Date: 6/10/10

Opponent: Kansas City Royals

Home/Away: Home

Starting Pitcher: Baker

Final Score: L 9-8

Record: 35-25

Recap: Where do I even start with that game? I was breaking out in fits in hysterical laughter throughout the game for various reasons, and then we ended up losing by 1 run. It just struck me as hilarious that we gave up so many runs we shouldn't have, missed scoring runs we should have, and then ended up coming back from a 7-run deficit to lose by 1. There are a lot of fuck-ups, mental mistakes, and general suckitude to go over, but I shall make my best attempt to wade through that shit pile of a game while casting aspersions on the character of many a Twin as well as spewing venom and snarkiness in all directions.

First of all, and let's get this out of the way immediately, Matt Tolbert should not be batting second. I've said it before, and I'll say it every time he's there. All he does is create outs, erase baserunners, and create a giant hole in the lineup, all while getting more at bats than much, much, much better players. And while his presence in the 2-hole hasn't always been that costly, it certainly was today, starting with the 1st inning. Span led off with a base hit. Tolbert came up and did what he does best: create outs. He grounded into a double play. Naturally Mauer and Morneau followed with singles, and Span could have scored had some loser not erased him from the bases already. To be fair, Gardy commented after the game that Span had missed a hit-and-run there which might have kept him out of the double play, but still. If only Tolbert had just done us all a favor and struck out. Thank you, Ron Gardenhire, for your brilliant lineup construction!

After Baker reverted to typical form and gave up a couple homers and 3 runs in the top of the 2nd, the Twins had a great chance to get back in the game in the bottom of the 3rd. Punto singled and Span doubled, leading to runners at 2nd and 3rd with no outs. Up comes Matt Tolbert, who again did what he does best: create outs. This time he was kind enough to strike out and limit his damage to 1 out. Joe Mauer then stepped up to the plate and drove a deep fly ball to center. Span, displaying the baserunning instincts of a Little Leaguer as he often has this season, didn't read the ball properly and took off toward 3rd, all the way toward 3rd. Punto, who amazingly did not make a similar mistake, tagged up and was prepared to score on a sac fly. At least until he saw Span coming at him and realized that a double play was running. Punto tried to yell at Span and wave him back toward 2nd, but for some reason Punto didn't realize that his run would score if he made it home before the out was made at 2nd. So instead of hustling home, he jogged on in, clearly irritated, as Span was doubled off before he reached the plate.

Bert and Dick began speculating that Punto simply didn't know the rule. I couldn't believe that. I mean, here was a guy being payed millions of dollars to play baseball; surely he knew the rule. After all, I knew the rule, and I'm simply a semi-informed fan. I was absolutely convinced that Dick and Bert were wrong and that Punto did know and was simply caught up in the heat of the moment. But after the game, Punto confirmed that he indeed did not know. How can he not know that shit?!?! It's his freaking livelihood! And that idiotic two-pronged baserunning blunder cost us another run. Ugh.

The game continued to spiral downward. Baker allowed another run in the 4th. Then he gave up another run in the 5th, aided by Michael Cuddyer. Jose Guillen tripled on a ball to right field. I've tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but Michael Cuddyer is completely inept out there. I have yet to see him play a carom well. And in this case, he probably could have caught the ball if he had backed up a bit farther. I'm sick of seeing balls hit the wall or the overhang and careen past him back toward the infield. It's happened multiple times. I would be far more forgiving if every right fielder were struggling out there, but in this very same game David DeJesus was playing bounces off the wall with no trouble. Cuddyer has the most experience out there, but you would think he'd never been in the outfield. So Cuddyer misplaying that ball cost us another run that would have been preventable had Guillen been held to a double.

