2023 was a pretty great year for metal, especially thrash and melodic death, and Cattle Decapitation put out another banger. But my best for this year was Kalmah's self titled. They're a drastically underrated band.
(2 votes, average: 8.50 out of 10)
Loading... As I've mentioned before I both refurbished my bike and was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Both events lit the proverbial fire under me in terms of getting the exercise I just hadn't been getting enough of. Overall, its been a great success! I was in pretty bad shape as of 2-3 years ago and had plateaued after only losing about ten pounds. This summer, though, I've pushed that weight loss to over 50 pounds and am on the verge of dropping below 200 lbs for the first time in over a decade. I look and feel pretty amazing. I've been working up my riding to where I am doing about 80-100 miles per week, or so, although I feel a bit like I've plateaued on gainz there, the weight is still coming off. As a result, I am already off of insulin and I'll find out in a couple weeks how my A1C is doing. In short, biking rules.
My second reason for writing this, though, is something of a warning. Shortly after I got out of the hospital, the ring and pinkie finger on my left hand stopped working like they are supposed to. I basically can't move them towards the rest of my fingers. It makes doing simple things like tying my shoes difficult. At first I figured it might be related to the diabetes, but since it was only in my left hand was told that was not the case. I didn't immediately make the connection to the increased amount of cycling I'd been doing. Seems I've come down with a case of cyclsists palsy. I am almost certain I've been putting too much weight on my hands while I ride, so I am starting to look into getting a professional fit done to see if I can alleviate that. (and spreading copious amounts of NSAID gel on my arm). One of the hospitals in Madison does it, so I'm hoping it can be covered by the insurance.
Anyway, moral of the story is, biking rules but do it wisely. Building your own bike from scratch also rules, but you gotta be very cognizant of where you locate everything. Hopefully the damage to my nerve is not permanent, but take a lesson from me here.
(but also, seriously and holy crap, I've lost over 50 lbs and am working on getting to 60. I'm very impressed with myself, ngl.)
It's kind of impressive just how ignored the Twins have been, nationally, so far this year. Good example is the ASG ballot image on mlb.com.
Jack (I'm guessing anyway, based on how dumb he sounds) just said the Tigers starter and Lance Lynn are similar pitchers in that they come right after you and don't like to walk anyone. If Lance Lynn doesn't like walking guys, he must really hate himself.
(maybe don't listen to this one, just use your eyes.)
Day game in progress! Get well soon, Ervin Santana!
Colon vs. Gonzalez
DAY GAME ALERT! GAME IN PROGRESS!
So yeah, not much to say today. Buxton is hurt and that is bad for the Twins and bad for baseball.
It's July 20th and the Twins are still only (somehow) a 1/2 game back of the Clevelanders for first in the ALC. Its truly mind-boggling when incorporating the information that they just sent out an old-as-dirt Bartolo Colon to start a game. But hey, I'll take it.
Anibal Sanchez (1-0, 6.08 ERA, 5.58 FIP) vs. Ervin Santana (11-6, 2.99 ERA, 4.76 FIP)
The Tigers have entered rebuild mode (and abandoned fly-ball mode), which is sort of fun to see since they've been near the top of the division for a while now. That should hopefully make things a bit easier for the Twins to keep pace with the Spiders. I have to imagine we'll see Verlander trying on some new clothes fairly soon, eh?
Its always nice to host the White Sox after a disastrous home series against a good team. Hopefully they can complete the sweep this afternoon because they head to Cleveland tomorrow with Boston right after that. It could get ugly, folks. The White Sox are pretty crappy, so they should have no problem today.
Jose Quintana (3-8, 5.07 ERA, 4.35 FIP) vs. Nik Turley (0-1, 12.46 ERA, 4.75 FIP).
Oh. Crap.
On the bright side, Turley's FIP is waaaaaaaay lower than his ERA, so maybe he's just been really unlucky in his first two starts? (also small sampe size). I'm not confident in that, so I'll go ahead and predict its going to require a good deal of runs today. Fortunately, Quintana hasn't been particularly good this year either. If you like good pitching, might want to cover your eyes for this one.
DOUBLEHEADER ALERT! I figure one game log can serve both easily enough.
Game 1: German Marquez (1-2, 4.88 ERA, 3.37 FIP) vs. Ervin Santana (6-1, 1.50 ERA, 4.19 FIP)
Game 2: Tyler Chatwood (3-5, 5.25 ERA, 5.31 FIP) vs. Jose Berrios (1-0, 1.17 ERA, 2.78 FIP)
The Twins definitely have the best combination of starters ready to go for today's day-night doubleheader with Santana and Berrios. Despite the crowded bullpen, not all of those guys are very good so having at least one of the starters go deep into their game will be a big help. The Twins also could really use some good starting pitching after getting a couple of craptacular starts in a row. I think we all knew pitching would be a weakness for this squad, and while maybe it isn't totally dire (Duffey, Breslow, Rodgers and Kintzler look to be mostly bright spots in the bullpen while the starters appear to be about 60% competent) we were pretty much correct as the Twins have accumulated -2.3 WAR from the pitchers so far this year, most of which can be attributed to the bullpen.
Fortunately, the new administration looks to be much more willing to make a change when it's needed. Under Terry Ryan 2.0, I would have expected another few starts being given to Gibson before a move was considered. It will be interesting to see what they do with Phil Hughes, who quite frankly looks like he's at the end of his career. He hasn't been good since his first year here and injuries look to have drained his velocity.
As for the games today, Santana rebounded incredibly well in his last outing coming off of his only bad start of the season to date. While I know he'll have bad games here and there the rest of the way, he looks locked in on the mound and gives the team that top of the rotation guy who can come in after a couple losses and give the team a good chance to keep moving forward.
Jose Berrios had a heck of a 2017 dayview that I wish had happened the first week of the season. But, can't change that. Hopefully he can build on that first outing and keep his confidence up on his way to mowing down some Rockies hitters. I haven't seen a ton of him over his young career, but he looks to be one of those guys that is a lot of fun to watch when he's rolling.
First game is at noon and the second is at 7.
DAY GAME ALERT!
Jharel Cotton (2-3, 5.00 ERA, 3.56 FIP) vs. Kyle Gibson (0-3, 8.06 ERA, 6.99 FIP)
The FIRST PLACE Minnesota Twins finish up the series against the A's at noon today. Quite a difference a year makes as the Twins were a depressing 7-18 at this point last year and, uhhh, it wouldn't get any better from there. It was starting to look like things were headed to 2016 there for awhile, but there's apparently nothing like the AL west (and the Royals) to help turn things back around. Even better, after the first two games of this series, the Twins are back to .500 at home.
Unfortunately, however, Kyle Gibson takes the mound today. I'm on record as preferring he lose his spot in the rotation to Berrios and be given a comfy seat in the bullpen. There's just something about the way he pitches that bugs me and the bad results certainly make that irritation seem much worse. Also, Berrios.
I don't know anything about Jharel Cotton, probably because he's only had 10 starts for the perennially irrelevant A's. It looks like he's struggling with command this year, walking 4 per nine. That should bode well for the Twins who've, from the eye test at least (too lazy to look it up), are showing a rather patient approach these days.
