Game 97 Recap: Indians at Twins

Twins 7, Indian 5
WP: Matt Capps (wait, what?) LP: Sipp
SAVE! Joe "that's right bitches" Nathan
Fangraphs is confused about Capps winning, too.
MLB recap, spoiler ---> the local nine win this one.

Ah, everyone's favorite feature comes roaring back to life with a Joe Nathan save on a Wednesday. Let's look at the progress of the king of the savers race, shall we? Craig Kimbrel and The Beard are tied for the lead with 29 saves. The Beard gets extra credit for style and blowing up fewer games. The ninth guy on the list plays in the AL, for De-toilet to boot, and has 25 saves on the season. There's a lot of baseball to be played, and a lot of saves to be racked up. Stay tuned saves fans!

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. The last two games have been some of the most exciting baseball that I've watched all season. How awesome was it to bloop and dink our way to walk off on Tuesday night, and then to double down on Wednesday and split the series with the Tribe to stay alive in the central. Blackie pitched a hell of a ballgame getting tagged with only 1 earned run, but the defense behind (and in front) of him allowed 3 unearned runs to score. Joe Mauer flashed the leather a couple of times because he's the best evah. The bullpen made things very interesting, but pulled through to keep the score knotted at 4. Laddie led off the eighth with a ground rule double, Mauer pussied a single, Cuddy looked vintage, and Thome drew a walk. If Orlando Ballgame had been just a little bit taller, if had had been a baller, he would have robbed Danny V of the go ahead single, but he wasn't and he didn't. Del was Del. Nishi cracked the game open with a two run single. Drew was Drew. Joe Nathan allowed the obligatory closer's donger (thankfully it was of the solo kind), and the Twins win. I don't care if the Twins come back to make the postseason this year, but I love the way they drag me back in just when I think I'm out.

15 thoughts on “Game 97 Recap: Indians at Twins”

  1. Third place, here we come. Only half game behind the White Sox and five behind Tigers and Indians after Tigers lose at home to the A's, the worst road team in the AL.

  2. From the AP:

    Valencia's is now 10 for 18 with the bases-loaded in his career, with 22 RBIs. He also has 21 RBIs this season in the seventh inning or later, which is tied for fifth in the league.

    Clutch! (Who edited this? Wow! That first sentence alone is all kinds of ugly.)

    Also, no team has ever dropped to 20 games below .500 and gotten back to .500. Of course, much of that is because few teams did it so early in the season to give themselves a better chance to do it, but still, we are in historic territory with this team.

    1. I feel like I've been seeing more and more dog-ugly AP stories like this lately. The most widely-disseminated stories get the laziest editing? Really?

      1. If this was a newspaper I would be more understanding, since the first people to go at newspapers are copy editors (as I know all too well), but I would think the AP would be thriving as newspapers require more help from the AP and most of the major websites use AP, but maybe they've had to drop their prices, too.

  3. Thought: Will we see less praise for Morneau's defense after seeing Mauer at first base?

      1. Heh, good point. We were spoiled ever since Latroy was demoted to set-up man. More or less eight years of very few blown saves.

        1. From the closer anyways. 2009 was pretty ugly when the Twins had to call up Mijares after Neshek got hurt and Guerrier and Crain were overworked or just plain sucked.

        2. Or were you excluding 2009, since 2002 through 2010 would be nine seasons?

          1. I guess I was excluding 2010. Rauch and Capps weren't terrible last year, but it seems like we blew more 9th inning saves last year than we ever did in any year with Guardado/Nathan. I might be wrong.

  4. ps the culture club portion of these recaps is on vacation for a bit, or forever if that's what happens.

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