We went into the top of the 6th inning down 5 to 1. I was pretty pissed at this point because I knew the game could be a lot closer. And then, as if we weren't having a bad enough game, we decided to have one of the roughest defensive innings I can recall. Jesse Crain was on to relieve the hapless Baker. It started out easily enough, with a line out and strike out. Then Crain walked a batter. It didn't seem like such a horrible thing at the time. We only needed 1 more out after all. Little did I know how elusive that out would be. The next batter hit a ball up the middle, which Crain attempted to make a barehanded play on. Instead, it ricocheted off his hand toward Punto, who couldn't get a handle on the ball, and both runners were safe. Error #1 in the inning, and Punto's first of the year. The next batter hit a routine grounder to short. Punto, perhaps shaken by the sudden knowledge of his defensive mortality, had the ball go right under his glove and through his legs. A run scored on the play, and runners were at 1st and 3rd. Error #2 of the inning. This was actually the first 2-error game of Punto's career. At this point I started with the hysterical laughter. I'm fairly certain my roommate thought I had gone insane. It just felt like one of those games were nothing goes right. Then there was another ground ball. Tolbert tracked it down in shallow right field and got a glove on it, but it bounced away and everyone was safe again. Amusingly Tolbert crawled to the ball. This was actually my favorite part of the play, and I rewound several times to watch it. Another run scored on this play, and then a third scored on a single. We finished the inning with a third error (this time on Tolbert), before finally getting the last out. It was the first 3-error inning for the Twins since 2003. 3 unearned runs scored in the inning.

Now down 8 to 1, the Twins decided to toy with my emotions. I was fine with the Twins making millions of mistakes and getting blown out, but no, they decided to make all of those mistakes actually mean something. We rallied in the 7th inning for 5 runs. Everyone contributed somehow except Cuddyer and Kubel. Punto, Span and Tolbert all had hits, RBIs, and runs, but that's what I call too little, too late. We finished the inning down by only 2 runs.

In the top of the 9th, Duensing gave up a rare home run to give the Royals a 3-run lead. It turned out to be the winning run. We again mounted a rally in the bottom of the 9th against Joakim Soria. Punto got the 1st out of the inning before Span singled. Thome pinch-hit for Tolbert and struck out. Then Mauer and Morneau came through with RBIs before Cuddyer flew out to end the game. 1 fricking run. That's what we lost by. We should have scored at least 1 or 2 more runs, and we gave up 3 or 4 runs that we shouldn't have. If we had made one less mistake, we still might have won the game. That's a little frustrating. This has to win Most Fuckterrible Loss of the Season (at least so far). There weren't a lot of positives, but Mauer, Morneau and Young all had good games and no obvious mistakes, mental or otherwise. Span may have enrolled in the Nick Punto School for Boneheaded Baserunners, but he did have 4 hits. Mahay and Burnett pitched well. All the rest is negative.

The Atlanta Braves are in town tomorrow, which should be fun. Also, J.J. Hardy is back on the DL, and Trevor Plouffe is on his way from Rochester. 

Best Moment: Mauer making a great catch on a foul pop-up behind home plate, reaching around the netting.

Most Questionable Moment: Matt Tolbert batting second. Like I said, I'm going to keep saying that until he is removed from that postition.

Worst Moment: You can't really expect me to pick just one, can you?

Quotations of the Day:

• "Nudity causes rallies!" - Me, after yelling at the fans to start taking their shirts off to aid the rally in the 7th.
• "A lot of different things happened and probably as sloppy as we've played in a long time. I don't remember the last time we had a defensive ballgame as bad as this one. You've got to live with it and, like we always said, mistakes will kill you. And tonight it did." - Ron Gardenhire
• "It was an atrocious inning. It cost us the game. It's tough. To lose a game like that defensively, it's hard to swallow." - Nick Punto, referring to the 3-error 6th inning.
• "We were talking about it. No nobody really knew. It's amazing that in this game as long as I have played, there's something new that comes up. A lot of us didn't even know the rule." - Nick Punto, on none of the players knowing that the run would have counted in the 3rd inning. Seriously? Nobody really knew? I know baseball players aren't exactly prized for their intelligence, but there needs to be some sort of quiz before they're allowed in the Majors.
• "Span lost track of all whatever." - Ron Gardenhire, apparently at a loss to explain what had happened on Span's baserunning mistake.
• "You tag up, you haul ass, as they say." - Ron Gardenhire, frustrated at Punto for not running hard on the same play.

Suck-Ass Performance of the Game: Brace yourselves. There was a lot of suck in that game. Scott Baker (5.0 innings pitched, 8 hits, 2 home runs, 1 walk, 5 earned runs, 1 loss), Denard Span (1 huge baserunning error), Matt Tolbert (1 for 4, 1 strikeout, 1 GIDP, 3 left on base, 1 error), Michael Cuddyer (0 for 5, 1 strikeout, 4 left on base), and Nick Punto (1 baserunning mistake, 2 errors).