71 thoughts on “2012 Game 92: Baltimore Orioles @ Minnesota Twins”

  1. Is anyone watching on TV? Was Chen really as nervous about Ben stealing a base as Mauer's at bat made it look on Gameday?

  2. How does Willingham not score from first on a double by Plouffe with two outs? Is he really that slow?

    1. Barely a double. Plouffe was jammed and it dropped just in front of the LF down the line.

  3. Putting runners on and with no outs for Thome, Jones, and Pauer isn't the strategy I would've taken, but I guess Cole knows better than I how to attack this lineup.

    1. oh, lumps of coal. I was thinking "is Lew back?", 'cause they look kind of like 20-sided die.

  4. ok, now I'm really annoyed. I can't access Gameday from either FF or IE at work. So now I have to do work! Absolute Boo.

    1. Har! We had a power outage this morning, so after waiting a couple of hours, I decided I should go home and work from there. Because of that, I am following along on Gameday and "getting a lot of work done".

  5. Walking the bases full to get to Thome just doesn't seem like a good idea. I know we got away with it the other night but you can't keep tempting fate.

  6. Swarzack in a high leverage spot. It's too bad Perkins and Burton got killed by that cement mixer. We really could have used them there.

    1. How many saves does Burton have this year? That might be Gardy's threshold of determing what proves someone as a closer.

    2. Provus said that they wanted to let Perkins rest today. I suppose I get that. Why Gardenhire brought freaking Anthony Swarzak of all people in there in a very high leverage situation I will not understand. He's not very good.

      But hey, neither is Burnett and he brought him in too.

  7. What a frustrating loss. Both were, really. Offense couldn't generate anything against a Jeremy last night, today the ass end of the bullpen coughs up the lead in a high leverage situation. I really wish that they'd called up another reliever (Oliveros?) instead of freaking Blackburn with Crapps on the DL.

    1. Since they put Duensing back in the bullpen after promoting Blackburn, the end result is the same.

  8. On a positive note, remember how much worse "Rigid Closer Role" losses were when the Twins were in tight division races?

      1. I laughed. It was a bittersweet laugh and with not a few crocodile tears, but I laughed.

    1. Immediately after the game ended I got an email notification on my phone. An email from MLB talking about how the division races heat up in the second half. I quietly sighed to myself.

  9. A tough one to lose, but at least DeVries pitched well. We'll just have to settle for 108-54! That's still a .667 winning percentage!

    1. Teams that won 108 games:

      1: Baltimore Orioles - 1970 - 108
      2: Cincinnati Reds - 1975 - 108
      3: New York Mets - 1986 - 108

      Rare air, indeed.

  10. After Swarzak gave up the go-ahead bloop single to the guy who led the league in strikeouts the previous four seasons, he then struck out the next four batters he faced. Talk about bad (or unlucky) timing. Maybe Swarzak has found a niched as a late-inning reliever. I'd trust him more than Burnett.

    1. Much as I ragged on the decision to bring Swarzak into a high leverage spot yesterday, I actually agree with this. Swarzak's nothing special, but Burnett creeps me out every time he's on the mound. Every scoreless inning feels like a lucky inning with him.

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