YAYGIFS

I promised to post these last week, but I'm in the midst of being staunchly "anti-blogging" for approximately the 700th time in the almost ten years I've been doing this.

This is Delmon's best pretty pretty ballerina impression.



This is Torii Hunter faceplanting into a wall.


You are welcome.

JI [carriage return] JIM THOME

I should be finishing up the two video game posts (along with two more for Monday, since I'm gone all weekend), but instead - in honor of Jim Thome's 594th home run, I present this.

MS Paint, ftw

 

Oh, for dumb.

Spookymilk Survivor VIII: Meeting of the Mimes

Sorry it took me a while to post this (to say nothing of the Pixies concert review that I'm about 60% sure will end up staying a half-written notepad document on my hard drive), life has been busy lately. At least I'm still being a bit more prolific than 2010.

This week's challenge was the old "Meeting of the Mimes" standard - two characters face off, neither of them speaks, one ends up in a clearly better position at the expense of the other.

I didn't do so hot at this one last year. In fact, I ended up with the lowest score of the otherwise brilliant week (Spooky still calls it one of his favorite bunch of entries ever, which I'm pretty sure has nothing to do with mine - that's not false modesty, I've actually got the scores to prove that I sucked!). Let's see if my fortune's changed...

Becky’s dad had always called it “pressure that didn’t mean anything”. It was an interesting theory, but as she walked around the pitcher’s mound for what had to be the fiftieth time, it seemed like nonsense. It was only the local girl’s little league championship, but she was playing on the same field that all the local heroes had played.

And here she was, being careless with her team’s lead.

The inning had started out easily enough – a strikeout and a weak pop fly. Then the weight of what was happening dawned on her. Usually she was so good at brushing it off, but with two outs in the final inning, it began to eat her alive. First she walked the opponents’ worst hitter, and then she gave up a couple of hard hits. Now, everything was on the verge of unraveling as the Rockies’ slugger came to bat.

Becky took a couple of deep breaths and one last walk around the mound before taking her place and gazing at her catcher for the sign. Nothing seemed like a good idea. Of course she was over-analyzing – she only really knew how to throw two or three pitches – but she had already shaken off at least five before finally deciding that she may as well throw a fastball. The batter just stared out at her with an amused smirk on her face. Becky quickly decided that she hated the batter and made a point to put everything she could into this next pitch.

It was a bad idea, as the catcher had to nearly leave her feet to catch the ball and keep it from going to the backstop. The smirk continued as Becky got the ball back. She briefly thought about throwing the next one at the hitter’s back before realizing that not only would that tie the game, but she would be ejected. Suddenly she realized – she was beating herself. The batter was not Babe Ruth; she was a 14-year old girl. With a renewed calm, Becky came set and threw the pitch.

The girl swung hard, but did not connect solidly, only able to muster a slow ground ball straight back to Becky. She picked up the ball, set herself and threw the ball…four feet over the first baseman’s head.

Everything seemed to slow down – everything except the baserunners, of course. The rightfielder didn’t even bother going to retrieve the ball, she just put hanged her head and began walking back to the dugout. Becky fell to her knees in stunned disbelief. The batter ran by, not bothering with eye contact (but wearing that same damned smirk) as she joined her teammates in celebration as Becky picked herself up off the ground and walked without a word off of the lit field and into the darkness of the visitor’s dugout.

And here are the judge's critiques...

K: Using baseball on me is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, but the bait worked. I have to say, I didn’t see this coming; I figured our protagonist would conquer her demons and win the game. I would have taken a stronger pair of character arcs, however; Becky was nervous and downtrodden and then lost, while the hitter was cocky and smug and ended up winning. Turning the tables would have been a stronger choice.

B: When I was 12 I was pitching during our Little League Championship. Though we didn’t have a lead, I too grabbed a bunt and threw it over the first baseman’s head, allowing two runs to score. So, yeah, I feel this. The last paragraph (and the last sentence) is a bit wordy for my taste.

