Twins at Blue Jays: Working out the Rust

Recap:
Friday: Twins a little - Blue Jays a lot (3-13)
Saturday: Twins 1 - Blue Jays 6
Sunday: Twins 4 - Blue Jays 3

Record: 1-2

 

There was a lot of rust for the Twins this series, but Sunday's win kept it from being a complete clunker.

Forgive me, I'm experiencing some rustiness. I haven't done a series recap in so long, I had to look up posts from a year ago to remember how.

Obviously, I'm not the only one who has some rust to work out. Pavano, Manship, D. Hughes looked very rusty. Liriano didn't look so sharp either.

It's hard to tell if Nishioka is suffering from rust or jitters. He's made some mistakes at second; some of them costly. I'm willing to give him a whole bunch of slack because he's got a lot to learn very quickly, but, man, some of those mental mistakes are hard to watch. I hope he's the type who learns from his mistakes and works hard to avoid them in the future. Anyway, I don't mean to be terribly critical; it's only been three games. I'm sure he'll settle in soon and be just fine.

Of course, the owner of the most rust was Joe Nathan. And understandably so. That save, which is his first since Oct. 3, 2009, was probably the most difficult, nerve-racking, excruciating, stressful, heart-thumping, nail-biting, prayer-inducing, hair-pulling, oh-my-god-Joe-just-get-him-out pleading performance I've ever witnessed. It very well could be a good thing it was that way. He had to have been extremely nervous, excited, and scared. And, though it wasn't a pretty save, he certainly earned it. It must have been a great boost to his confidence to face that challenge, stumble but not fall, and finally complete it mostly intact. All with Gardy believing in him enough to let him get that far (although you know he was done after that last batter). I'm sure Joe will be better next time. The only concern now is how his elbow feels after throwing that many pitches. Let's hope for the best, of course.

Another guy with more rust that the others is Justin Morneau. This series takes him back to the place where he suffered his season-ending concussion last year. He played in all three games, but DHed on Sunday. That's great progress. Unfortunately, he didn't his first hit until Sunday -- a broken-bat infield single. That's kind of amusing.

~~~

High Fives:

I've never really done this kind of thing before, but I may as well give some credit where credit is due. As long as the Twins aren't swept in a series, I'll try to figure out three players (or more, if I'm so inclined) who deserve a high-five.

1. Nick Blackburn. He was outstanding on Sunday. He pitched in and out with movement, and when the Jays made contact, it was weak. Well, except for Jose Bautista, but Nick's not going to be the last guy to give up a homerun to that guy.

2. Denard Span. He had a game-saving catch and a moonshot on Sunday. Plus, he's currently leading the team in batting.

3. Joe Nathan. Well, he earned a save. And by that, I mean, he really earned a save. Oh, if you watched the game on TV, did you notice how sweaty he was during the post-game interview? I guess he was a bit anxious.

Two-For-One

k-bro's note: Hi. Yeah, I know I didn't do a recap of the Yankee series. I was tired/busy/uninspired. And since the Toronto series is over now too, well just smush them together into one short post. Cool?

Twins at Yankees: I Owe Jason Kubel Gummi Bears
Recap:
Friday -- Twins 4 - Yankees 8
Saturday -- Twins 1 - Yankees 7
Sunday -- Twins 6 - Yankees 3

Ok, so everyone said it would all be ok if the Twins just took one game of the series. And they did. I don't even want to think of the first two games. So I won't.

And the third game didn't look too promising in the beginning. In fact, I got so mad, I went outside and did some serious work with the Garden Weasel -- all while swearing angrily at the Yankees.

Then, by the grace of the baseball gods, Mark Teixeira dropped that ball. And Jim Thome took that 3-2 pitch for a ball. And Jason Kubel stepped to the plate. And he went boom. Off the Great Mariano Rivera no less.

So, I'd like to buy a bag of gummi bears for Jason Kubel. (Read this to find out why gummi bears and not beer. Although, I bet he'd like beer, too. Or both.)

