Royals at Twins: Uptight

Recap:
Tuesday: Royals 3 - Twins 4 (10)
Wednesday: Royals 10 - Twins 5

Record: 4-7

Everybody is uptight. And the more the Twins lose, the more uptight they're going to get. It's time to relax and have some fun.

Well, the hitting is starting to come around. Cuddy had a great night at the plate on Tuesday by going 4-4. And on Wednesday, the Twins finally scored a run in the first inning. So that's something.

I'm getting worried about the starting pitching, and I'm really getting annoyed with the defense.

I don't really expect Duensing to repeat the fantastic season he had last year to the letter. But I gotta admit that I'm worried that he's overmatched, or at least he's feeling that way. I think that Gardy's naming him a starter so early in spring training may have put a lot of pressure on him. He's uptight; hopefully he can settle down and find a comfortable groove.

I'm more worried about Liriano. You can practically see how uptight he is. We all know how very good he can be -- it was just last year. But now he's tentative and meek. Gardy has been saying that he wants Frankie to worry less about strikeouts, and try pitching more to contact so he can go deeper into games. Which is fine, right up until his defense lets him down, and then he can't figure out what to do. At that point, all that "contact" turns into a bunch of "hits" and consequently, "runs." It's fairly well known that he's easily rattled -- "headcase" is a term that's thrown around a lot. Clearly he and Rick Anderson are tinkering, and he's still figuring out what he's trying to do. But asking him to pitch to contact when he has fill-ins for middle-infielders might be asking a bit much for someone who seems to get wigged out easily. Gardy needs to just let him pitch how he wants to pitch and Frankie just needs to learn how to relax and stop thinking. After all, in the wise words of Crash Davis, "don't think; it can only hurt the ball club."

Poor Frankie did have a lot of bad luck on Wednesday. With Tolbert playing short and Cuddyer playing second, he kind of didn't have much of a chance. There were a couple of plays I thought they should've made. I'm willing to cut Cuddy some slack -- he's truly filling in. But Tolbert was playing uptight and should know better -- he airmailed a ball in the first that probably unsettled Liriano from the get-go. Valencia also had a couple diving attempts both Tuesday and Wednesday that I thought maybe he should've made. Maybe I'm being a little tough on them, but I miss the days when the defense was excellent.

Anyway, I'm getting too uptight too. I need to relax.

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I went to Wednesday's game. I got a chance to sit in those once-in-a-lifetime-you-can't-turn-them-down-because-you'll-never-get-a-chance-to-sit-there-again-ever seats. I also brought my nice camera. Needless to say, I may have taken a picture or two.

Some Crappy Pictures from Sunday's Game

I do have a nice camera, but it's a brute and I kind of hate carrying it around. My husband was already carrying a backpack of jackets, rain gear, and food, so there wasn't any way he was going to carry it. So, I used my phone to take some pictures of Target Field on Sunday. The pictures are ok when I didn't zoom in; they're crappy when I did.

At any rate, here they are:

It was a hazy, humid, and breezy day at the park.

But the rain stayed away, so it was decent weather for baseball.

They have Thome Homer countdown. It was at 589 before the game.

They're also counting down games until Bert gets inducted into the Hall of Fame.

They honored the UMD Bulldogs National Hockey Champions. Congrats, guys!

Scott Baker delivering. It was probably a ball.

Cuddy playing second base. He did all right.

T.C. waiting until the end of the half-inning so he can get on the field and shoot some shirts.

Big Jim at the plate.

I hope these folks got circled by Bert.

Jumbo-tron proposal. Except this isn't the right couple. Oopsie. Poor Dustin and Miranda.

They're changing Jim Thome's homerun countdown to 590. His homer landed in the concourse area right below the countdown sign. Boom!

Ok, you tell me... Does this say that Young and Kubel "'stuck' out swinging"? We couldn't really tell from where we were sitting.

That's it. Maybe next time I'll bring my good camera.

The k-bro Twins Fest Report: 2010 Edition

I wasn't really planning on going to Twins Fest this year. I usually go every few years, and I went just last year. But it just so happened that I had nothing else going on, and I knew some of my Twitter friends would be there, so I figured "why not?" So Mom and I headed to the Dome and ultimately had a great time.

It was crowded. That shouldn't have surprised me, but I think it was more crowded than previous years. At least it felt like it.

First up was the Cuddyer photo line. We had a great time chatting with the gals in line near us. After a while of waiting, we got worried because the staff guy cut off the line right before us. But we stayed in line, and we were lucky enough to make it in just before Cuddy had to leave. Whew! And, boy, are we glad we made it! He couldn't have been a nicer, more polite guy -- super sweet. And, I have to tell you, he's better looking in person than any picture can do justice. But here's one anyway.

Next, it was time to buy grab bags. I love the grab bags because you can always get stadium-give-away items that they only give to kids. The kids' give-aways are always the best. The grab bags are great also because sometimes you can get an autographed item. I've never gotten a signed item before; I've got one now! Score! It was certainly worth the $15. 