So, yeah... meh. I was actually excited to do this challenge. I came up with the pitcher/batter combo almost immediately, since it's one of the greatest real-life examples of this trope. Watch some of the late-inning, close ballgame drama in a big game (like the World Series) and tell me there's not some good stuff there. Secondly, this actually happened to my team when I was in 7th grade. We had a lead going into the final inning of the championship game, and a throwing error ended the game. I was actually in the dugout during the final inning (I was one of the younger player son the team, and not a particularly proficient hitter, and my pitching days wouldn't come until a couple of years later), and the fateful error was made by the third baseman, but other than that, this is how I remember it.

Sadly, I just couldn't get my wording right - on anything. This challenge was the first where I just couldn't figure out how to say what I intended to say. Every other time I've had a mediocre time of things in this competition, I've had a flawed concept, or I've rushed it, or the overall tone of the piece was a little off. It occurred to me after the fact that having the batter appear smug was a weak direction to take this. I recall the actual batter being one of the younger players on the team, and that he was absolutely overjoyed to make the final hit. Casting the batter as a scared little kid who just didn't want to screw up probably would have made the final paragraph more interesting (or at the very least, it would have made it more readable - Beau's right, those are some ugly last few sentences.) This was the first time that I thought I had something, thought through how to tell it, but simply found myself incapable of coming up with the right things to say - how profoundly frustrating. Apparently, words fail me.

Almost as frustrating was the fact that it was all for naught, anyway. Since there were five remaining Spawn of Steinbeck players, and only four Dark Stormy Knights players, SoS had the advantage. Last season, Spooky and Beau tossed up the "no more teams" post with 8 players left, leaving evenly matched teams. This time around, they posted it with 9, leaving DSK with no chance to avoid an elimination. Since none of us had an immunity to fall back on, SoS got free picking as to who they were going to gang up on. In the end, Ryan got the short straw, and DSK lost a great player and a a great teammate. Let the record state that I stuck with DSK to the bloody end (whoever voted to oust Ryan, it wasn't me). Here's hoping it's not me next week.

Time to get to work.

Farewell, Neshek

Yesterday, the the Twins announced that Pat Neshek had been claimed off waivers by the San Diego Padres. I was sort of shocked by the news, but I guess it shouldn’t be so surprising.

After coming back from Tommy John surgery last year his fastball was barely touching 85, and he was giving up home runs this year at a pace that would make Jose Lima cringe.

I prefer to remember mid-2006, when he first debuted in the big leagues. My dad, brother, and I went to a game in July (I’m all but certain it was this one). The Elmer’s glue and Scotch tape holding Brad Radke’s arm together must have been a little loose, because he was about as hitable as he could have been. We thought about leaving midway through the fourth, but then the Twins got a couple in the bottom of that inning. In the top of the 7th, Neshek came out. I knew what to expect from the couple of times I’d seen him (I believe the game in question was his 7th major league game), but it was all-new territory for my brother and dad. We marveled at the motion, how the ball seemed like it was coming from no place in particular. Pretty soon, we were marveling at how lethal he was – he struck out three in just under two innings, with none of those three batters looking like they had the slightest clue what they were up against. I had a new favorite Twin.

I soon found his blog, and have been a loyal follower in the years that followed. I’ve been out of the baseball card scene for a little over 15 years now (I never really came back to it after the strike), but the one card from the last decade that I do own is one of Neshek’s minor league cards (autographed, of course) that I just had to have off eBay. It’ll probably be the last one I’ll ever need.

This move makes me a little sad. I’d really hoped Neshek could come back to his former glory. He still could – fingers crossed. Here’s hoping Petco does him right.

In honor of one of the more unique pitching motions in recent memory (and one of my favorite Twins ever), here’s some bullpen footage some random dude took three years ago.

 

Baseball Predicitons 2011 - AL Edition

So, I promised Jester that this post was going to be up a while ago. The slipshod analysis will prove that this post would be better never than late, but whatever. It's always nice to have completely wrong predictions chisled in stone so that everyone can laugh at them later.

I've flip-flopped over whether I want to go division by division, or just give a basic overview with a couple of thoughts. The latter certainly has the benefit of being less work, while also providing me with fewer ways to look dumb. I think we'll go with one comprehensive post, rather than 6 in-depth ones.

