Will’s Title is Too Long

Our first offer for a house was turned down as they received a higher offer. We’re still looking and finding other things. We’ll get to yesterday’s loss eventually. Again, not a lot of managing to do when the games are pretty much decided by the middle innings but it’s a good time to bust out the old:

Most Important Twins Plate Appearance: Michael Cuddyer’s flyout in the fourth
Most Important Twins Pitch: Jermaine Dye’s RBI single in the first

Most Important Twins Plate Appearance: Nick Punto’s base-clearing double
Most Important Twins Pitch: Juan Uribe is retired in the fifth
What Are These Graphs?

The Twins surprisingly won all five games played last week and received valuable contributions from practically everyone (even BOOF in spite of Sunday’s first inning). One of the nice things about playing with the lead is that there is usually less “managing” required.

Sheenie and I are in the midst of our search for our first house and have found a couple that we really like. Now we’re just trying to figure out what to offer and how to overcome the apprehension about handing over a huge chunk of money.

Gardy Decision Tracker: Pat Neshek wasn’t given the entire eighth for the first time this season, but the Big Sweat managed to turn Jim Thome into two outs. Verdict: Success

Gardy Decision Tracker: Again, Pat Neshek was not given the entire eighth inning because the Big Sweat faced Jimbo with ease. Verdict: Success

I’m not going to have an “Ullger Decision Tracker” simply because I despise him (yes, that was me booing him loudly during the lineups on Sunday), and I would probably biased.

2 Successes

I didn’t really see a whole lot of “hidden” stuff happening yesterday while attending the game. To clarify: the positioning and strategy stuff that you just cannot pick up on television that I like to share. About the only thing I noticed was that Nick Punto tried to call a daylight play on second base to pick off Placido Polanco in the first inning, but Boof missed his sign several times. Once the game “got out of hand” both teams called off most of the strategery and just took their hacks. The only other humorous thing was that when Miguel Cabrera stepped in with two outs in the ninth, Rondellmon was standing on the warning track in left field in his “no doubles” position. After Granderson’s stolen base, Young came in about thirty feet.

Most Important Twins Plate Appearance: Carlos Guillen’s error
Most Important Twins Pitch: Jacque Jones bounces into a DP (shocking!)

Most Important Twins Plate Appearance: Joe Mauer’s double in the fourth
Most Important Twins Pitch: Gary Sheffield’s 5-3 groundout in the 6th

Most Important Twins Plate Appearance: Joe Mauer’s 2-run single in the seventh
Most Important Twins Pitch: Ivan Rodriguez strikes out at a wild pitch, yet a run scored from third and Rodriguez reached first base anyway in the first inning
What Are These Graphs?

The Twins managed their first sweep of the season, albeit in just two games. The young pitching staff pitched quite well and the top three men in the bullpen all did their job. That script should work quite well whenever used.

Gardy Decision Tracker: Again, Pat Neshek was not given the entire eighth inning because the Big Sweat faced Jimbo with ease. Verdict: Success

Most Important Twins Plate Appearance: Justin Morneau’s double
Most Important Twins Pitch: Carlos Quentin’s homerun
What is This Graph?

An open letter from Sheenie (and yes I know all about the Top Jimmy connotations)…

Dear All Members of the Minnesota Twins team,

This letter is geared towards all the Twins players that are hitters. I have some beef for you. Dick and Bert have been doing a “what’s my beef” and here is mine. You have to stop swinging at every frickin’ pitch! You are not required to hit the ball pitched at you. There is a reason that in the rules of baseball there are BALLS and STRIKES. Each one of you hitters is given 4 FREE pitches! That means that if you take the first 2 pitches, you, at worst, have 2 strikes and at best you have 2 balls. If you have 2 balls you are half-way to a free base. That’s right. I don’t know if anyone told you that. YOU ARE HALF WAY TO A FREE BASE! I think the only two players on the ENTIRE Twins team that seems to have grasped this concept are Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer. In the first month of play they have over 1/3 of the walks. That’s right 1/7th of the team has 1/3 of the walks. THAT IS NOT RIGHT.

Here are the following Twins that have 1 walk or less in the 1st 30 days of the season:
Michael Cuddyer
Adam Everett
Mike Redmond
Brian Buscher

Here are the following Twins that have 2 walks in the 1st 30 days of the season:
Carlos Gomez
Nick Punto

And Here are the Twins that have 3 walks in the 1st 30 days of the season:
Mike Lamb
Mike Tolbert
Jason Kubel
Craig Monroe
Denard Span

And to make all you Twins feel bad:
Nick Markakis on the BALTIMORE ORIOLES has 22 walks in the 1st 30 days of the season.
Albert Pujols has 28 walks in the 1st 30 days of the season.

