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Game Thread: Twins v. Blue Jays, 9/17/17 @ 1:10 PM CT

PDX Twin

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PDX Twin Ft Myers Mighty Mussels

PDX Twin

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Today it’s the Blue Jays again, as the Twins try to scramble their way over the finish line ahead of the Angels and the rest of the chasing mob. And the Angels are now breathing down their necks. (Do angels breathe? They sing, so they must breathe, right?) With a tough road trip ahead and on the heels of two total duds against the Jays, this looks like a pretty important game; it’s probably a really bad time for a game-thread author whose record so far is 0-2…

 

The all-knowing Internet tells me that there are ten species of jays in North America. Toronto had a nice choice of colors: they could have chosen to be the Gray Jays, Brown Jays, or Green Jays. The Gray Jay is also known as the Canada Jay, maybe because “gray” isn’t a word in Canada. It seems like that would have been a more obvious choice for a mascot.

 

Jay, of course, is a word that is also a letter. When I started thinking about it, I realized that there are an amazing number of these in English: eh?, bee, see/sea, Gee (as in Dillon), aye, jay, oh, pee, queue, are, tee/tea, you, why, and probably a few that have slipped past me. There are also a few single-letter words: “a,” “I,” and, at least for Shakespeare, “o.”

 

The last time the Twins played meaningful September games I was living in Slovakia (where the evening home games started at 2:10am the next day, local time). Among the unusual properties of the Slovak language, at least unusual to an American monoglot, is an aversion to letters we know as vowels. My personal theory is that when L’udovít Štúr created the modern written version of Slovak in the mid-19th century, he couldn’t afford to buy vowels from Vanna White’s local distributor. That led to words like “vzbľknuť” (which is pronounced like it looks and means “to ignite”), to sentences like “Strč prst skrz krk” (which means roughly “put a finger through your throat”), and to names like Hrbek. Once you get accustomed to it, the absence of useless vowels seems not only reasonable but downright economical. I mean, why do we need four letters to spell “pull” when “pl” would be perfectly satisfactory? Let’s all pl for the Twins today!

 

Another quirk of the Slovak language is lots of one-letter words, and whereas all of the one-letter English words seem to be vowels, some of the Slovak ones are consonants. “A” = “and,” “i” = “also,” “k” = “to,” “o” = “about,” “s” = “with,” “u” can be almost any preposition in appropriate context, “v” = “in,” and “z” = “from.” When I first saw the name of the university at which I was to teach, Ekonomická univerzita v Bratislave, I thought the v must be an abbreviation. Nope, “v Bratislave” just means “in Bratislava.”

 

One final Slovak anecdote: One of the great joys of Bratislava is the Slovak Philharmonic, which plays in a lovely old building in the center of the city and for which the most expensive ticket was around $15. At one of our first concerts, we were expecting a Tchaikovsky symphony, but the (only Slovak language) program described a work by Čajkowsky. It seems that the Slovak spelling of his name does not start with a “T,” but it does start with a “tea,” because “čaj” is the Slovak word for tea.

 

Twins Daily favorite Kyle Gibson (10-10, 4.97 ERA, 1.56 WHIP) gets the ball today against Joe Biagini (3-10, 5.07 ERA, 1.36 WHIP), who has lots of vowels in his name. Lineups to be posted when available.

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PDX Twin Ft Myers Mighty Mussels

PDX Twin

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And the lineups:

 

Blue Jays

1. Ezequiel Carrera ( L ) RF
2. Josh Donaldson ( R ) 3B
3. Justin Smoak ( S ) 1B
4. Jose Bautista ( R ) DH
5. Michael Saunders ( L ) LF
6. Kevin Pillar ( R ) CF
7. Ryan Goins ( L ) 2B
8. Raffy Lopez ( L ) C
9. Richard Urena ( S ) SS

 

P. Joe Biagini  ( R )

 

Twins
1. Brian Dozier ( R ) 2B
2. Joe Mauer ( L ) 1B
3. Jorge Polanco ( S ) SS
4. Eddie Rosario ( L ) LF
5. Byron Buxton ( R ) CF
6. Max Kepler ( L ) RF
7. Eduardo Escobar ( S ) 3B
8. Jason Castro ( L ) C
9. Robbie Grossman ( S ) DH

 

P. Kyle Gibson ( R )

ashbury GOAT

ashbury

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With a name like Joe Biagini, I will be highly disappointed if he doesn't turn to pasta sauce manufacturing after his MLB career is over

He could also make big money in the glamorous field of Wedding Soup manufacture.

PDX Twin Ft Myers Mighty Mussels

PDX Twin

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How about just walking Donaldson the rest of the game - he is hot and we can't get him out.

 

How about a high and inside pitch to get his pants dirty?

PDX Twin Ft Myers Mighty Mussels

PDX Twin

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Gibby's ERA is back over 5. Will he get it back under before the end of the season? Will he get a chance to get it back under before the end of the season?

Hosken Bombo Disco All-Star

Hosken Bombo Disco

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Really tired of guys like Donaldson continuing to crush Twins pitching. The guy is not a .650 hitter on the season with a 2.500 slugging percentage. If the Twins don't know how to pitch the guy to get him out, that's on the front office or game planning.

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