Here we go, playoff baseball. Milwaukee Brewers at Washington Nationals. Hottest team in baseball versus Max Scherzer.
Let's have some fun. First pitch at 7:08p
All posts by freealonzo
FMD – Ric Ocasek’s “Other Career”
Lots of love and sadness for Ric Ocasek, especially for his work with The Cars. I was lucky enough to be in high school when those first two albums came out and they are still active on my playlist. In fact two good high school friends had a “Best Friends Girl” issue way back when and we still joke about it using that song.
Besides fronting The Cars, Ocasek produced 38 albums, some of which were The Cars of course, but a wide variety of others. Researching this post, I discovered he produced two Bad Brains albums, which I find amazing. Those are classic punk albums.
In the GBV world, Ocasek is known for producing Do The Collapse, which was Guided By Voices first foray into a highly produced rock album for a “big” label (Matador). Generally the album was well received and GBV fans have come around to the fact that it’s an album that wasn’t produced on a 4-track in the garage. The only issue that remains today is that Teenage FBI is probably over produced with a weird synthesizer effect that really isn’t needed oh and Hold on Hope was too much of a syrupy ballad. See video below.
Any way, Ric, you were your one weird looking dude who got to marry a super model and made or had a hand in a shit-ton of cool music. Plus you made me post about you instead of the the 50th anniversary of Abbey Road, which is my favorite album of all time. So good for you.
2019 Game 157 – Twins at Tigers
Last week of the season and the Twins should clinch the Central Division in the next day or so. Twins at the woebegone Tigers who have already lost 109 games. Hopefully the Twins get down to business and take at least two. Spencer Turnbull for the Tigers and has a 3-15 record, which is expected from a 109 loss team. Turnbull hasn’t had a Win since later May so here’s hoping he’s not due. Odorizzi on the mound and he’s been Twins most consistent pitcher and in 11 career starts, he's 5-1 with a 3.25 ERA against Detroit.
Game time at 5:40p and Cleveland at White Sox at 7:00p, so they will definitely be scoreboard watching in Chicago. C’mon Twins, let’s put this lousy team down so we can start chilling the Champagne.
Twins Lineup:
2B Arraez
SS Polanco
DH Cruz
LF Rosario
1B Gonzalex
3B Sano
RF Cave
CF Wade Jr.
C Castro
2019 Game 151 – White Sox at Twins
It's now one game in the rear view mirror, but the Twins got through their 12 games against decent teams stretch relatively unscathed (at least judging by wins and loses). Split the 12 games and especially splitting the six with Cleveland basically put the division crown in a stranglehold. Say what you will about this team, but resilient has to be one of the words you use.
Game two against the White Sox, and the Twins catch a break with Giolito being shut down for the season a day before he was about to start against the Twins. Dude's a great pitcher so whew!, but hopefully not a serious injury. Someone named Ross Detwiler up for the Sox with his 6.79 ERA and 1.67 WHIP. Ouch! Martin Perez pitching for Twins and after his nice start against the Red Sox, basically remembered he was Martin Perez and had a lousy outing against the Nats. Hopefully we can get a nice outing today against a White Sox team that's just kinda interested.
6:40p start again tonight. Will be a warm one at the ballpark but I think the rain should hold off until late.
Twins Lineup:
C Garver
SS Polanco
DH Cruz
RF Rosario
3B Sano
1B Gonzalez
LF Arraez
2B Schoop
CF LaMarre
Central Division Prediction Contest
Prediction time! With the Twins Magic Number at 9, and a relatively easy 13 game schedule from here on out, a Twins Central Division win is a near certainty. So let’s do a contest when the Twins will outright clinch the division. Below is the schedule for both teams to help you decide. The earliest the Twins could clinch is this Friday September 20th.
| Day | Date | MN Game | CLE Game |
|---|---|---|---|
| M | 9.16 | CWS@MN | |
| TU | 9.17 | CWS@MN | DET@CLE |
| W | 9.18 | CWS@MN | DET@CLE |
| TH | 9.19 | KC@MN | DET@CLE |
| F | 9.20 | KC@MN | PHI@CLE |
| SA | 9.21 | KC@MN | PHI@CLE |
| SU | 9.22 | KC@MN | PHI@CLE |
| M | 9.23 | ||
| TU | 9.24 | MN@DET | CLE@CWS |
| W | 9.25 | MN@DET | CLE@CWS |
| TH | 9.26 | MN@DET | CLE@CWS |
| F | 9.27 | MN@KC | CLE@WAS |
| SA | 9.28 | MN@KC | CLE@WAS |
| SU | 9.29 | MN@KC | CLE@WAS |
Put your prediction in the comments below (spoiler if you want). Try to get them in by say before Tuesday's game. Then sit back and see when the Twins will be sipping (and spilling) champagne.
