I think the phrase "biggest game at Target Field in 5 years" is a bit overblown, but hey its sports, everything is hyperbole!
No Mauer (tough matchup against Kazmir) and no Sano (tender hamstring) tonight for the Twins. Kind of a bummer, but whatever the Twins have dealt with worse. Like the evaporation of a starting pitcher getting more than 15 outs.
Kyle Gibson will try to buck that trend, again.
1-2-3 inning! Off to a great start.
Gomez is a treasure.
Gibson with a couple of innings like yours hope for out of him.
Froze him. Very nice.
Yep, dead duck.
Nunez doing his best Sano impression!
Nunez!!
Ha! It was right after Cory said "Sitting on two home runs..." We can say that's a call. 🙂
Closer than Dick'n'Bert have gotten in a while.
On the plus side, the Twins have a great bench tonight!
Is Molly trolling the Herrman PH haters?
I love Dozier. I was Trevor May's vice-chair on the #VoteDozier campaign. But once in a while, he meddles with popups that he should have nothing to do with.
Gibson really is one of the better fielding pitchers I've seen in recent years. He fields his position with gusto.
I feel like I have the same irrational love of Escobar that my dad had for Punto all those years ago.
Like a cat! /Bert
Edit: oops, this should go under the Gibson fielding observation.
🙂 like!
Double E
cheap RBii !
Let's see, double, walk, HBP, HBP. Considering how Kazmir is throwing, next is a wild pitch to score a run.
dang! nice stop by Altuve.
And then a really good off balance throw.
With this stretch of wildness, they've got to get more than two runs, right?
Eh, oh well.
Stop
bunting
Puig_destroyer has some thoughts on this turn of events.
With how bad Buxton has been and how good Kazmir is against righties, I'm okay with it. But man that was terrible.
Hat tip to Conger though
Yeah. That was a really nifty play
17 outs for a starting pitcher.
bleh
When Dick said that Duensing would try to strand a couple of walkers, I heard Rick Grimes
WHERE'S CORAL?
How did Kurt Suzuki hit that one foul
I mean, I know how, but it takes some skill to hit that ball in between the pole and the limestone
How in earth did that sneak between the pile and the wall???
Jose Altuve: 1 triple
Evan Gattis : 9 triples
weird
Trevor May *swoon*
Geez, May is deadly in that late inning role.
Its really hard to unintentionally walk Eddie Escobar.
Jepsen is growing on me.
And then this. Jepsen just letting it be known he's not trying to steal Perkins's job???
Squinty eyes, Kevin.
Outs please.
grumble grumble
There's an Eddie Guardado save right there
Twins have tied their 2012 and 2013 win totals. Only four more until they match last year's.
So ... no mention of it here either. That's disappointing.
Hunter's comebacker followed by a high throw from Kazmir to first and ii's jogging. He would have been safe if he'd run it out. The same crew spent 3 minutes berating Rasmus for not running out a pop out to Nunez. In the end, it didn't matter, but that sh!t bugs me more and more every day.
Other than, say, a Nick Punto, nobody busts it all out on every single play, especially everyday players and/or someone Torii's age. Torii certainly wasn't going as fast as he could, but I didn't think of it as unusually slow. Rasmus was far worse because he didn't even go more than two steps toward first and if Nunez had just let the ball drop, it would have been a double play.