Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Twins 13, Buttermaker's Bears 4

Wait - that’s the team that is supposed to challenge the Red Sox and Yankees in the AL East this year? My gawd, at the end of that fourth inning that I thought ‘CCO might change their set bumper music to the William Tell Overture. I like our chances today now that we know Samantha isn’t going to be on the mound. Let's continue in the Bad News Bear Theme with a few Quotes and Notes.

Don't jump in Engleberg, you'll flood the valley.
John Gordon and Dan Gladden could not have been more dismissive of Benji Molina’s speed last night. First they went after him for a wild pitch that he let by and didn’t chase down quickly enough. Then, in the seventh inning, Molina’s groundout sounded something like this:

Gordon: Molina with a HIGH chopper off the mound. Liriano waits for it to come down and throws it to first…..

At this point, I’m wondering if the Twins are going to get the out, because Gordon dragged out that “HIGH chopper off the mound” like only Gordon can. His next nine words tell the story…

Gordon: And Molina only got about half way to first.

Well, we committed 24 errors, and their pitcher threw a no hitter against us, but there is some good news! Two of our runners almost managed to get to first base, and we did hit seventeen foul balls!
Tony Batista swinging on 3-0? Tony Batista has the green light on 3-0?!?

Crud, does that booger eating spaz make me want to puke.
Not only is Joe Mays pitching for someone this year. Not only is Joe Mays in the starting rotation for someone this year. But Joe Mays is seemingly the #2 pitcher on the staff this year. You can guess how that went.

You can take your apology and your trophy and shove it straight up your @$$!
You know all those quotes from Bradke last year where he would make some veiled reference to the runs that weren’t being scored in games he started? In today's paper, I want to see Shannon Stewart lamenting the strain the offense is feeling from having to rally from all these early game deficits. I think I would enjoy that.

Do you want to quit Tanner?
Crud no, I wanna play ball.
I continue to be impressed with Gardenhire's timing with relievers. Bringing in Liriano in the seventh inning was exactly the right move, and two innings and three strikeouts later he has that much more confidence. I think I’m going to get very excited about the bullpen this year.

Quick Reminder: There's a day game today (late edit: My bad. The game starts at 6:00) , but you can still get your baseball fix tonight. Stew Thornley is giving an illustrated presentation about his book Baseball in Minnesota: The Definitive History at the Mill City Museum. You can get more details here. I'll see you there.

3 comments:

TwinsGoddess said...

That Liriano is a fearsome sight to behold, no?

Dave said...

Don't forget Joe Mays' quote after giving up his inaugural 6 runs to the Tigers:
"This is game two of the season," Mays said. "There's 182 games, er, 162 games. Don't make it any longer than it needs to be."

That's right Joe, don't make it any longer.

beach64 said...

I am not sure which batter Liriano was facing other than it was a righty. Liriano throws a 91 mph slider that broke sharp for a strike. I hate to use Gardenhire's overused phrase but that was "nasty".

I agree with the chopper. announcer says plenty of time and I am thinking he is seeing things. Then they still get him by 5 steps at least without a hurried throw. This may be grounds to have a sprint contest between Lecroy and Molina. So the 40 yard dash wont take a few hours we could put a keg of beer and a dozen hot dogs so there is some incentive. I say Lecroy wins by a stride in 18 seconds flat. The beer and hot dogs are then consumed in 4 seconds flat.