Here goes...

AMERICAN LEAGUE

West

Rangers - 90
Angels - 80
A's - 79
Mariners - 5

No, that's not a typo. The Mariners are only going to win five games. Felix Hernandez is going to have a 1.89 ERA, strike out seven hundred guys, and have a 4-27 record. All four wins will be extra inning shutouts. He will win the Cy Young award, prompting Murray Chass to lead the great "Old School Uprising", they will demand the head of Billy Beane on a platter, because they still can't remember who actually wrote "Moneyball".

The Rangers seem to be the only team in this division that's even passable. I don't see any scenario where they don't walk away from this division.

The A's will be about 5 games back at the trade deadline, prompting their management to go into "rebuild" mode for the 50th straight season.

The Angels will lead the league in spending money on outfielders who will not play in the outfield for an impressive 17th year in a row. That's certainly something.


Central

Twins - 88
White Sox - 86
Tigers - 86
Royals - 72
Indians - 70

A lot of people seem to peg the Royals as a 95+ loss team. I don't have any particular reason to feel optimistic about them, I just want to believe.

This division will be a three team dogfight. I think that the return of Morneau (which, as a massive plus means that my wife will be much more interested in watching baseball with me) helps a lot. I think Liriano's stats should look even better this year than they did last year (he had a .335 babip last year, 20 points above his career average, and 35 above the major league average, that's not sustainable). Getting Nathan back doesn't mean as much to the closer position as one might think (the Twins ramshackle mesh of Rausch and Capps converted saves almost as often as Nathan did in years previous), but it does mean that the bullpen gets another good late-inning arm. The White Sox and Tigers look good, the Twins just look a little better.


East

Red Sox - 95
Yankees - 94
Rays - 88
Blue Jays - 75
Orioles - 70

How much does it suck to be the Rays?

Red Sox had seven million injuries last year, with the additions of Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, they ought to pull out (but only just) a division title against the Yankees. Somehow the Twins will end up playing the Yankees, and will sweep them in the postseason. Pavano will be the MVP of that series.


MVP - Evan Longoria
Cy Young - Francisco Liriano (I know I picked King Felix earlier, but 4-27 might be a tough pill for some to swallow. He finishes second. Bloggers everywhere riot in the streets, only to be struck down within hours by severe sun stroke and exposure.)
Rookie of the Year - Jeremy Hellickson

Chip Caray: Epilogue

I had this post saved instead of posted for whatever reason. Still relevant, and I still think kittens are awesome... so... it gets posted. Joe Buck sucks.

You may remember that I spent a good deal of time complaining about TBS' coverage of the baseball postseason - Chip Caray in particular. Therefore, Monday's news that Mr. Caray and TBS have 'parted ways' makes me extremely happy.

How happy?

Almost as happy as this GIF makes me. Not quite, though... kittens are awesome.



Also, I find it amusing that every time the baseball playoffs rolls around, searches for the phrase "Joe Buck Sucks" skyrocket.

To all those who have happened upon this very blog because of that search string I say this...

yes... yes he does.

What the Carlos Gomez Trade Really Means...

12 walks, 92 strikeouts last year...
Roller-skate defense....
Minnesota Twins starting left fielder... for ALL of next season.

Ladies and gentlemen, Delmon Young!!

Goodbye, Go-Go

MLB.com is reporting that the Brewers have traded J.J. Hardy to the Twins for... Carlos Gomez.

I have to admit, I'm a little bummed out about this, not because of anything J.J. Hardy may or may not be able to accomplish on the baseball field, but because it was just so fun to watch Gomez play baseball. The guy played the game as if it was the most awesome thing in the world to be doing. The picture at the top of the post, taken just a few weeks ago when the Twins won the division, captures it perfectly.

Baseball-wise, this probably makes sense, but I'm going to miss the bat-smelling, crazy "how-in-the-hell-did-he-catch-that" plays, and the ridiculous enthusiasm Gomez had.

