209 thoughts on “2011 Game 17: Twins at Orioles”

  1. Whoa, Kubel in left, Delmon with the flu. Our roster is pretty much decimated right now.

  2. The O's feed has slash lines. Twins producers, if you're reading this (and you obviously are), please make this happen for our games. The fewer teams left that aren't doing it, the more clueless we appear.

    1. Dilbert Creator Pretends to Be His Own Biggest Fan on Message Boards:

      http://gawker.com/#!5792583

      So who knows... perhaps I am Nick Blackburn? Maybe Gardy posts here under a nom de plume. So perhaps there is a Twins producer among us.

        1. My guess would be Neshek. Or perhaps Slowey, he seems to have a similar sense of humor to a lot of the posters here.

            1. I knew a director of a show in Minneapolis who made three fake online personas for himself to defend his crummy show and blast the critics. Two mistakes: one, his personas all spoke exactly the same way and said almost exactly the same things. Two, the comments section posted IP addresses, so he was caught and mocked immediately.

              1. I personally think it would be more fun (if I were famous) to go online and rip myself. But that's just me.

        1. I like Dilbert- he reminds me of a lot of engineers I work with. The pointy-haired boss is also spot-on for a handful of managers I've been around. Still, Scott Adams seems to be quite the douche from this story.

        2. I kind of enjoyed the comic since I've worked in cubicle farms for the last 9 years, but I quickly regretted that after his wonderful misogynist rant a few weeks back.

          1. being funny and being a d!ck are not mutually exclusive categories. He didn't actually harm anyone or any puppies, so I'm giving the comic strip (not him) a pass.

              1. without Dogbert, there would be no Bucky Katt or Rat from Pearls.

                /semi-oblique reference to dead horses (and already referenced below by hj)

      1. without scott adams, there wouldn't have been much "pearls before swine". one more point in his favor, i suppose. much funnier than his works, at least.

    1. True story: I occasionally watch Giants games when I know he's coming in. Between that ridiculous thing and his weird off-the-field persona, he's one of my favorite players in the league.

    1. And out number 3 was hit about twice as hard as that single. Ah baseball, you are a funny game sometimes.

  3. Just to cheer myself up during this early deficit, I decided to look up The Captain's current OPS and was not disappointed: .571

  4. Turned on the radio in time to catch three "FISTED" whoppers in less than five minutes from Robinson. I blame Span and Tolbert for not hitting the ball squarely, but seriously, Ted needs work on expanding his vocabulary.

  5. Dentist appointment today. Tonight's dinner is scrambled eggs, tomato soup, and Advil. What's for dinner guys? I need to live vicariously tonight.

    1. Turkey chili from the crock pot, which turned out to be inspired morning planning, the walk home was as cold as it's been for a month or so (bank thermometer said 42).

    2. empty house tonight. I'm stopping at In-N-Out on the way home for a double-double and fries.

      1. Apparently my brain was thinking about Mr. Santana, who I started following on Twitter today. I miss you, Johan. πŸ™

      2. I would like a tanker trailer full of Papa John's garlic sauce. How are your supplier contacts, Zack?

          1. Maybe if I steal that muscle car that Papa John is so proud of I can get the sauce as part of the ransom...

    3. pasta with a tomato/bacon sauce, hot lettuce, and portafeu (italian, spanish, and french, oh my).

        1. peckish jane's creation. cut it into thick chucks (iceberg), salted and vinegar, then doused with the sauce. simple, but quite tasty.

            1. actually, the lettuce isn't cooked in this (though we've cooked with lettuce plenty of times). the spanish name is "cogollos al ajillo".

          1. by the way, by "peckish jane's creation", i mean that as she is the one that "created" it from scratch, not as the inventor of that particular dish. sorry for any confusion.

            1. I'm confused a lot, so I'm glad to hear that you are willing to take responsibility.

          1. A very considerate Citizen
            Lots of that going around lately. Hope you enjoyed the tripel, I know I did.

    1. A guy who strikes out a ton for a pitcher that can't go more than five innings? Sure, why not?

  6. Seven hitters in the O's lineup hitting under .235 so far? Looking at the names in the lineup, that seems pretty unlucky. Granted they've got a couple guys well past their prime, but Markakis, Jones, Scott, and Wieters all ought to be decent hitters. Reynolds should be a decent hitter, too, but his low average isn't surprising.

    1. Reynolds was a Yakima Bear when I worked for them in 2004. He struck out quite a bit but his average hadn't fallen to hilarious levels yet. Traditional fans must despise the guy.

