The Twins are on a winning streak! Only two games but I'll take it.
Cy Young Award winning Corey Kluber throws for Cleveland. Since this years lineup is mostly the same as last year, lets go back and look what Kluber did against the Twins.
2014-09-21 @MIN W 8.0 7 2 2 1 14 0
2014-09-11 MIN W 8.1 8 2 2 0 7 0
2014-08-21 @MIN L 7.0 6 3 3 4 8 1
That jumbled mass of number says Kluber was very good against the locals. Mike Pelfrey goes for Minnesota. Lets hope he makes it at least 6 innings and keeps the run total low.
lineups from Yahoo!
Cleveland
Michael Bourn CF
Jason Kipnis 2B
Michael Brantley DH
Carlos Santana 1B
Brandon Moss RF
David Murphy LF
Lonnie Chisenhall 3B
Roberto Pérez C
José Ramírez SS
Minnesota
Danny Santana SS
Eduardo Escobar LF
Joe Mauer 1B
Brian Dozier 2B
Kennys Vargas DH
Trevor Plouffe 3B
Oswaldo Arcia RF
Chris Herrmann C
Jordan Schafer CF
Plenty of seats available for this tilt.
Tonight's fan fare: Chicken fajitas, frijoles refritos, chips/salsa/guacamole, and a Friendly beer. We go with the vegetarian refries now to cut out the lard and some of the salt. Best meal I've had in two weeks.
that sounds awesome!
I had grilled cheese sandwiches.
Grilled burgers and Surly Doomtree.
Also grilled burgers, but drinking a homebrew ipa.
I did pick up the doomtree last weekend. It was ok, but didn't wow me like some of their other offerings. The wow factor came from finding it in Kenosha.
The work crew is making plans for happy hour next Friday at the new Surly Beer Hall. I'm all in.
That is an adviseable position to take.
They've got a pretty good looking food menu. Charcuterie includes braunschweiger, salami and pheasant terrine. Savory seems to be the watchword.
That'll do.
Grilled salmon covered with guacamole, fancy carrots from Trader Joe's, and chips to go with the extra guac.
Carnitas tacos, home fries, steamed asparagus, and a couple of New Belgiums.
***perfect game alert***
The Twins' tolerance for weak sticks allegedly offset by speed and defense is frustrating. Looking at you, Schafer.
Watchin' NCIS with Mrs., and seen as many Twins hits as Gameday has
wobble wobble wobble
still no runs.
Pelfrey sure tried to change that with the last pitch to Chisenhall.
Well executed hit and run there.
Oy. Pelfrey uncorks the WP. The wheels on the bus fall off, off, off...
On a scale of 1 to 10, so far Pelfrey's at a 9.
Esco-barred!
Nice throw by Escobar to get Ramirez.
Nicely handled by Herrmann, too.
Eddie! Eddie!
I am issuing a Perfect Game Watch in effect from now until 10pm for Target Field. Conditions are favorable for a perfect game in the watch area. Stay tuned for further updates.
That's pure gold, that is.
Tim Stauffer is in a race with Blaine Boyer for the bottom rung of the bullpen ladder.
Arcia the spoiler.
The tweet worked.
As a site, we should probably use Twitter more often.
The Perfect Game Watch issued at 8:44 pm has been cancelled.
Down by two to a pitch that is dealing and Bert is begging to trade an out to move Arcia over to 3rd. TWINS BASEBALL!!!
HHEERRRRMMAANNNN
Indigenous Peoples falling apart now.
Me: Grumble grumble grumble Schafer.
Wife: At least he knows how to wear baseball pants.
A bunt is kind of stupid in general, but this is Kluber. A surprise bunt, especially if sort of trying to bunt for a hit, is a decent idea.
Herrmann read it well, too, saw it wasn't getting past the pitcher and beat a hasty retreat.
That was a beautiful play. I wonder if Kluber thought it was a force out.
This has been a very TWINS BASEBALL!! inning.
TWINS BASEBALL!!!
TWINS BASEBALL!!TWINS BASEBALL!!
See, TWINS BASEBALL!!
TWINS BASEBALL!!
This game went from doom and gloom to fast and furious in a heartbeat.
Mauer's such a pussy, taking the intentional walk here.
You cant get RBI unless you swing the bat!!!oneone
Part of me wishes Ozzie Guillen was the Cleveland bench boss. Last inning would have had him in a meltdown.
A reliever going two innings. I like it.
I predict at least 1 Twins run this inning.
Damn, right off the toe. That's gonna sting.
Kluber wants nothing to do with Mauer.
Gah. Mauer grounded out.
Let the Mauer bashing begin.
Mauer and bashing really don't go together. Shouldn't it be more like "mild rebukes"?
The Mauer shall inherit the earth.
Molitor using Perkins correctly here. Maybe it is a new era.