Yeah, I don't recommend ever putting your stuff on the Field Turf -- all this was covered in little black pellets after I took this picture. And that stuff is static-y too, so it ain't coming off.

1. Joe Mauer and Mike Redmond "autographed" chest-protector-shaped backpack
2. Mother's Day give-away t-shirt 
3. Dan Gladden bobblehead
4. 2009 Team "autographed" bat
5. 2009 Stats and Information Guide
6. and the coup -- 2010 Target Field calendar with Pat Neshek's autograph. 

Oh, and when I was standing around near the Hall of Fame exhibit, Denard Span scurried by. When I told Mom, I nearly got flattened by a friend of my son's who was chasing him. I'm glad he did, because he led us to where Denard stopped and chatted with fans for a bit.

Then, we moved to the KSTP 1500 area to listen to Joe Mauer's interview. We weren't the only ones there. And no, he didn't say anything about a contract; nor did they ask him about it. Just the typical "feeling good...working out...ready for the season...like that JJ Hardy and Jim Thome are here...blah, blah, blah."

Joe's the one in the tan sweater.

After that, we headed down to the StarTribune booth because I wanted to meet Howard Sinker (A Fan's View). It was great to shake his hand; I was glad to meet him and thank him for linking to my food donation post back in September. I also got to meet Seth Stohs (SethSpeaks), John Bonnes (Twins Geek), and Topper Anton (Curve For a Strike) at the same time. It was a great few minutes -- I was pleased that I got to meet these guys because I admire their blogs so much. I wished I could just take our group and go have a beer or DQ or something and talk baseball. I think next year the Twins should set up a booth of all the cool bloggers. I'd visit.

We had a lunch break and ran into Betsy (For The Love of The Game) and Katie (KC's Baseball Blog) -- it was fun to see them again.

Then we headed to the photo line again to see who was there. Brendan Harris. Ok. Turns out that he was super nice and friendly too. And he's better looking in person than I thought he was. So I was happy with this photo too.

And after visiting a few more booths, that was about all we could handle. I don't know how people play sports on that stupid, pellety Field Turf. My legs were killing me. But I had a great time.

Feast and Famine

Saturday: Twins 14 - Rangers 2
Sunday: Twins 0 - Rangers 1

Twins win series 2 - 1

I knew the Twins used up all their runs on Saturday night. I wish they would have saved some of that for me on Sunday. Let's just hope that they fill up their "run tanks" so they have plenty of runs to slap on the Yankees.

I must say though, the pitching this series was very impressive. I hope the rest of the rotation follows in stride.

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I had a great time at the game Sunday. In fact, only two little things would've made it better -- Twins runs. Scotty pitched so well; he really deserved the win. I blame myself for Scotty getting the loss. Actually, I'm going to share the blame with the man sitting in front of me.

With two outs in the sixth, the gentleman turned around and said, "Hey, he's got a no-hitter going."

Knowing that I should have simply smiled, nodded, and kept my mouth shut, I lost my head and said, "Actually, he's got a perfect game going. No one has reached first base." I then followed-up with, "Watch, now I've jinxed it." And sure enough, Teagarden goes boom. *Sigh* In my defense though, other people something like that too.

Oh well, it was his first Major League homer. In fact, it was his first Major League hit. He's the hero. He can feel good about himself for a couple days.

But it was still a ton of fun.

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Some pictures from the day:

mini-bro looking good in his new jersey


our favorite bear


Go-Go looking good with the tall socks


Joey always looks good


Justin always looks good too

Weekend Away

Friday: Twins 9 - Tigers 4
Saturday: [Hmm. I can't seem to remember. It's as if it's been blocked from my memory. I probably have some post-traumatic thing going on.]
Sunday: Twins 6 - Tigers 1
Twins take series 2 - 1

I have a moment of quiet time, so I thought I'd check in quickly. The bummer part of going to the lake with approximately 157 relatives (not quite, it just sounds like it) is that I don't usually get to sit and watch the Twins games. Luckily this time, I did get to watch most of the games. Except for Saturday's; I decided that going on a leisurely boat ride was waaaay more fun than whatever it was the Twins were doing. However, when I do get to watch the games, I absolutely must have the TV muted because of all the commotion. These are times that make me grateful that FSN puts score thingy at the top of the screen so I always know what's going on.
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Good job Kubes on hitting that grand slam on your birthday. You deserve cake for that. In fact, I propose that all Twins hitters should drive in at least four runs (because it's not always possible to get a grand slam, what with depending on the batters ahead of you to get on all at the same time and all) on their birthday before they get cake. Those with off-season birthdays have to get half that on their half-birthday for half a cake. Pitchers must pitch complete game wins to earn their cake. I'm just saying that if everyone just did their part on their birthdays, there would be a lot more wins.
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And finally, this is what I'm looking at right now:


Nice, huh?