glunn

It's blacked out here but I am getting the Angels feed on a local channel.

I think that Dozier has looked tired lately. Hopefully a day off will rejuvenate him.

Moderator note -- if you think that a thread is stupid please don't post in that thread.

I am worried about beating the Indians.

With all due respect, maybe this is a matter of nerves more than desire. It's not that hard to walk a balance beam when it's a foot off the ground. But most people be rattled if the beam was 10 or 20 feet off the ground. Even an Olympic balance beam champion might be reluctant to walk across the Grand Canyon. In some cases, I think that the players who want it the most can be rattled by the pressure. For them, too much desire might result in playing too tight. Does that make sense?

Moderator note -- I have deleted some posts that contained bickering. Personal attacks on other posters are not appropriate.

Tough loss but still only 1.5 games behind the fading Astros.

There is a new place where they make the ice cream to order and freeze it with liquid nitrogen. My dog is slowly working his way through their menu.

I have promised the dog a walk to get ice cream if the Twins win tonight.

Good at bat by a (tired) Brian Dozier?

No, but I hear that it was a cheap one.

142 out of 145 games seems like a lot, and diving for the ball can cause nagging injuries. I wonder how he compares against other second basemen in terms of days rested.

I was at work,

To be fair he has a hit and a run tonight. That said, I wish that he was resting tonight. He has played in 142 games this season.

Because his stats are not great? http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/players/playerpage/1947817/jr-graham

I wonder if the ushers are lenient in letting people move from $10 seats to better seats when there are thousands of better seats like tonight.

Because you would never touch the ball?

Torii!!! This game is far from over.

It looked like Sano would have been out - good decision to hold him.

That is cold but resonates of truth.

It sounds like a lot of people are discouraged, but this game is not yet half over and maybe the Twins will come back. I wish that there were more fans in the stands. A full ballpark might elicit more energy.

I am having trouble understanding the Achter decision. The only thing that I can think of is that maybe he looked great in his last bullpen session and/or maybe some of the other guys have injuries. If anyone has some other justification for bringing in Achter, please post it.

At least I was able to listen to this game on my car radio on the way home. Now I have to eat the dinner that my wife cooked, but the game is in high def and we can still win this. I see the rest of this game as a test of how much energy and focus the Twins can muster down the stretch.

There is wisdom in your position, but how often do the aces get injured or decline? Should the Yankees be happy with the Sabathia deal? Should the Mets be happy with the trade for Yohan Santana? I don't know. What about mid market teams versus big market teams? A $25 million contract would represent a much smaller percentage of payroll for the Dodgers than for the Twins, plus Los Angeles has better weather and endorsement opportunities. How can the Twins compete with the Dodgers and other big market teams without putting too many eggs in one basket? I would also like to see some analysis about deals that were successful and deals that were unsuccessful and that take probabilities/luck into account. I think that there are some fascinating aspects to this, and that the best answer may not be the simplest one.

I once ran for the local school board as a protest candidate. To everyone's surprise, especially my own, I won. This committed me to 4 years of dealing with some spiteful, petty people who were not very intelligent, but I had ideas that saved the district more than $50 million so at least some good came of this debacle. I think that there are many people out there who could do much better than I did, but as ash has stated they are unwilling to wade through the utter filth of modern politics. Over the years, I have begged some of these people to run for the school board and they all refused because they don't want to play the game. So we are left with what we see, which is career politicians who will do whatever they think will keep them in power. I have sometimes thought about running for Congress. The part that I liked best about campaigning was the televised debates. A televised debate can be a great equalizer -- I ran against two incumbents who each outspent me by a factor of at least three, and beat them both. I think that absent the debates, I would not have won. But a Congressional campaign could cost $1 million or more on a shoestring basis and for many/most candidates that means selling your soul to big donors. Also, if you win, then you would have to spend most of your time in DC trying to reason with people who are mostly puppets of their key donors. My solution -- more televised debates at every level, so that newcomers get more of a chance to become known without selling their souls to big donors and so that career politicians have to defend their records more often and more meaningfully. Also, we need to find some way to better engage voters and educate them as to the difference between wheat and chaff. A repeal of Citizens United would also be helpful.