2019 Game 144 — Nats at Twins
Placeholder game log. I'm out in the woods so this is pre-written, feel free to add any pertinent information. Nationals come in for a 3-game series. We are now back to first pitch at 6:40p.
2019 Game 138 Twins at Red Sox
The day after Memorial Day I wrote this about the Twins being 1/3 of the way through their season:
...day after Memorial Day means the Spring portion of the season is over too. By this time we should be able to get a sense of who the real teams are and who the pretenders are. Obviously all is good in Twins land. Best record in baseball, on pace to smash the Home Run record, 10 game lead on Cleveland -- who doesn’t really look like a team able to play at a .600 pace the rest of the season, Oddo, Perez, Berrios looking great, even bad Gibby has been stuffed in a closet somewhere. Nelson Cruz should be back in the line-up any day, Mitch Garver on track to recover from his injury, Buxton doing (good) Buxton things, the list is endless. So settle in folks, we should have a fun summer of Baseball, and on the Tuesday after Labor Day, hopefully I’ll be writing up a post about Fall baseball coming up and how the Twins need to set up their line-up for the playoffs
Now that it's the day after Labor Day, kind of fun to look back. It has been a fun summer of baseball, the home run record was smashed, bad Gibby did find his way out of that closet, and Perez and Berrios not looking great as of late. That 10 game lead over the Clevanders was eliminated but is now back up to 5.5 games because guess what, apparently the Spiders were able to play at a .600 clip and better for much of June and July, also Twins have 4th best record in baseball now. So playoff line ups aren't being set yet but with the magic number at 20, we can see the end. Just for some context, if the Twins go 10-15 over these last 25 games Cleveland will have to play .625 ball just to force a game 163. If the Twins go 15-10, then Cleveland has to win 7 of every 8 games it plays to force a tie. Now the Twins and Cleveland do still have 6 games with each other, so lots of fun fall baseball ahead.
Speaking of fun baseball, Twins do embark on a pesky 12-game stretch against decent teams. Red Sox, Cleveland, Washington, and Cleveland again. Six to eight wins in this stretch and we can start investing in playoff tickets, especially since the last 13 games of the season are against the White Sox, Tigers, and Royals.
Tonight is the start of the Randy Dubnak era as he gets his first MLB start. Rick Porcello on the mound for the Red Sox and he's been ok but not great this year, which basically describes the Red Sox as whole in 2019. First Pitch at 6:10p
FMD – Woodstock at 50
So the past week or so I've been listening to music from the Woodstock festival from 50 years ago. The performances that we all are familiar with were great of course, but the others I found were not so compelling and downright tedious at times (lots of drum solos). Some of the Santana stuff put me to sleep. Also I noticed that most of the performances would fall under the rhythm and blues category of rock. I'd argue that if the same event was held today it would be classified as blue festival. Interesting how music has changed over the past 5 decades.
Anyway that's all I got. Drop 'em if you got 'em.
Game 131 — Twins at White Sox
Twins back battling the White Sox in the first game of a three game series. This was supposed to be the middle of the "easy" part of the schedule but the White Sox have been playing well lately and are now on track to lose less than 90 games this season. Lucas Giolito on the mound for the Sox and he has been anything but easy. 1.09 WHIP, 11.5 so/9 innings, batters with an OPS of .636 against Giolito this year. Plus he was just dominate against the Twins last week; they had no chance in Giolito's 3-hit, 9 shutout inning performance. Hopefully with some familiarity the Twins can get something going tonight. Pineda up for the Twins and you just never know with this guy. Fortunately the bullpen appears to be well rested.
Should be a gorgeous night for baseball tonight on the Southside. First pitch at 7:10p Cleveland plays Detroit this week so a good effort is needed to keep the hammer down on those dreaded Spiders.
Miles Davis – All Blues
Saturday was the 60th anniversary of the release of Kind of Blue, pretty much regarded as the greatest jazz album ever. To my untrained ear, this is the greatest song on the album so greatest jazz song ever?
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