty awesome. Got a bottle at the general store in Marine. Now I have to find a steady supplier in my burb.

    1. I just want to say how funny someone stating they are going off topic is around here.

      But speaking of such things, I picked up some Boylan's Birch Beer at ch's suggestion. Excellent stuff. I've not had the Point root beer, though.

      1. I haven't had Point's root beer either, which I should probably consider an oversight.

        My problem with most commercial root beers is that they're too carbonated. The half-gallon jug of think, homebrewed draft from the Lakeview in Winona reinforced that low-carbonation preference.

        cheaptoy, somebody suggested I try the root beer at the Water Street Brewery in Milwaukee. Ever been there?

        1. I've noticed a far more pleasant experience with quality-made root beers in terms of carbonation. I can drink one and not feel terrible afterwards.

          I have been to Water Street Brewery in Delafield and was un-impressed with their brews. Haven't been to the one in Milwaukee though. I do know that my wife really likes the root beer at the Great Dane.

        2. I grew up on A&W draft in the half-gallon jug. Still my favorite, especially with a couple of chili dogs.

          1. Wow, I almost forgot that we had a B&K root beer stand in town when we lived in Indiana. That was pretty awesome stuff, too.

    2. I've never got to try this kind of root beer. I will hunt it down. I would suggest trying a Henry Weinhart should you ever stumble across it. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

  49. If there is anybody near the Ames, IA area, I have a home gym I'm trying to get rid of. I'm asking $150 for it, but I'm willing to go much cheaper than that. If I don't find a buyer within a week, I'd probably even be willing to give it to anybody who wants to come pick it up. It's a bit over a 3 hour drive from the twin cities, but I need to get rid of it in the next month because I can't take it with me when I move. You can see it here:

    http://bstanton.public.iastate.edu/stuff4sale/gym.html

        1. It's actually been 18 mo. at this apartment when the lease is up in August. It's pretty much the best chance I'll have to try to find something better career-wise.

  50. Well, I'd best get to bed to do some quick reading before sleeping. Hold tight, bullpen.

    1. Back when I was still working in kitchens I worked for a French chef whose pet name for his wife was "Cheese." "Eahy, Chees!," he'd say when she called the restaurant. Of course, he had "Le Grand Fromage" embroidered on all his jackets. Now he has a concessions item named after him at Target Field.

    1. A friend of mine uses the same chiropractor as Nathan said he's made good improvements over the last week or so. Not sure if this means he can pitch well, tho.

    1. on a semi-related note, i think it's time twitchy goes full beard. not all crazy like wilson, but a good, respectable beard.

      1. He's definitely got to go one way or the other with it. Either full beard or no beard. His facial hair is getting too gray to look good like that.

      1. It was. I was thinking the height of the hop the ball took just before it got to Nishioka might have had something to do with throwing it like that.

  70. Earlier tonight I was changing the lightbulb in our entry, which is a split level with stairs going up and down. This involves me straddling the stairs at the top, balanced precariously with one foot on each half-wall on either side. I then have to lean forward, jam my head against the ceiling, reach out and swing the light on it's chain until it's close enough to grab. Then, with head still jammed against the ceiling, unscrew three set screws, take off the globe, hand it to my wife, unscrew the bulb and hand it to my wife, take a new bulb from her, screw it in, take and replace the globe, let go of the light and finally jump down. Now, this procedure always really freaks out my wife. She's sure I'm going to fall and break my neck. So tonight, as usual, she was freaking out again. When I was done, I gave her a hug and told her, "Don't worry honey, I never fall when I'm doing that." She looked up at me and smiled. "I'm not worried that you'll fall," she said. "I'm worried that I'll push you off."

        2. And this very moment, Billy Smith is wondering what caused the sudden burning sensation in his ass.

        3. Morales has a 75 OPS+ right now, a .728 minor league OPS, and a bunch of question marks on defense. I wouldn't really want him as a third catcher or a second catcher even. (And no, I'm not advocating for Butera either, I'm sure they could have found a better alternative elsewhere.) Ramos as a second catcher is a different story.

  77. Dick just stumbled into understanding what a high leverage situation is/ blind squirrel.

  86. craigcalcaterra God, you can't lose this game, Minnesota! I have a clever little blurb for ATH in mind that depends on you winning!

  92. Let's see, Twins win first game of the road trip in a blowout, then lose every other game on the trip. Twins lose the first game of the homestand in a blowout, so they should win all the rest of the home games, right? Makes as much sense as anything else on the season.

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