Didn't I tell you?

When your team is playing terrible baseball, it's easy to get discouraged.  We forget what a great game baseball is, because the version of it our team is playing doesn't look much like the game we fell in love with.

But then.  Then you see an awesome game like last night's.  And all of a sudden you remember why you love baseball so much.  You remember why it truly is the greatest game ever.  It's not just because your team won, although that certainly helps.  It's because, almost literally, anything can happen in a baseball game.  You can be behind the whole way, looking dead in the water, and yet you still have a chance to come back and win.  As Earl Weaver said, "In baseball, you can't kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the plate and give the other man his chance. That's why this is the greatest game."

Through seven innings, the Twins had amassed a total of three hits, all singles.  One of the singles was an infield hit by Eddie Rosario, who was promptly picked off first base, so it hardly counts.  Kyle Gibson had pitched well, but he gave up a two-run homer to Elvis Andrus in the second inning and it looked like that was all the runs Texas would need.

Then came the eighth.  The Twins had a man on second with two out.  It looked for all the world like they would go down again and that would be that.  But then the Twins used their weapon of choice this season, the double.  Joe Mauer doubled to deep left, Miguel Sano doubled to deep right, and suddenly the game was tied.

Glen Perkins got the Rangers out in the ninth.  The first two Twins went down in the bottom of the ninth, and now it looked for all the world like we'd go to extra innings.  Then Kurt Suzuki walked and Eduardo Escobar doubled to right.  Suzuki used the speed he's well known for and scored all the way from first.  And the Twins had an unexpected victory.  Well, unexpected to some of you, anyway.

This is the sort of win that makes sportswriters talk about momentum and turning points and so forth.  Well, we'll see.  The Twins had a ninth-inning win over the Mariners and then lost five straight.  They had a ninth-inning win over the Indians and then looked like a high school team for the next two games.  So nothing is guaranteed.

But, maybe, this time it will take.  If Mike Pelfrey would pitch like he does sometimes rather than like he pitches other times, it would help.  If the Twins could score some runs off Nick Martinez, who had an awful stretch in July but pitched well his last time out, that would help, too.

We're through 112 games, 69% of the season, and we're still at .500.  We have fifty games left.  Maybe this will propel the Twins to a season-ending fifty-one game winning streak.  We're still on track for 106-56!