63 thoughts on “September 14, 2015: Storms”

  1. Adam Brett Walker II hit a two-run homer in the second inning and the Lookouts never looked back as they cruised to a 7-3 win over Montgomery. Shannon Wilkerson went 3-for-3 with two runs and two RBIs and Greg Peavey pitched six shutout innings, giving up five hits and three walks with five strikeouts. Jake Reed came in to quell a Biscuit rally in the seventh and D. J. Johnson finished up. The Lookouts now lead the series two games to one.

    Cedar Rapids overcame a 4-1 deficit to complete a sweep of Peoria and move on to the Midwest League finals. Trailing 4-3 in the seventh, Nick Gordon singled, went to second on a bunt, stole third, and scored on a passed ball to tie it. Later in the inning, Chris Paul singled T. J. White home for the go-ahead run. Gordon was 3-for-5 with a double and a run. Yorman Landa struck out four in two shutout innings to get the save, giving up only one hit.

    Chattanooga tries to close out its series with Montgomery tonight at 7:05 Central. Cedar Rapids will open its next series Wednesday against either Lansing or West Michigan.

  2. I completely missed that Loek Van Mil had returned to the Twins organization. He appeared in three games for Rochester in September.

  4. I'm not actively boycotting the NFL this year, but I'm not about to sit through 10 hours of football every Sunday, either. Nor will I stay up to watch the locals tonight. A shame though, because they appear to be primed for another trip to the Super Bowl.

    1. I am looking forward to unironically watching tonight's game. Whether that turns into a hatewatch or not remains to be seen, but I've got a friend coming over, so as long as we're not loud enough to wake the young'un, it should be a fun time either way.

      1. I still enjoy the NFL, but I won't start paying much attention until baseball is over. Besides, tonight's game starts way too late for me to watch much of it.

      2. I'll be the first to admit that I like watching the local teams, but other than setting my fantasy line-ups last week, I didn't really pay attention to football this weekend.

        I did catch a bit of the Twins game, when they were already leading by 7 (thanks for the game log assist nibs) and then watched a recording of the final three sets of the U.S. Open after putting the kids to bed. I was disappointed that Federer couldn't take advantage of the opportunities, but was pretty impressed with Djokovic's game and the match overall was lots of fun. Haven't watched much tennis since following Wimbledon while studying in London a few years ago; I'd forgotten how intense it can be. Sunday in September and I was more interested in the baseball & tennis...

      3. Heh. Young'uns and football... Aquinas just turned 6. That means it was 6.5 years ago that Brett Favre got intercepted in the NFC championship game. There's a great sequence of pictures in which I claim this isi Aquinas' introduction to Viking fandom. In subsequent years, whenever we watched, he tended to pick the team that was playing against the Vikings as his favorite. I encouraged that, because I don't want to inflict Vikings fandom on him.

        At this point, I'm still not watching any NFL games, but I did find myself at least looking up when the Vikings play, and I'll check in on the score periodically. My homerism is in conflict with my anti-NFLism.

        1. I used to try to watch at least a few games a year, but the commercials really quashed that with the kiddos. Most of our TV watching is either on Netflix or DVD's, so they aren't acquainted with commercials anyway. The sort that play during NFL games aren't the type I'd like them to cut their teeth on.

    2. Given how beautiful it was yesterday, there was no way in hell I was sitting inside watching the NFL. I watched a little of the late night game but found myself utterly bored. I'll watch a bit tonight but will be in bed before the 4th quarter.

      1. I went outside to the deck with an iPad and watched some MLS. My Sunday sports included basketball in the morning, soccer through the afternoon, then baseball at night. Pretty good Sunday, you ask me.

    3. I'll be at Target Field tonight, so no football. No football yesterday, nor the day before. Time enough for football in November.

      1. Just turned down a free ticket as we're going out for dinner to celebrate my nephew's birthday.
        Free Twins game Joe's Crab Shack with an infant and four-year-old .... uhm ... yeah.

  5. Did the Star Wars thing get pointed out here yet? (Torii hit 3-run HRs on Star Wars day in both MN and Chicago...)

            1. When I borrowed Episode 4 from the library to watch with my daughter, I went up and stood in front of the tv during that scene since the only version they had was the remastered one.

