Date: 7/20/09

Opponent: Oakland A's

Home/Away: Away

Starting Pitcher: Blackburn

Final Score: L 14-13

Record: 47-46

Best Moment: Words...fail me. No, wait, I do have 1 word for you: Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. We've had some bad games, but I don't think you can argue that that was the worst game of the year, on all kinds of levels. But there was one positive in the game, and that was the offense. Our 3, 4 and 5 hitters (Morneau, Cuddyer and Kubel) went a combined 10 for 13 with 4 home runs, 2 doubles, 12 RBIs, and 5 walks. Morneau had 7 RBIs with a grand slam and a 3-run homer. Redmond and Harris each had 2 hits, Span and Young each had a hit, as did Mauer in his pinch-hitting appearance. Casilla and Punto were the only starters without hits, but both of them had walks. All that and we still lost.

Most Questionable Moment: Well, the obvious one is the umpire blowing the game-ending call at home plate. Cuddyer was on 2nd after hitting a 2-out double in the top of the 9th with the Twins down by a run. The Oakland pitcher threw a wild pitch that bounced merrily on its way through Oakland's miles of foul territory, and Cuddyer attempted to score. He slid into home plate between the legs of the pitcher, and he was way, way, way safe. Unfortunately the ump either couldn't see the play well from where he had positioned himself or simply wanted to end the game and called Cuddyer out. We might have lost anyway, but it would have at least given us another chance. Not that we deserved one based on the way we played.

Gardy also made some interesting managerial decisions. I'm not sure why he didn't bring Mulvey into the game earlier when we actually had a lead. He was the most rested bullpen pitcher, and he would have had a 6-run lead to work with if we had let him pitch in the 6th inning. Dickey might have been another good choice since he only threw a few pitches in the loss against the Rangers. The decision to pinch-hit Mauer for Casilla instead of Redmond in the 8th inning was sort of weird, too. Harris led off the inning with a single, and then Redmond was charged with advancing him to 2nd base. Our backup catcher is not the ideal choice for a sac bunt, and he couldn't lay one down with the first 2 attempts, forcing him to swing away. So of course he grounded into a double play. After the GIDP, Mauer batted for Casilla anyway, which seemed sort of moronic. Why waste your best pinch-hitting option in a 2-out, none on situation?

Worst Moment: We blew a 10-run lead. A 10-run lead. 10 RUNS! 10! How did we even manage that? Oh yeah, our most consistent pitcher was on the mound, and he was bleeding runs. Our bullpen couldn't finish off an inning and gave up 7 runs in the 7th inning. Duensing was typically bad, Keppel had his long overdue implosion (although he has been overworked in the past few days), and Mijares gave up the 1 run we could not afford to give up. Our defense couldn't convert balls in play into outs. Morneau overran a foul pop-up in that horrible inning that could have meant the difference in the game. To summarize, starting pitching = fuckterrible, relief pitcing = fuckterrible, defense = fuckterrible, home plate umpire = fuckterrible, manager = fuckterrible, my mood = fuckterrible.

Quotations of the Day: 

• "We just didn't pitch good enough tonight." - Ron Gardenhire, with the understatement of the year.
• "No doubt in my mind I was safe." - Michael Cuddyer. No doubt in anyone's mind you were safe.
• "No thanks." - The umpiring crew chief, when asked to comment after the game.
• "Cuddy slid in and was safe. There is no doubt about that. We also shot ourselves in the foot pitching-wise. It's hard to point the finger and say, 'He blew it,' because we did enough blowing it ourselves." - Ron Gardenhire
• "It's frustrating for me. I have a great chance to just go out there and eat some innings up. If I give up a couple runs, so what. But for me to struggle as bad as I did, that's really frustrating and that shouldn't happen." - Nick Blackburn
• "It's one of those replays where you're glad it's not football." - Oakland pitcher Michael Wuertz, thanking his lucky stars for the umpire's bad call.
• "I think the anger stage has passed. It was a tough game to lose.” - Justin Morneau
• "Is his name Gid?" - My sister, misreading the Oakland pitcher Gio Gonzalez's name on the screen.

Suck-Ass Performance of the Game: Nick Blackburn (5.0 innings pitched, 13 hits, 2 home runs, 7 earned runs), Brian Duensing (1.1 innings pitched, 4 hits, 2 walks, 3 earned runs), Bobby Keppel (0.0 innings pitched, 2 hits, 1 walk, 1 home run, 3 earned runs), Jose Mijares (1.1 innings pitched, 3 hits, 1 home run, 1 earned run), Nick Punto (0 for 5, 2 strikeouts, 1 error, 5 left on base), and Alexi Casilla (0 for 3, 3 left on base). Yeah, I'm just picking the whole lot of them today.