I watched this game. The whole thing. And I totally spaced on the recap. Because it is a painful thing to do at this moment in the season.

Hicks had four hits. That was cool. Mountie hit one on a line into the right field seats. That was nice.

Other things were not good. Thielbar gave up a run so Gardy will probably never use him again. Deduno still makes me wonder if he is an OK pitcher or not(trick question because on this team he is the ace). Tropicana Field looks like an unpleasant place to watch a ball game. The turf has weird stains like a dorm room throw rug.

All in all not a great game. Alas there is another game today to hopefully cleanse the palate. As Slowey would say, we can't help but continue to watch the Sisyphean effort that is the 2013 Minnesota Twins' season.

The Twins have had the past four Mondays off so I was looking forward to recapping this game when my internet went out.

I'm glad it did. Unmitigated late inning suckage ruins days. 6 more games to get these guys before the All-Star break or careen off the cliff.

I went to this game. Some observations:

1) Don't pitch to Carlos Gomez. I doubt these numbers will last but he is in beast mode right now.

2) There was only one person in Miller Park that thought Mauer didn't hit a home run.

3) According to the attendance, that was over 38,000 people.

4) Beyond four players at the top of the order, the Brewers are a very, very bad team.

5) That is when Braun is starting. Yuniesky Betancourt was batting cleanup today.

6) Any team that bats Yuniesky Betancourt cleanup is a very, very bad team.

Take Away Notion:

7) It's time for the Twins to crawl out of the basement by winning games against teams like the Brewers.

Winning Streak: -6
Days Since Joe Mauer was booed for the Twins' sins: probably 1
Days Until the Universe folds in on itself: days will no longer be relevent since the Earth will be long destroyed
Days Until this losing streak is over: 1 day after that

It's been a long week since the Twins started losing last Tuesday. It's hard to remember since the pups came out and the fireworks were lit. But some day the sun will shine again. The ass-bats will explode into splinters and the gopher balls will dip and dive and swerve around opposing bats.

Until then though keep your head down. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Days since Joe Mauer's 30th Birthday: 24
Days since Aaron Hicks got his man bat out: 0
Days since Gladden called a coherent inning: imaginary number

I was in the car for the first 2 hours of this game, so the time in between Hicks' amazing catch and his second homer was spent walking from the car to the house. Listening to Gladden call a game is a lesson of keeping things remembered in your head plus having a healthy active imagination, but from what I gathered the Twins destroyed the Sox and then almost let it get away before a one man beatdown by the name of Hicks.

The innings I saw on TV were a lot more fun. Let's continue this.

Winning Streak: -1
Number of Days since Joe Mauer's 30th Birthday: 11
Number of times a Prince Fielder Home Run has ruined the day: significant, but unknown

After this game I couldn't shake the feeling that I've seen this before. Oh yeah, I have seen this before. His very first major league home run. I was there. That night I learned there is nothing worse than a cocky, drunk Milwaukee Brewers' fan.

At least that homer wasn't this.

Winning Streak: 1

Winning Pitcher: Correia (1-1)
Losing Pitcher: Blanton (0-3)

Joe Mauer either really likes honoring civil rights hero Jackie Robinson, or really hates him and wishes for the day to be called Joe Mauer Day with everyone wearing number 3s and fake sideburns. Either way, Mauer destroyed Angels' pitching and put in a good shift defensively as the Twins' bats came alive.

Correia also struck out 5(!) upping the starters' strikeout total by 25 percent. He was able to overcome a leadoff homer by Bourjos and another by [redacted] to pitch seven innings of 2 run baseball.

All in all, a satisfying victory for the home nine.

WP: Santana(no, not that one) (1-1)
LP: Correia (0-1)
SV: Crow (1)

Unlike the vast majority of citizens, I grew up very far from Twins territory in the major league sports desert of Oklahoma. When I was a boy there were a couple of occasions where my family would meet my grandpa in KC to see a Twins game rather than going the full 12 hours to the Great White North.

One incident from one of those games stands out to me. It was the mid-90s. Two teams with nothing to play for met in front of a sparse crowd in a beautiful stadium. The crowd was antsy and uninspired. No doubt future Twins' legends Pat Meares and Matt Walbeck were on the field of play.

Suddenly from out of view a figure leaps over the right field fence from the stands. The crowd emerges out of their daydreaming and cheers for the unexpected turn of events. The obviously inebriated fan runs around second and then third and then slides headfirst into home. From somewhere in the upper deck an old Minnesota fan grumbles about the security being too lax. A Royals fan in the row in front of him turns around and loudly responds, 'He's wearing a Twins shirt!', pointing down to the drunken grinning idiot proudly wearing a 1991 World Series Champion T-shirt.

Old Minnesota Fan: 'That doesn't matter. We never have this problem at the Metrodome!'

Royals Fan: 'That's because the Metrodome sucks!'

OMF: 'It's better than this crummy place!'

The Royals fan balled up his fists and looked poised to swing, but came to his senses just in time that hitting a 70 year old man wasn't the best course of action, and sat back down talking very loudly about how the Twins sucked.

As a ten year old sitting next to my grandpa, that is still the closest I have ever been to getting into a fight. And it taught me some good lessons. Royals fan was right, the Metrodome did suck, and it wasn't anywhere close to Royals stadium. And of course the Twins didn't have a problem with people jumping over the right field fence at the Metrodome for obvious reasons. But dammit, that didn't matter. I was going to support my grandpa and be the best 10 year old and 70 year old duo of fighters around.

Watching this game reminded me of that near fight in the very same stadium. Correia worked a miracle by pitching 7 innings of scoreless baseball, by rights he should've been back in the clubhouse already showered, shaved, eating an early dinner and catching up on the Mad Men premiere on his iPad. But he was still out there against all reason and sense, into the eighth, tempting fate. And like my grandpa, Gardy let emotions get the best of him and kept him out there against all logic and common sense.

I don't remember who won that game so long ago, because both teams sucked and it didn't matter, and I learned that sometimes your support of a baseball team makes no rational sense, but it's still important to go out there and get into near fights with fans of other sucky teams for non-baseball related reasons.

GO TWINS!