Nah, even Gardy did it at home. The question is will Molitor use him in the tie game on the road.
I feel like if he was up ng him correctly, he'd still be pitching.
Normally, I would agree and want Perk to go another inning, but this is his third consecutive game pitching and they have a day game tomorrow, so I can understand using him just for one.
Well, he probably won't be out there tomorrow either way, but yeah... No sense in overworking him, I suppose.
Perkins gits 'er dun. Dozier, Vargas and Plouffe due up. I'll take those odds.
OOH MANNNN I thought Vargas hit a HR/
Even if that ball just hits the wall it's probably game over.
Yeah, Dozier was half way to third
I wonder if anyone has ever tried stealing a base when the pitcher is soft tossing IBB pitches.
Here you go.
I remember when Dave Engle was soft-lobbing his throws back to the pitcher so weakly that people were wondering if someone would try steal off it.
Knocked the cover off of that one.
That ball did not go as far as I had hoped it would.
WHY ARE YOU BRINGING IN BLAINE BOYER
This man speaks for all of us.
J.R. Graham the only other option and he's a rule 5 rookie who HASNT ALLOWED BASE HITS TO THE LAST SEVEM BATTERS HE'S FAVED WHY IS BLAINE BOYER AN OPTION??
Well, okay. He's giving up a .675 average to his last 8 batters. Fine.
Oops. TWINS BASEBALL!!!
So, Rzepczynski came in to.... Intentionally walk Joe Mauer?
I appreciate that it's a skill position, but that's still a little absurd. I wonder how often THAT happens.
I'm glad the Toyota commercials got dialed back after mid-game, especially the spots touting the Camry's 'bold design.' It looks like every other midsize sedan these days -- sort of like Emperor Ming's codpiece.
Juiced for Kennys. Oh, me likey.
Alright, Vargas. Let's do this.
Flashbacks to JC Romero plunking Travis Hafner in extras to end a game. RETURN THE FAVOR
Or strike out on three pitches, whatever.
aw man.
Some vicious swings, but... Ugh.
He was sort of like a puppy that just found his pecker up there, Way too excited about the possibilities.
We're running out of bullpen bullets.
They're not "bullets" so much as "banana peels that we throw at opposing batters in the hopes that they trip themselves up".
That earlier out gave Boyer a microscopic 13.50 ERA.
I made a joke about how you'd need a telescope to see that ERA if it were a few parsecs away. It was bad. I deleted it. Then I accidentally put something else as a reply. Oops.
Im glad that Thielbar was allowed to only get 2 outs.
Sitting in the waiting room at the Dr. yesterday and found the Sports Illustrated pre-season scouting issue. They picked Cleveland to win the division and pegged us for 95 losses. The one sentence about the new manager basically said Molitor would be an improvement because the team had just stopped listening to Gardenhire completely.
I mean, it started seeming possible in the last season. He seemed very much in the "liked, but not respected" category. A dangerous place for a boss of any type to be.
No, Blaine. He was not out. That was you starting another streak.
Does anyone remember Jason Miller?
I do not.
I remember his last major league game. It was brutal.
Ramon Ortiz...wow.
They intentionally walked a guy down by 7
Yeah. They did.
Not even a blip.
Wiggle room.
Wiggle, wiggle. End it now, Twins.
You're welcome, dudes.
PLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
UPPER DECK!!
PLOOOOOF-DAAAAA
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
That was far
Sheenie walks in and says, "I'm going to sleep after this inning." Then, she looks at the screen and says, "Oh, but Plouffe's going to homer here so I won't worry about it."
My wife commanded Boyer stop being a *%^% and strike someone out (she doesn't even care about baseball). He did on the next pitch. "See, they need tough love."
Well holy shit.
4-6. That's not all that bad.
It's really not, all things considered. A little more offense against that sox and #itshappening.
Winning record outside of Detroit.
Love the "yup, that's gone" reaction.
I liked the third baseman in the background not even turning his head to watch. Reminds me of that ALDS Red Sox-Angels game awhile back when Manny hit a walk-off and Mike Napoli (Angels catcher at the time), stood up and started walking away before Manny had even left the box.
Hahaha, they shorted out the mic.
I had a vision of "PLOUFFE!" run through my head at the beginning of the at bat. Seems we were all feeling it.
That Spooky Feeling is contagious.
I also had a sort of Spooky feeling before that at bat - especially was it got to a dead red hitter's count.
I got the feeling as soon as I saw he was coming up next. It's still happening!
He hit that ball har-ud.
And that's all I've got to say about that.
Pelfery vs. Kluber. Obviously we were going to win.
That's why he belongs in the rotation.
I'll just quote myself from yesterday's recap: "No reasonable person would expect the Twins to win tonight, given that matchup, except for one thing: it's baseball. Odd things like that happen every day. Maybe one will happen for us tonight. We're still on track for 156-6!"