Cup of Coffee

August 1, 2011: …with a whimper

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So, nothing happened yesterday. I'm not sure if BS was saved from himself or he walked away, but I didn't hear of any scenario that was going to pay off for the Twins.

62 thoughts on “August 1, 2011: …with a whimper”

  3. According to my BBTN daily trivia calendar, Dave Winfield had 3,110.00 hits in his career. I am relieved to know he doesn't have any hundreths of hits.

    1. Same thing with today's question asking how many runs Rickey Henderson had in his career: 2,295.00.

        1. I was just mentally complaining about a Time magazine* graphic that dropped ".0" in a list of numbers. Hours in 1965: 0.5; Hours in 1985: 2; Hours in 2010: 2.7. Was the 1985 data less precise, or was a trailing .0 dropped? That ".0" does have information in it, dangnabbit!

          *Bought while stranded at the Alexandria Fleet Farm, cover story on the amount of imbalance between men and women's work loads in and out of the house, a recent point of contention between the two of us, hightened due to the heat.

  4. I got a nice little confidence boost yesterday. Less than 24 hours after going "Single" on facebook, I got a message from a girl I knew in Ireland asking, "If I were to come visit, what airport should I fly into?" I don't think anything will eventually come of it, but it was kinda nice to feel attractive.

      1. I'm moving to Prague to teach English, mo chailín is moving to the UK, so we split up rather than try an international relationship for a 3rd time. She moved out Thursday morning.

        That's about everything.

  5. Over the past week or so, I've cracked open a few of the Irish Reds that I brewed up. All in all, it was a really successful first brew, with a taste pretty similar to Smithwicks. Now, I need to decide what to do next.

    1. I was fooling around with the schedule this morning, trying to do some best case scenario predictions for the Twins. With that said, I don't see how the Twins can win more than 85 games. I was pretty liberal in assigning wins, I think, and I still couldn't find more than 35 over the rest of the schedule.

      Now, could 85 wins place a team atop the AL Central? Honestly, it might. I've got 32 wins for the Tigers the remainder of the season, putting them at 89 wins, and 24 wins for Cleveland 77 wins. The White Sox, by my estimate will win 6 games over the last two months of the season.

      Are the Twins out of it? Nah. It is a hard road though.

      1. The White Sox, by my estimate will win 6 games over the last two months...

        I like the way you estimate.

    3. The power went out for about a half a second this morning. Generally would mean 30 minutes of work (PC hangups and monitor death and the like). Since it's Monday and whatnot, it meant an hour and a half today.

    4. Catching up on 60+ emails from visiting FTLT missing two days of work to attend a wedding. Naturally it had to happen after redoing the build process of a hugely important component.

    5. I still feel like this team has a shot (though I am getting close to backing off of my preseason WS prediction). They haven't been entirely healthy since the first road trip of the year. They're still missing both Laddie and Mountie and are just getting Span back today. Their pitchers have been everywhere from better than expected to, sometimes, much, much worse. The bullpen has had a few surpises, both pleasant and unpleasant, and they haven't been forced to call up Gibson (which at 16.5 back I was certain would happen). We've even seen some good (and bad) play from Rochester players who, for the most part, have played like I’d expect from rookies, i.e., maddeningly inconsistent.

      Despite my (mostly internal) criticism, Gardy really hasn't had a lot to work with. I suppose it's hard to be a consistent baseball team when you can't field the same line-up during any 3 or 4 game stretch of the season. With all that in mind, they've kept it close enough that I do feel optimistic if a few things can occur (I’ll take one or more…or portion of all 4):

      1. If Span can contribute even close to what he did for the first 2 months of the season,
      2. If Mountie and Casilla can come back with enough season left to have an impact,
      3. If Blackburn, Pavano, Duensing and Liriano can regain some semblance of their first half form,
      3a.If the manager and front office figure out that Slowey can (and would) be a nice addition to our starting rotation...
      I know, this begs the question, "Who gets sent to the pen?" I'd argue that Duensing would make a great addition to our bullpen, mostly because he's indicated a willingness to do so and the move could get rid of Mijares. I'd rather send Frankie out there but I'm afraid of the response (both from him and here). Really, none of the starters not named Baker have inspired a lot of confidence this year.