BrainDump 10/13/2009

* Here in Alexandria, we were treated to a snowstorm on Friday. I like winter a lot more than most folks do, but it's fall right now. Besides, I need to get the deck stained and the patio pavers laid. The fact that the snow started getting heavy right as Joe Nathan was serving up A-Rod's back-breaking home run could only be a foul coincidence, right?

So yeah, I'm thinking I probably should have done those two things sometime this summer, instead of all that sweet golfing action I was enjoying.

* Single-season wins record holder and all around dapper fellow Old Hoss Radbourn has a twitter account. It's good to see that he's not letting his 1897 death get in the way of being hilarious and insightful in an old-fashioned way.

Highlight: This #Posada feller is awful. If my battery mate made so many errors, I'd be forced to challenge him to a duel.

* I've been listening to a lot of the song 'Surf Solar' by Fuck Buttons of late. It's over ten minutes of droney goodness with an almost robotic sounding digitally altered female voice. If that made it sound boring or strange, trust me, it's not. Ten minutes almost doesn't seem long enough. Check out the drastically shortened clipped version (which weighs in at a pansy 3 minutes 41 seconds) - where else - at imeem.

Note: I link to imeem because you can find most everything there. For a lot of the songs, you need to sign up for a free account. Do it. It's worth it.

* Finally, I will literally never get sick of watching the Ibanez Fielding GIFs. Never. I've been staring at the screen laughing for the last ten minutes, and I've already seen these no fewer than 20 times.

Ron Darling Needs Physics Lessons

The Twins were predictably eliminated in painful fashion on Sunday. They got the lead for the third straight game, only to follow the script straight through to the part which called for A-Rod to bludgeon our pitching staff into submission.

Rather than complain about the Twins losing in the playoffs (I had them pegged for 75 wins and for most of the season, it looked like I was right), I'll make fun of the announcing staff.

During the early innings of last night's game, Ron Darling made the comment that ground balls hit on the Metrodome turf "gain speed" as they approach the infielders. Even if that didn't violate the laws of physics, such a field would be ridiculously dangerous. Imagine - bunt hits gaining momentum until, by the time they reach the outfield, they are hurtling at devastating speeds. Fielders daring not bounce their throws on the turf, lest they decapitate the intended recipient of their throws. Maybe he meant that the turf slows the ball down less than grass? Mmm.... no, I'm quite certain he meant it this way.

Of course, I'm being more than a little pedantic, but the team of Ron Darling and Chip Caray (particularly the latter) are quite possibly the worst announcers to listen to. I'm including Hall of Shamers like McCarver & Buck (Joe, of course, not his dearly departed father) in this ascertation. They get facts wrong, they (especially Caray) act as homers for all things Yankee, and worst of all, they bring absolutely nothing to the table. They're certainly not informative, they're just sort of... there (and the way Caray refers to just about every bloop hit as being 'fisted' is creepy to me).

Sour grapes notwithstanding, that was a pretty disgusting end to a season that defied expectations. You can't beat the Yankees by leaving 17 men on base in one game, or by blundering your way out of at least 2 runs by simply not paying any attention on the basepaths, or by hitting a grand total of zero home runs after putting up decent power numbers all year - and guess what......we didn't.

Ah well..... we'll always have last Tuesday's game.

Note: This gets the "Joe Buck Sucks" tag, because boy howdy does he ever.

Ouch.... ouch ouch ouch

Note the position of the umpire as he calls the clearly fair ball foul.

Great game by Blackburn. Too bad that it all has to wind down in the shittiest way possible.

On a sidenote, I overheard Ron Darling saying after the team's MVP Justin Morneau went down with an injury, it was guys like Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel... and Delmon Young that pulled the Twins into contention.

Joe Mauer, meanwhile, selfishly hit .354/.471/.487 - to be clear, that means he was getting on base almost as often as he was getting out over the critical playoff drive. What Cuddy did was great, but he and Kubel aren't getting RBIs if Mauer isn't setting the table for them. To act as if the soon-to-be AL MVP had less to do with the Twins eventual division title than DELMON YOUNG, is cockflickery, my friends.

Also, in what universe do people still think the MVP of the 2009 Twins is Justin Morneau??

What a complete disappointment... let's pick up at least one from this very beatable team, shall we, gentlemen??