    1. I am always hoping our starters come hungry for innings. I hear the innings taste better with some run support on the side, though.

    1. good to see that the change of venue has improved your optimism.

      THE TWINS ARE GONNA WIN THIS GAME week.

      /New Guy channeling

  7. Tolbert,

    I don't ask much of you, but if you could hit a dinger right now, that would be great.

    Love,

    Greek House

    1. Tolbert,

      I don't ask much of you, but if you could hit a dinger right now, that would be greatamazing.

      Love,

      Greek House bhiggum

  8. Looks like Span was pretty lucky to get that walk based on the location of the first two pitches.

    1. Watched all three pitches, all three pretty well in the zone. And after Arrieta got ahead on Tolbert, he threw him off-speed pitches, which shouldn't be terribly surprising in that circumstance.

  9. Have the Twins had an inning this entire season in which they batted around?

      1. Hmm, I appear to be out of position and missing an "eye". Fitting I'm nested under the pirate and complaining about Casilla.

  10. Anyone else catch the Super Mario Bros music in the background at the stadium after Pavano walked Jones?

    1. Ha! I did notice that, but didn't put two and two together until you mentioned it.

    1. Only someone with Butera as the regular catcher would consider .209/.277/.395 awesome.

      1. I dunno, I look at that and figure he'll hit better than .209 eventually, he's getting an alright walk rate, and solid power.

        1. Plus, I don't think Butters has ever hit a ball as far as Wieters just did to clear the bases.

    1. If schadenfreude makes you feel any better, the double-double I ordered turned out to be only a single when I got home with it.

      At least they charged me for a single. Small favors.

      1. I was thinking Kubel at SS, but watching _elm_n dive for grounders would make the nonexistent defense worth it.

      2. that wasn't a stellar throw by laddie, no, but hughes should have been able to catch that. on the replay, when the ball was getting to him, he was looking squarely down at the ground.

        1. I'm not giving him all the blame, but that play and Lee's grounder earlier just don't give me any confidence that Alexi will ever get his focus to where it needs to be.

        1. I heard them give the question earlier, I guess. I was thinking Hrbek, but I really have no clue.

  11. So in an 8-run blowout, Hughes is going to face just two hitters? And we have how many lefties in the bullpen? It's obviously easier to run a bullpen when the pitchers are doing well, but sometimes I don't have a lot of sympathy for managers running short on pitchers available in the bullpen.

    1. 0.02 LI for Hacker when he entered--could be well on his way to being the new Groundskeeper!

      1. That's one of Ted's strong points, in my book. Maybe he'll get Dazzle worked up enough to drop a Bert-style F-bomb and give us a few unscheduled Dazzle-free broadcasts.

  12. The White Sox lost to the Rays today. I want to be excited about that, but it hardly seems worth it if the Twins won't even sniff .500...

    1. A White Sox loss is always a good thing, but damn, the Twins need to get going here.

    2. Just 5 home games for the Twins in their first 19. It was probably bound to be a slow start, though it didn't need to be this slow...

      Looking into it a bit more, last year, AL teams were .568 at home and .432 on the road. Through 17 games, with 5 at home and 12 on the road, I guess that figures to a pretty even 8-9 record. (Reminder to self: home/road split is small, though non-zero in baseball.)

      So if the Twins wind up at 6-11 instead of 8-9, they're really just two wins off of what you'd expect from a .500 team. So it kind of is sniffing .500 in that light. In some other stretch of the season, a .500 team would be expected to go 9-8 and a couple extra wins could give the Twins a 11-6 stretch, which looks a lot better than 9-8 in terms of games over .500, but is really just a couple more wins over 17 games.

  13. Wait, so the graphic of Target Field Gameday uses has sparsely populated seats but Camden Yards is packed?

        1. Looks like he's leaving a lot of pitches over the middle of the plate or way outside.

  14. Seeing Joe in garbage time isn't quite as soul crushing as watching Neshek tossing meatballs last year, but it's close.

    1. Only if his typically stellar cinematic performance is counterbalanced by that of an equally emotive thespian such as Megan Fox.

        1. I got nothing against Shia, really, I just like snark. I've been watching him act since he was on Even Stevens.

        2. 'Cause she's insanely hot and crazy, and he's kinda goofy looking. Plus, Shia didn't do himself any favors with the Indiana Jones thing.

            1. Yeah, those guys aren't going to get much work again, are they? πŸ˜‰ I don't have anything against Shia, he's just been in some rather bleah movies. I did enjoy Eagle Eye.

  15. the O's had an 8 game losing streak coming into the game, so I guess they were due for a win

Comments are closed.