      4. (kind of) Under the heading of "double-edged sword": I was afraid that the run of dominance by the team (i.e., starting staff) from June 2-21 would get them close enough to preclude them from making moves at the deadline. They made the run to get back in, but because they did, nothing was done to improve the squad long-term. I don't want to see Kubel, Cuddyer, or Span gone for nothing, but if a chance to improve at a position of need within the organization had presented itself, I would have liked to see a move made.

      It's my first day back at work following a month off (studying for the bar). My boss started a three-week trial today and left me no assignments...so this is me checking in.

        1. I was just trying not to get too creative there...lefty for a lefty. I wouldn't care if it was The DOomsday Machine or Burnett either.

              3. Capps was jettisoned from the role he shouldn't have, but he's fine in the seventh-inning/RH setup man role he's in now. Since being bumped by Nathan, Capps has a 1.50 ERA in seven games and a .682 OPS against. He's much better against righties, so Gardy can protect him and maximize his usage.

            2. I know. I was trying to keep things within the realm of possibility.
              Edit: AMR's response was faster & more amusing.

      2. I'm personally against adding more LHP relief options to the team. That just pushes CJ's return further back.

      1. You really don't have to say much when the main entryway is a chain-link tunnel, with concertina wire at the top.
        I really like the one down the foul-line chalk stripe with the short focus, but with the "Athletics" wrap on the upper-deck seats still readable.
        This one.

  9. Has anyone else seen the TV show "The Inbetweeners" from the UK? I watched all 3 seasons (18 episodes) over the weekend. I was laughing the entire time. Here's a GIF of when the boys panic when they accidentally get a fish in their boat.

    1. What a weird and wacky ride it was. Does he get into the Hall of Fame and will most fans still be disappointed in his career?

      1. I'd have to say he was a top 3 all-time WR. As big a jerk and miscreant as he was, if he's not in on the first ballot, there's something severely wrong with the HoF.

            1. Well, I believe Peter King is involved in the selection process, which should probably explain just about all that needs to be explained.

          2. Maybe the fact that Randy Moss is an obvious HOFer and that Cris Carter should be the guy to introduce him, or give him his urine-colored jacket, or high-five him, or dunk him into the Nimishillen Creek (I'm oblivious to Football HOF induction procedures), will crystallize in voters' minds that when two positions cover 29% of the players enshrined (25% of all inductees), maybe the HOF voting is skewed and needs to be corrected.

      2. His rookie Monday Night Football game against the Packers is one of the most memorable performances I have ever seen in the NFL.

  11. Late notice, but the Snappers game in Cedar Rapids started at noon. They're currently 1-1 in the fourth. You can hear the game here. I can only get the Cedar Rapids feed to work.

  13. Just word of warning. I am departing the Motherland eminently. Hence the thunderstorms and lightning. But your vacation from me is almost ovah.

  14. Just got back from Sheenie's grandfather's funeral in DC. All weekend long, the Nats fans were absolutely giddy about the possibility of acquiring another quality lineup member for a closer. Thank goodness that didn't happen.

  15. Hey, who's on Turntable? We have a theme room going and we lost a couple people. If the room closes, I actually have to do something today.

  16. FSN replayed the game where Kubel hit a grand salami to complete the cycle against the LAAAAAAAAAAs. That was one hell of a ballgame.

  17. I just got the full roster banner. Damnit if I can't name them all.
    That's Manship on the far right, correct?
    Who is that between Plouffe! and Repko?
    Who are the two between Rivera and Hoey?
    And who is between Slowey and Span?

    I don't know what Tosoni, Slama, Dinkelman, and Hacker look like, but I've got four faces to match three names (because it states that Tosoni is not on there).

    I'm guessing that Dinkelman is between Plouffe! and Repko, Slama is to the left of Hoey (reader's left), and Hacker is the one between Slowey and Span. Wait, no, that's Dusty Hughes... He looked familiar, but I just couldn't place him. So that means that Hacker is the 14-year-old next to Rivera.

        1. well, yeah, because you see... um, when the light from venus... reflects off of a weather balloon, uh...

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