My point to all you Twins. WALK! DON’T swing at every pitch! Do you not understand that for every walk you earn I have a team of people who are donating money to the Susan G. Koman 3 day walk?! Do you not understand that your walks are helping find a cure to breast cancer?! I have read Ball Four so I know exactly how much baseball players like boobs. So, in conclusion, if you are a Twins player, and you like boobs then don’t frickin’ swing at the pitch!! AND for the love of G-d if you have a 3-1 count DO NOT SWING AT THE BALL UNLESS YOU KNOW YOU ARE GOING TO HIT A HOMERUN!

Love,
Laurie

Gardy Decision Tracker: Pat Neshek wasn’t given the entire eighth for the first time this season, but the Big Sweat managed to turn Jim Thome into two outs. Verdict: Success

Most Important Twins Plate Appearance: Jason Kubel’s homerun
Most Important Twins Pitch: The Big Sweat gets Jim Thome to hit a long flyball and catch Nick Swisher being a big moron
What Is This Graph?

I admit, it was a pretty chaotic weekend at work so I was unable to watch much on Friday and Saturday. Instead, I spent my Saturday as a volunteer scorekeeper for the College Bowl National Tournament which we hosted at Macalester. Wow, now I have a pretty strong knowledge of obscure and useless trivia, but these contestants put me to shame.

Sunday was spent looking at houses with a real estate agent as Sheenie and I are beginning to get serious about leaving St. Paul. We went to 9 total and are getting a solid idea of what we like and dislike. We’ll be doing more of the same for awhile until we find the one. After the house search, we attended “Pirates of Penzance” at Holy Angels where my sister was performing. They did a pretty good job acting, with scenery, costumes, etc. However, the old baseball saying applies: “You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit.” Gilbert and Sullivan must have been smoking some major crack when they wrote the play because it contained the most godawful plot I have ever seen.

Anyway, I do like the fact that Joe Nathan can be used with a 9-run deficit to “get some work” but not in a tie game when he hadn’t pitched in two days. Because that makes a lot of sense.

Gardy Decision Tracker: Joe Nathan went missing on Friday night. Ron Wincone made an appearance instead. Verdict: Fail

Most Important Twins Plate Appearance: Justin Morneau’s first inning single
Most Important Twins Pitch: David Murphy’s game winning single

Most Important Twins Plate Appearance: Delmon Strosity’s seventh inning single
Most Important Twins Pitch: David Murphy’s third inning single

Most Important Twins Plate Appearance: Joe Mauer’s strikeout in the first (seriously)
Most Important Twins Pitch: Milton Bradley’s homer
What Are These Graphs?

Gardy Decision Tracker: Nick Punto contributed yet another pitiful bunt attempt in the ninth inning on Tuesday attempting to move Matt Tolbert to second base. Rather than retry that disaster for the thousandth time, Gardy pulled off the bunt and called the hit-and-run. Punto executed it perfectly. Verdict: Success

Gardy Decision Tracker: On the other hand, Matt Tolbert failed to get a bunt down in the first inning and was given the hit-away sign. He promptly hit into a double-play in the first inning rather than continuing to try to bunt. Verdict: Fail

Gardy Decision Tracker: Mike Sweeney walked to start the second inning on Wednesday. Despite having injured legs causing him to move more slowly than a glacier, Gardy didn’t bother to have anyone inform Justin Morneau holding him to first base is pointless. Sure enough, Jack Cust singled right to where Morneau normally would be standing moving Sweeney to third base and setting up the first run. Verdict: Fail

Gardy Decision Tracker: Joe Nathan went missing on Friday night. Ron Wincone made an appearance instead. Verdict: Fail

1 Success

3 Failures

Notice that I had to use an “ed” instead of an apostrophe. Boy, that sure sucked. He’s going back to Rochester to work on quite a few things, but why bring up Bobby Korecky. Was Gardy worried that the team might reach the 15th inning a game having already used Nathan, Neshek, Rincon, Crain, Guerrier, and Bass and would be running low on right-handed relievers? Shouldn’t a team with an offense this bad want another bench player (of course, that would require having an AAAA-level bat sitting around in the minors)?

Most Important Twins Plate Appearance: gogomez didn’t bunt!
Most Important Twins Pitch: ball four to Darth Thomas in the first inning
What is This Graph?