First to Eleven Wins

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Minnesota Twins...

It all makes a lot more sense in retrospect. I mean, we have one of the best closers in the game (who at one point had a streak of 20+ games pitched without a single run given up) - of course it all came down to a situation where our mop up guy had to get out of a bases loaded, one out jam.

We had five guys who had OPS+ numbers above 120 (which is quite good), so of course in the critical inning, it all came down to Carlos Gomez getting a hit, Delmon Young getting a walk, and Alexi Casilla (who was sporting a tasty .259 SLUGGING percentage) driving in the winning run. It's the Twins... you just kind of go with it. So when Brian Duensing makes his 10th major league start later today against C.C. Sabathia, it doesn't concern me (okay... maybe a little), it's just part of the show.

Going into the season, I thought the Twins were about a .500 team. Up until September, it looked like a was right. The way I figure it, last night was one of the most exciting games I've ever watched (post-1991, of course). I gave up on the idea of my team making the playoffs no fewer than three times, so now that they've made it, the whole thing feels like free baseball. The fact that we were 0-7 against the Yankees during the regular season doesn't bother me, in fact, I'm anxious for us to have another crack at them.

Realistically, the Twins will probably lose the series - probably in four games or under. That would be disappointing, of course, but this season has already given Twins fans a lot more than we could have ever expected. Baseball is kind of awesome that way.

That being said, I hope the Twins sweep the Yankees, and since the playoffs are a complete crap shoot, why can't they?

Uno!

You see, it's funny because Delmon Young always swings at the first pitch, no matter where that pitch might be located.

Coincidentally, he's got 68 strikeouts and 7 walks this year. For being advertised as coming with "plus power", he's got only six doubles in 245 plate appearances (or about one double per 41 PAs, for reference, Neifi Perez averaged one double per 23 at bats over the course of his career).

Ouch.

Hitters Who Would Better Leadoff Batters Than Matt Tolbert: A Handy Reference

Ron Gardenhire seems to think that in lieu of an actual leadoff hitter (Denard Span), he should simply place a speedy player at the top of the lineup. Normally, it would only matter to a limited extent, but putting a batter who's hitting .175 (also sporting a nifty .270 OBP and .237 SLG!) the highest number of plate appearances in a given game seems like a great way to not score very many runs.

Since Gardy is obviously confused as to what makes a good leadoff hitter (hint: see pitches, get on base for other hitters to get you in), I've composed this helpful cheat sheet.

List of People Who Would Be More Apt to Bat Leadoff Than Matt Tolbert

Brendan Harris
Joe Mauer

Nick Punto (and, my God, does that distress me)

Luis Ayala
Cecil Fielder

This man and his two career stolen bases would be a much better leadoff hitter than Matt Tolbert.

Scott Baker
Emilio Navarro (propped up with a series of levers and pulleys)
An unoccupied batter's box
Carlos Gomez (but only just barely... that was a long, angering road I'd rather not go down again)
A Sony Aibo
American Idol winner Kris Allen
Most of the commenters at the Star Tribune's website
Doctor Who
The gun toting corpse of Charlton Heston
That one guy on Lost... you know... the bald-ish guy, the mysterious guy with the shifty eyes... yeah, him
Eddie Gaedel
A sentient jack-in-the-box
Ordinary buttered toast

But is it scrappy buttered toast? Does it battle its tail off??

Lest you think I'm overly pessimistic, here another list.

List of Hitters Who Matt Tolbert Would Probably Be Better Than

Alexi Casilla
Bob Buhl

Please, listen to reason. Scrappy, light-hitting infielders who strike out almost as often as they get on base do not in any way scream "leadoff hitter".

How Amazing Is Joe Mauer?

Joe Mauer came off the bench and hit yet another home run in today's 6-5 loss to the Red Sox. That gives him 11 on the year, good enough to break the top ten in the AL. There are several amazing things about this fact.

