Date: 9/16/09

Opponent: Cleveland Indians

Home/Away: Home

Starting Pitcher: Blackburn

Final Score: W 7-3

Record: 74-72

Best Moment: The Twins pull off the sweep! Cleveland's one of those teams that we seem to have trouble beating when it matters, so it was a bit of a relief to win that one, especially with the unreliable Blackburn pitching for us, and Aaron Laffey pitching for the Indians, who always seems to be tough on the Twins. With the Tigers losing 2 of 3 to the Royals, we are now only 4 games back. The Twins are certainly putting up a fight after I thought they were dead several times over. We're also now on a 4-game winning streak. 1 more and we will tie our longest streak of 5 games.

We had another big day offensively. Span, Mauer, Cuddyer, Morales and Tolbert all had multiple hits and Kubel had a single. Some aggressive baserunning also helped as we took advantage of Cleveland's inability to throw to the right base. Blackburn rebounded from his rough outing to pitch 6.1 innings with 2 earned runs. The offense has gotten back on track a bit (Perhaps the removal of the flailing and injured Morneau did the trick?) and Cuddyer has been leading the way. Quite impressive given his usual tendency to choke with runners on base.

Most Questionable Moment: Yes, Matt Tolbert got 2 hits. Yes, I still think he is terrible, and I'm pissed about his frequent playing time. Didn't we try this experiment? And didn't it suck? As I recall, he started off well for a couple games when he was called up before falling off a cliff into Casillaland. Color me unconvinced. I suppose I shouldn't complain since we're winning games, but not complaining isn't my forte. In other news, Cabrera went 0 for 4 and grounded into a double play, and again I wonder why the fuck he's batting second. One of the radio commentators said something about how he has really solidiified the two hole. Um, no he has not. He's just as bad as all the other shitty hitters Gardy stuck up there. As a Twin, he's batting .242 with a horrible .274 on base percentage. How can Gardy think that's a good thing to have sandwiched between Span's .389 OBP and Mauer's .441 OBP? Will someone stop the insanity?!?!

Worst Moment: The bullpen sure decided to add some drama to the game today. Blackburn allowed a baserunner in the 7th, so Mijares came on and saved his ass. Then Mijares got into trouble in the 8th, and Crain was sent out with 2 runners on base and did not retire a batter and allowed a run to score. So Guerrier entered with the bases loaded and saved Crain's ass. Then in the 9th, Guerrier was kept in the game, but he had some trouble and had runners at 2nd and 3rd, which sent Gardy running for Nathan. Nathan saved Guerrier's ass by striking out the next 2 batters to end the game. They got the job done in the end, but it wasn't pretty.

Quotations of the Day:

• "Do or die now. It's what we've been looking for all year, since spring training. We need to win the series." - Denard Span
• "It's not unlike any other season, though. Last year I was out. Every year you're going to lose someone, and every team goes through that. It's the teams that can overcome those obstacles that end up on top in the end." - Michael Cuddyer
• "The road here has not been exactly the way we planned it--through injuries and inconsistent play. But we're in a pennant race. That's where everybody wants to be." - Ron Gardenhire
• "The way we've played this year, it's amazing we still have a chance and it's sitting in front of us. At this point we need everybody to contribute. Even the guys that are hurt we need them to cheer us on." - Michael Cuddyer

Suck-Ass Performance of the Game: Jesse Crain (0.0 innings pitched, 1 hit, 1 walk, 1 inherited runner scored). Technically it was Mijares's runner, but Crain really sucked today. And we scored 7 runs, so the offense wasn't really a problem. Plus no one struck out today, which is pretty impressive for our team.