  6. PunMan's board game of the week
    Today, I'd like to introduce you to Five Tribes. Five Tribes is a game for 2-4 players by Days of Wonder (they made Ticket to Ride, among other games).

    In Five Tribes you start out with a cache of cash. Each turn, you start by bidding for position. You can decide not to spend anything, but your action choices may be limited. The game board is a grid of 30 tiles (5x6) each tile starts with 3 meeples. There are 5 colors of meeples: Gold (Viziers), White (Elders), Green (Merchants), Blue (Builders) and Red (Assassins). On your turn, you will pick up all of the meeples on one square. You will then move orthogonally the same number of spaces as meeples you picked up, placing one meeple in each square you pass. In the last square, you'll need to drop a colored meeple that matches at least one of the other meeples already on the square. Then, you pick up all meeples of that color, and perform the action corresponding to that meeple. If by picking up meeples you clear that square, you place down a camel and you'll get the points on that square at the end. There are other actions corresponding with your space as well.

    The mechanics are fairly simple to grasp, similar to Trajan (pickup pieces, drop them off one by one), and 7 Wonders (lots of different scoring opportunities). The strategy is where the real fun lies. The Blue builders can net you cash, depending on how many you pick up, and how many blue tiles are surrounding you. Green Merchants help you collect goods cards; the more variety of those you have, the higher score you get. Assassins allow you to kill a meeple on a nearby space, which can sometimes clear a tile for you, giving you its points. There are also Djinns in the game that give you points and bonus powers.

    This game has been getting a TON of buzz, and with good reason. It's a game with simple enough mechanics, but deep strategy. They released an expansion at Gen Con (The Artisans of Naqala). I didn't get to play the expansion, but it didn't matter, the base game is very good and very fun to play. This is on my short list of games to get. If you get a chance to play it, definitely do so!

  8. I will be leaving early Wednesday morning and will be gone for a little more than a week. Some family stuff, some church stuff. Part of the time I'll have access to the internet, part of the time I won't. So, I'm trying to get some stuff done ahead.

    That means I'll need someone to pick up the game recaps for Wednesday and Thursday's games. I intend to have the birthday lists scheduled, but they may not be updated, so if you notice something, just send an LTE to that effect. Thanks.

  9. After a successful sweep last week, here's this week's Invisibles Quiz. I got 4 of them:

    '3, 4, 6, 7' SelectShow

    1. Man, I didn't even get one this week. I thought the same thing you did on #7, but I didn't have the backup correct answer though.

    2. '#2' SelectShow

      I feel like I've seen #1... But I can't quite place it.

  10. 3 guesses on which Twin was nominated for the Roberto Clemente award. The standard: [who] “best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual’s contribution to his team.”

      1. I see Miguel Cabrera is also nominated. I only know of one thing about him off the field, and I definitely wouldn't give him an award for it.

      1. At the very least, I often use the radio part of the app on my phone as, even if I lived in Minnesota, I don't think I'd carry an AM/FM radio with me.

        1. I subscribe to MLB Audio every year because I forget to cancel and it automatically renews, but this is the time of year when I end up using it quite a bit.
          Still, for the last week of the season with the Twins possibly still contending, I think I want to see the games and ten bucks is well worth it.

  12. Perkins threw 31 pitches today without problem. The plan is for him to throw again day after tomorrow and then he'll be available. He'll have at least a couple appearances in non-save situations (but could be hold situations). Wouldn't surprise me if Jepsen just stays as the closer as long as he remains relatively effective. Twins don't have anyone they really trust all that much as a lefty setup guy otherwise.

  13. That 3-6-3 double play started by Cabrera was especially impressive because he reached forward and high-fived Torii during the pitch.

          1. I'm telling you guys watching sports with sound off is transformative.

            I was listening to Pavement b-sides and live recordings while my Twitter feed was filed with Dilfer/Berman anguish.

  15. Texas wins again, but now Astros only 1 1/2 games ahead of the Twins, so if Rangers dominate this series, they could take over West lead and Twins could pass Astros for last wildcard spot.

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