1. He missed ALL of April. That means that he's caught up to the rest of the AL - and he spotted them a whole month.
2. He's never really been a power hitter before, his career high in home runs is 13 (in 608 plate appearances, as opposed to 11 in 100 plate appearances this year). Until this season, he had averaged a home run every 46.8 at bats - this year he's averaging one every 7.36 at bats.
3. Most of the homers he has hit (seven) have gone opposite field, none of them have been dead pulls - none (he's hit two to dead center, and two to right-centerfield).
4. He's hit 5 just this week.
   

It could be said that he's gotten lucky with a few of these, as there have been a decent number of them that have just barely sneaked over the left field wall. Even if he's been lucky with the home runs, his batting line is a ridiculous .444/.530/.914 - including an otherworldy .527/.597/1.055 against righties.

I've pretty much run out of positive adjectives to describe how he's playing. This is the best I've ever seen anyone play the game. These numbers are obviously completely unsustainable, but add in the fact that he's a freaking catcher, and he's got to merit some serious MVP talk assuming he stays healthy.

Wow.

This 'n That: Ugly Losses, Stuff I've Been Listening To,

Bah.

Last night's Twins game was so great for the first eight innings. Morneau crushed two homeruns on his birthday, Mauer added one of his own, Johnny Damon got ejected... going into the ninth inning, the Twins were two runs up. In his career, Joe Nathan's only blown four two run leads. Things got ugly - fast. Nathan had a meltdown and gave up three runs in the bottom of the ninth to lose the heartbreaker. The outfield had some issues, including the normally solid Denard Span over-pursuing a line drive down the left field line, which led to an inside-the-park home run. Hopefully the Twins will be able to get to Joba Chamberlain early today and put the evil empire in their place.

---

Micro Album Reviews

• I'd been eagerly awaiting Viva Voce's new CD 'Rose City' since I'd heard of its upcoming arrival. The finished product is pretty decent, but they've sort of stripped away a lot of the melody that made them so undeniable before. Most of the songs expand on the jam-heavy sound from "Get Yr Blood Sucked Out". It's a pretty good album, but it's going to take some time to get everything out of it.
• Wilco's new album (amusingly titled "Wilco (The Album)" is good. It's streaming for free at their website now, so you really don't have any reason not to check it out.
• Mewithoutyou's new album, "It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright" might actually kind of suck. After a couple of listens, I haven't gotten much out of it. The original mwY sound as featured on '[A-->B] Life' is gone. Aaron Weiss no longer has any fire left in his vocals, everything is either straight singing or done in his "sing-talking" style. All of this wouldn't really be a problem if the lyrics were up to mwY's usual caliber. Instead we get awkward lyrics with none of the drive that we've been used to from previous efforts. So to recap, they've lost their musical, vocal, and lyrical intensity - what actually is left to draw a listener in?

---

In Which Things Get a Little Weird on the Bases...

With one out and runners on first and third, Michael Cuddyer (the runner on first) took off as the pitch was being thrown. Brian Buscher (the batter) hit a looping drive which was caught by the centerfielder. Cuddyer had slid into second base already, so he started running back to first, as Morneau tagged up to score. Bizarrely, Gardner ignored the easy double play option in Cuddyer and threw home to try to catch Morneau. His throw was unbelievably pathetic, and Morneau scored in plenty of time. At this point, they appealed to second, and the umpire ruled that Cuddyer had not tagged second on his return to first (even though he had not run past second at all). Somehow, the run counted. Which rules govern this, and why did Cuddyer get called out for not retouching second even though he had not travelled past second base, but rather had simply slid into it?

---

While We're At It...

Derek Jeter is a great baseball player and a liekly first ballot hall of famer. However, he does not now, nor has he ever had "great range" or really even good/average range. He is a subpar fielding shortstop who knows how to make certain plays look very flashy. Thank you.

Thank You, Joe Crede

Okay, follow along.

Twins get out to an early lead.
Tigers first pound starter Glen Perkins, then start on increasingly useless Luis Ayala. They take the lead in the 6th.
Twins get a triple from Denard Span to put them back in the lead in the 6th.
Tigers get a couple of homeruns and take a two run lead in the 7th.
Jason Kubel ties the game with a 2-run homer in the 8th.
The game stays this way for a while.
Granderson gets a one out triple in the 13th, then startles Jesse Crain into committing a run-scoring balk with two outs. Things look bad.
Jason Kubel gets a single, Punto pinch runs, gets bunted over to second, then scores on a ball that was just barely trapped in the bottom of the 13th.
A couple of walks happen (including a two out intentional walk to Morneau), then Joe Crede hits a walkoff grand slam to win the game?

