Blake

Oh great, what have I done? I think I've "let loose the dogs of baseball minutiae." Anyway, very cool!

Lineups to follow. MIN Grossman RH Polanco SS Sano 3b Vargas 1b Escobar DH Gimenez C Rosario LF Buxton CF Adrianza 2b Ervin Santana BOS Betts RF Pedroia 2b Bogaerts SS Benintendi CF Ramirez DH Moreland 1b Young LF Leon C Marrero 3b Chris Sale

The first game against the White Red Sox went well. Okay, maybe not well, but it wound up in the "Win" column due to late inning heroics by Joe Mauer. Then, game II rolled around. And, as expected, the game was over early. And here we go: game three with Ervin Santana on the mound against Chris Sale. Should be a good one! Deep Thoughts 1. Why is a baseball diamond, which is actually a square, called a diamond? If you do the geometry, the bases are arranged in a square, with each base 90 feet apart. And the pitching rubber is 60' 6" from home plate. Which is just over halfway to 2nd base. I'm not sure if it was due to bad math or if the Pythagorean Theorem had yet to be invented. Anyway, the actual half way distance is √ ((90x2)*2)/2, 63.639 inches. Although, if the distance is measured to the front of the pitching rubber, then, since the rubber is 6 inches wide, the math works, almost. Though for us purists,(I say purist, you say " Obsessive Compulsive) for it to be exactly right, the pitching rubber would need to be moved three inches plus a smidgen closer. (I may or may not have actually done the math) 1A. I suppose if one takes into account the outfield, then, yes, the total field resembles a diamond. Although, to me, it's more like the shape of giant snow cone. Which probably explains why some catches in the outfield are called "snowcones." 2. Baseball has expanded to become a world wide sport since its humble beginnings when Abner Doublday laid out the first baseball diamond. Since baseball is expanding, and with new worlds yet to be explored, who knows, maybe some day there will be a Universe Series in which all of the World Series winners will compete for the "Universe Series" title. 3. Park on a driveway and drive on a parkway? Ah, the vagaries of the English language. 4. People complain about the length of baseball games. Yet, has anyone ever looked at the length of time it takes to play a football game? There are 4 quarters of 15 minutes each with half time being another 15 minutes. That totals up to 1 hour and 15 minutes. Yet, somehow, a football game takes 3 hours or more. Which is about the same amount of time for the greatest sport in the world, baseball. 5. Cheerleaders. For some reason, football sees a need for scantily clad attractive ladies on the sidelines to "cheer" the team on. Baseball, being a much more sober and thoughtful sport, doesn't resort to such frippery. Lineups to follow. Play ball!

Truth be told, we love meatloaf here too. And ever since I got the pellet grill and started smoking the meatloaf for an hour before turning the heat up..oh man..

Do you think the organization would go that deep into the system or are those the best options available? With the way the Twins have screwed up promotions from AA, I'm a bit leery of promoting from AA ball.

At this point, I'm not so much worried about winning games as I'm about getting different players up so we're not doing the "the more things change, the more they stay the same" routine. It's looking like the new management wanted to make sure what they'd been seeing is actually what they'd been seeing before getting rid of players. I think the questionable players were being given one more chance to show they had something. Also, this is the kind of thing that lets a team know the FO isn't screwing around and expects results.

Mrs. Ash reads TD, doesn't she?

I got mental whiplash reading that.

Castro is looking incredibly proficient at hanging on to foul tips. The man seems to be very quick, especially for his size.

You're Shirley Serious? Nice to meet you.

This isn't a playoff team. This is a team that is in process of finding out who is a big league player and who is not. Do I like it? No. but I want to keep my expectations in line with where the organization is right now.

Hopefully, theory #2 works out better than theory #1.

Seriously?

Yeah, that error by Polanco was as untimely an error as I've ever seen.

Well, the Twins sort of need to bat at some point in order to make up a few runs.

Mauer did the "little kid fantasy" walk off. Bottom of the ninth, two outs, two strikes. I'm still in shock over that one.

Bait?

Okay, that deserves a repost of this:

Wasn't even a flower pot scraper.

What weird universe am I in? Mauer? Really?

Winner!

That curveball that looks like it starts at the hitter and breaks over the outside corner is nasty.

Yeah, for now. In the morning? Mr. Dozier might not be a very happy camper.

Finally, a bit of a break. Raced home to cook because my wife isn't up to snuff. Now if Phil could find a way to keep balls in the ballpark and give Twins fans a break.

Trying to survive Friday so I can sleep in tomorrow. It's busy, to say the least.