~~~

Twins at Blue Jays: Extremes
Recap:
Monday -- Twins 8 - Blue Jays 3
Tuesday -- Twins 2 - Blue Jays 11 (!)

Well that was certainly a contrast wasn't it. Game 1 featured good offense, and adequate pitching. A nice win.

Game 2...well...game 2 pretty much reeked. It put the "ugh" in "ugly".

Unpredictable, Eh?

I figured that the Twins would split the series with the Blue Jays, because that's how it seems to go with the stupid 4-game series. But game-by-game, my predictions were all wrong.

Recap:
Monday: Twins 6 - Blue Jays 3
Tuesday: Twins 3 - Blue Jays 6
Wednesday: Twins 4 - Blue Jays 1
Thursday: Twins 3 - Blue Jays 3

After Sunday's flat, lifeless performance on Sunday, the Twins were destined to do the same on Monday -- or so I thought. They actually played well and seemed to have fun.

Tuesday, Duensing took the mound. I've been so impressed with him, so I figured more of the same from him. And he didn't disappoint. Too bad the bullpen blew it.

Next up was Pavano vs. Halladay. Now, I'm totally willing to give Pavano every benefit of the doubt, but he's no Roy Halladay. However, Roy Halladay is Roy Halladay and he'd never lost to the Twins. But Pavano and the Twins' bats prevailed.

Thursday's day game featured Scott Baker, who's been great since the all-star break. Another W for sure -- or not. Scotty pitched ok, but the bats were lifeless again. Maybe everyone was looking forward to getting out of there as soon as possible because they knew it would take forever to get through customs.

~~~

Let me share some recent blog posts, from a couple of Sarahs, that I enjoyed:

• Sarah of Oh, It's THOSE Girls lists a bunch of reasons why we should go to Friday's game against the A's. I love the idea of laughing at them for wearing white shoes after Labor Day.
  
• Sarah-bug of la Beisbolista (a Cardinals blog) tells us how no one team has the best fans, they all do.

~~~

A great big thank you to all my blogging and Twitter friends who mentioned my food drive idea and encouraged their readers to pledge as well.

I really think it would be great if we all get to donate a bunch of food. Go Twins!

Oh, and I think it would be great if fans of other teams would pledge for wins by their teams too.

Let's Build Some Walls

Ok, well that pretty much sucked.

Recap:
Monday: Twins 6 - Blue Jays 8
Tuesday: Twins 3 - Blue Jays 2 (11)
Wednesday: Twins 2 - Blue Jays 12 CRIPES!!!
Thursday: Twins...oh, who the hell cares; we have a smallish score, they have a largish one

We need to do something. Now. IT. MUST. END. NOW.

Back when I was in high-school, I was in a bowling league. And since it was in the olden days, back before those fancy-schmancy electronic, high-tech, 3D animated, does-everything-except-bowl-for-you scoreboards, we had a transparent score sheet that we slapped onto a projector that displayed on the wall for everyone to see and we actually wrote our scores down. And this was beneficial because if we would get to the point when we just couldn't stand sucking anymore, we would simply draw a thick line at the end of a frame. This was called drawing a wall. And the theory was that all the suck would stay behind the wall and everything going forward would be much better. (It didn't really work for me because my suck pretty much has the properties of Velcro® -- story of my life, but I digress.)

So, in that spirit, I propose we draw some walls. First of all, the players will need some so they can see what exactly needs to happen. I've drawn two -- one for the pitchers and one for the batters (we don't want them to get confused).






That should do it. The guys should just keep in mind that everything will be ok because all the suck is behind the wall.

The fans can help too. Get out your pocket schedules, or Metrodome Memories calendars (the ones with the schedule), or whatever it is you use to know when the Twins play, and mark a nice thick line after April 16. Heck, it might even work on a regular calendar. If we all draw walls, the better the chance the suck will be behind us. Let's all do our parts.

[EDIT]
Check it out...this is how I fixed up my Metrodome Memories calendar/schedule once I got to work: