I had the pleasure of watching today's game in person at Hammond Stadium, versus the portion of the St Louis Cardinal roster they deemed worth putting on a bus (hint: no stars). This writeup ought to be pretty quick, because it's one of those rare games where the box score plus a little inference pretty much tells you all you need to know.

But first, I'll mention that we didn't have tickets to start with, and didn't want to feed the scalpers - but a little bird had told us that tickets get freed up just before most games - seats that are controlled by the two teams (for players' relatives etc) until they are sure they aren't needed. So we got there 2.5 hours early and waited half an hour, and sure enough we wound up getting $29 seats nearly behind home plate on the third base side up near the top. Seems high priced for spring games but the world is like that now. Just a little tip for those of you wanting to attend games.

Kyle Gibson was as good as his line score would suggest - batters were not able to distinguish his offspeed offerings and were getting fooled by them. Two hits, no runs, four strikeouts, in four innings. A little shaky in the third, followed up by a strong fourth. Very hopeful sign.

I've not been a strong proponent of Tim Stauffer when the news broke that the Twins had signed him, and nothing today improved my view on him. He got through his first inning with no drama and three ground balls, but his next two innings showed he was no mystery to the Cardinal batters and they piled up four Very Earned Runs in that span. I thought it was silly to envision him as a competitor for the fifth starter spot - now put him back in low-leverage situations like the Padres had him, is my advice.

The rest of the game was your usual parade of relievers, who did OK but nothing great, allowing two more runs in total. The last run was aided by some shoddy left field work by Nunez who allowed an extra base by not being able to decide whether to dive for a flare or not, winding up letting it drop but then not corralling the ball to keep the baserunner from getting to third, whereupon he scored on a sac fly. Bad luck to Fien I guess, but he did allow the first hit legitimately. This run was the one that tied it at 6-6, which was the eventual final score.

Conversely the Twins scored 5 early runs, three in the third capped by a Brian Dozier two-run homer to left following a Schafer RBI, and two more in the fourth that drove off starter Carlos Martinez when Suzuki doubled down the third base line. Nice. After that the Card bullpen was effective, though they let in another run in the seventh when Herrmann drove in Argenis Diaz. (I was surprised to see Herrmann playing first after Mauer was lifted, so I guess they really are grooming him to be super-sub, and thus likely to be the 25th man on Opening Day.)

Twins fans at Hammond today were outnumbered by Cardinal fans. They were courteous but toward the end of the game the repeated rallies had them cheering their favorites on, and the Twins fans were too "Minnesota Nice" (I guess) to put up much of a fuss.

The game ended on Nunez being thrown out at the plate trying to score on a short single to left, having been waved in by coach Glynn. With 2 out and weak hitters now in the lineup it was the obvious call for the situation, as all choices at that point had become low percentage and this was the most entertaining one to try. I saw it as him being out by at least two steps, leaving matters at 6-6, and it being Spring they did not go to extras. Everyone departed in a good mood - perhaps as in soccer, a "friendly" played to a tie.