Sometimes with late season baseball you struggle for reasons to watch. That will not be the case tonight as there is a pitching matchup for the ages in Bruce Chen against Carl Pavano. It doesn't get any better than this, you guys.
Category Archives: WGOM
Wolf Parade – Ghost Pressure
Here's the Canadian group performing a song from their 2010 album Expo 86 on the CBC's Q TV show in November, 2010.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYp2GrPceWU
(But wait, there's more!)
Continue reading Wolf Parade – Ghost Pressure
Menomena – TAOS
To fulfill the promise I made many months ago to program a week full of MOR indie guitar rock, I kick off my term at the helm with the Portland-based band Menomena.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWRfv3boX3U
Consisting until recently of Justin Harris, Brent Knopf, and Danny Seim (as well as additional guitarist Joe Haege in these videos), Menomena recorded their 2010 album Mines by reportedly emailing each other recorded bits and pieces that they then pieced together and sent back to each other, never actually recording anything in each others' presence because they hate each other so much or something. The above song, sung by Harris, was performed at KEXP radio in Seattle on 7/28/10. Please head beyond the jump for more.
Continue reading Menomena – TAOS
Game #146: Tigers 2, Twins 1
Twins record: 59-87
Fangraphs
MLB Game Wrap
Hey, the Rays won again and swept the Red Sox today. That puts them...three and a half games back with seventeen to play. Wild card race fever: catch it!!!!1
Hitter of the Week: Mrs. Dinkelman
Pitcher of the Week: Mrs. Parmelee
Game 146: Twins at Tigers
Ten years ago last week, we moved into our current home. I know this because 10 years ago today I was waiting for my DirecTV to be installed when my wife called to tell me to turn on the radio. I may have been the last person in the country to know about the Twin Towers. Let's honor those who lost their lives and celebrate those who survived and helped others survive and maybe share a few of our own memories of that day. As for the game ...
Scott Diamond vs. Doug Fister
Maybe the Twins can fist it off Fister, but I won't be holding my breath.
Diamond had the benefit of unfamiliarity against the Tigers in his last start against them. I don't expect it to go so well the second time. Then again, he did better against the White Sox the second time around, so you never know.
Normally, this would be a great doubleheader day with the Twins scheduled to start about three hours before a certain other Minnesota team kicks off its season (literally). It's really sad that for decades the Twins have tried to surpass the Vikings in popularity and even with two world championships, they still haven't done it. However, they had a golden opportunity to get a leg up on the Vikes, who bumbled through a controversial and disappointing season while the Twins were coming off a wonderful 94-win debut season for spectacular Target Field. All the Twins did was puke all over that field and their fans while the Vikings traded for Donovan McNabb and signed their most popular player to a 7-year, $100 million contract, with only just over a third of it guaranteed.
Hey, Ziggy. You wouldn't want to buy a baseball team as well?
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band – The Rising
High School weeks comes to an abrupt end.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUk7uV2ua4o&feature=related
At the end of high school I started a summer "love" with a girl heading to NYU. It was one of those, "wait you thought I was good looking all this time? I thought you were a babe the past four years!" things that only comes in the summer after high school. Rather than trying to force it with me in Buffalo and her in New York we ended it before it we ruined out friendship. We would trade e-mails back and forth and on a Tuesday morning in September she sent me an e-mail saying how great things were going and how I should come and see her. A paragraph or so later she said that she heard some loud noises and that something was going on outside. She said she would e-mail me back later. The time stamp was 9:01AM on September 11th, 2001. A few days later she got back to me. She said words can never describe what it was like so I never asked. I figured it was the kind of thing that made you grow up too fast. She transferred the next semester.
Feel free to share your stories from ten years ago in the LTEs.
Game 145: Tigers 3, Twins 2
Such is the way of things for the Twins. They finally get some good pitching and they can't score enough to win. I would make a joke about the Gophers' abomination today, but it doesn't seem right after Coach Kill's seizure on the sidelines. I guess his honeymoon period will last at least another week.
At least Joe Benson finally got his first hit, but then promptly threw it away by getting picked off on the old fake-to-third and throw-to-first play to help turn a first-and-third and no outs into no runs. If the Twins get a run there, they probably have Joe Nathan on the ninth to protect a one-run lead. Of course, if they got the four runs they scored yesterday in today's game instead, they probably win and would be looking for a series win tomorrow.
Oh well. That is what the Twins have to deal with with so many injured or traded away. At least they're getting an idea of what the young players can do and what holes they need to fill in the future.
Great job by Swarzak, who gave up just two runs in six innings with six Ks and two walks. He could end up being pretty useful as a minimum-wage pitcher. The rookie callups, Benson and Parmelee, reached based four times in 8 PAs. The rest of the team reached base four times in 24 PAs and that includes Mauer reaching 3 times in 4 PAs, which means the other six guys were 1-for-20. Yikes!
2011 Game 145: Giant Sucking Sound in Detroilet
I've already said too much...
Fleetwood Mac – World Turning
let me relate an anecdote that embodies far too much of my time in high school (of which the specifics are quite forgotten):
most, if not all of my close friends were outside of my high school. in fact, most of my friends in high school were already out of high school anyway, but that's another story. anyway, one these friends came up to me one day and told me they met someone i went to school with. they told them, hey, i know this guy, [joe]. do you know him? apparently not by name. they explained me a little more. eventually, said person said, "oooohhhh, you mean that pissed off kid with the headphones?"
yes, in a school of 1,500+, i was "that pissed off kid with the headphones". honestly, i about died laughing when i heard that. i can understand where it came from as i maintained a "stoic" appearance while walking from one class to the next (and, truthfully, the headphones were kind of omnipresent). what made me laugh especially at the time was instead of lord knows what this person thought i was listening to, i had recently gotten into the mac and was listening to fruity numbers like "i don't want to know", "second hand news", and this one here:
also, i have mentioned this high school week that nirvana made me start playing guitar, and the pumpkins made me semi-proficient at it. while that's true, it was the mac and buckingham that made me drop the pick, and that changed my style entirely. ahh, to be young and thoughtlessly strumming a gee-tar again...
2011 Game 144: Minnesota Twins at Detroit Tigers
Kevin "Malingerer" Slowey v Brad Penny
Per Joe C:
Revere CF
Plouffe 2B
Mauer C
Kubel DH
Valencia 3B
Parmelee 1B
Benson RF
Tosoni LF
Nishioka SS
Some thoughts:
- Gardy must really hate Plouffe's defense at shortstop. Is it really worse than Nishioka's?
- Slowey should really like the outfield defense today. I don't know how good Tosoni is at LF, though TZL rates him as +3 so far this year. Nonetheless, with Revere in CF and Benson in RF, this is going to be a no doubles night.
- This is the first time Mauer has caught since August 20.