Epic WGOM game log, epic game. As was posted over yonder by BrainS, "Crede just ceased being an ex-White Sox. He's now a Twin."

Congratulations, Tampa Bay

What a series. What a game. What a performance by Garza.

That was an instant classic.

Scott Baker = Ace

I've noticed that my blog shows up near the top of the list for the google search 'scott baker ace'. Ironically, the post which triggers this high ranking is a questioning of his ability to be the ace of the staff.

There should no longer be any question about that. Consider his stats (with where he ranks in the AL in parentheses):

ERA: 3.45 (8th)
Winning %: .733 (4th, he was 11-4, and keep in mind that he could have easily won a few more games, considering he was on the tough end of three 1-0 games)
WHIP: 1.178 (5th)
Strikeouts to Walks: 3.36 (7th)

He also gave up just a .247 AVG, and strikes outs 7.4 per 9 innings - which puts him just outside top 10. I really look forward to watching him pitch a full season next year as the undisputed ace of the Twins' starting rotation. Sorry for doubting you, Light Rail.

The Sound of the Wind Escaping the Sails

162 games wasn't enough to contain this season. The Twins were picked to finish anywhere from 3rd place (optimistic) to last (pessimistic). Even devoted Twins fans were figuring on somewhere in the range of 75 wins and a 4th place finish. The Tigers were too good, the Twins were too young. After all, we'd finished poorly last year, and that was before we got rid of Torii and Johan. There was just no way we were going to be playing meaningful September baseball.

What happened?

Seemingly out of nowhere, we took interleague by storm, and suddenly we had hope. Maybe we'd pull down 3rd, maybe even keep pace long enough to take 2nd. Soon the Indians and Tigers were well in our rearview, and we were facing something we hadn't envisioned in anything but our most unrealistic dreams - a bona-fide to-the-wire pennant race.

After completing the sweep of the Sox and taking first place his past Thursday (which was one of the most exciting games I've seen in any setting, '91 world series included), we were in the driver's seat. If we did our business against the Royals, the future looked bright. Unfortunately, the Royals have gotten good at playing the spoiler. In 2006, they swept the Tigers and let the Twins grab first on the last day of the season. This year, they opened the door for what was sure to be an exciting game number 163. Of course, there was the makeup game on Sunday, but that was a mere formality. This was going to come down to a winner-takes-all playoff. Everyone knew it.

After a great game (and it was a great game), I sat on the couch speechless, feeling absolutely gutted. Blackburn came up big in the biggest game he's ever pitched, but Danks was looking possesed on the mound. My stomach twisted a little tighter with every pitch either of them threw (especially on the Thome blast - I somehow knew that was going to be the only run of the game). I've not watched a game that gave me this kind of feeling (not even in the playoffs in 02-04, and in 06). Having been able to watch a vast majority of the games this year for the first time (thank you FoxSports!), the guys on the Twins roster have become family. I've watched Gomez strike out on that same blasted low and away pitch 900 times now, to the point where I cringe every time he gets a 2-strike count. I've watched Scott Baker turn from the goofy looking kid who couldn't get anyone out into... a fairly goofy looking kid who could just turn out to be one of the best pitchers in the AL. These guys are the most enjoyable team to watch, and I've greatly enjoyed living and dying on their every move. I'm sure in a couple of weeks I'll look back on this season and be satisfied with the amazing run they had, but for now, I've still got that sunk feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's been a lot of fun, and I knew in the back of my mind that this day was coming, but that doesn't ease my mind too much right now. These guys have been a pure pleasure to watch day in and day out, and I look forward to next year, when others will think twice before underestimating us.

What a season by a great team. I love this baseball for exactly this feeling, even if it's a little hard to stomach at the moment.

Here's looking forward to April.