HOME-STAND SWEEP!

The Twins just did something they have never done before at Target Field: sweep an entire home-stand!

Granted, the home-stand was just three games long. And it was against the struggling Seattle Mariners. But whatever. Twins swept the home-stand! WOOHOO!

On Friday night, Ken Burns—as in “Ken Burns: Baseball”—threw out one of the many ceremonial “first” pitches that occur before every game.






While throwing out the pitch, the PA guy said that “Baseball” is the most watched program on PBS ever, which I did not know. I am not surprised though—it has to be the best documentary of all time. It’s all about baseball. So if for some reason you haven’t seen this, please set aside 18 hours the next Twins off-day to watch the documentary in its entirety. Then sometime on or after next September 28th and 29th, set aside 4 more hours to watch Ken Burns’ new sequel covering everything that has happened in baseball since 1994. It’s going to be awesome.




After seeing Ken Burns, I got my first glimpse of the newest Minnesota Twin—Matt Capps.





I was a little dismayed to see him wearing number 55, but I guess if Mike Redmond ever comes back just to hang out he doesn’t really need his number. It’s also hard for me to hold it against Capps after finding out he’s good friends with Doug Mientkiewicz, who even texted Capps on Thursday night to congratulate him on going to the Twins. Any good friend of Doug’s is a good friend of mine. Even A-Rod (who, if you didn’t know, was on the same high school baseball team as Doug).




When the game started, I noticed something much more upsetting.






Lee Tinsley is no longer the Mariners' first base coach! Now he’s all the way over at third base! AND HE'S NOT EVEN WEARING HIS SOCKS UP TO SHOW OFF HIS GLORIOUS CALVES! As if Ken Griffey Jr. retiring before the trip to Target Field wasn't bad enough.



But the Mariners are still fun to see because of Ichiro, who is one of my favorite players and really fun to watch.











Ichiro is especially fun to watch when a Twins’ pitcher gets him to strike out three times in one game, which Kevin Slowey accomplished on Saturday. Slowey, along with Tim Hudson in 2003 and Josh Beckett in 2007, are the only pitchers to ever accomplish this.







In the second inning of Friday’s game, Thome hit his 577th career homerun to put the Twins ahead 2-0. And then Seattle’s left fielder Michael Saunders did this:







Yes—he stuck his spikes through the wall, lifted himself up, and RIPPED A GIANT HOLE! Didn’t anyone tell Michael that this is a brand new stadium, with brand new walls, partially funded with tax-payer dollars, so don’t come in and mess it all up you dung monkey!?

On Saturday, the Mariners did not rip any holes in the wall. But you could still see where the Twins had to patch up the hole from the day before.









Saturday’s game went by pretty quick—it only lasted 2 hours and 7 minutes—so our ride was late picking us up from the ballpark. This wasn’t a problem though—we just hung out at Hrbek’s, which is like Disney Land for Twins fans who like to get boozy.








Try the Rex burger from here sometime--but cut it in half before biting in. It's a juicy Lucy, which I learned (the hard way) will explode all over your pants if you're not careful.


I also found a table I thought I wanted in my house:





But about a minute later I found the one I actually want in my house:




Never mind the fact that I don’t even have a house.


Don’t these people look happy?






Other pictures from the home-stand:

Henry Blanco jersey!

Ichiro running.

Ichiro stretching (which he does a lot).

Wally’s all hopped up on Vitamin D.

Kevin Slowey and some neat shadows.

Beautiful day.

I'm really liking the vines on these things.

Chone Figgins after Thome's 577th career homerun.

Japanese fans are the best.

Check out this awesome, successful dive by Casilla!

Making Punto jealous!

All pictures used in this post are courtesy of me (the stupid ones) or my Mom (the awesome ones)!

Twins Sweep Tigers: Break Out the Small Whiskbrooms

Break out your small whiskbrooms Target Fielders—we finally have ourselves a sweep!

Series MVP? The Tigers! As Danny Gladden put it fairly well earlier today: “The Tigers are just horrendous . . . at catching the ball.” Not to mention the Twins getting their first walk off win at Target Field Tuesday night on a wild pitch from Detroit pitcher Ryan Perry.





That was pretty sweet, wasn't it?



Other thoughts, comments, and observations:

The “Keeping Ramos and Mauer” Debate. The current hot discussion about how the Twins should go about keeping Ramos and Mauer on the team needs to stop. Really. The Twins aren’t going to be moving Mauer to third, aren’t going to be moving Ramos to third, and aren’t even—as one comment I saw suggested—going to be trading Cuddyer so that Mauer and Ramos can be platooned at catcher/DH. (Take a second to soak in the stupid.)

Ramos is a catcher. He has been a catcher his entire minor league career. That’s part of what makes him so valuable (good hitting catchers are, in fact, hard to come by). People out there seem to think Ramos can fill the Twins’ hole at third base by just moving him there. Ok--remember when the Yankees somehow came up with the brilliant idea of using Joba Chamberlain as a starter? Ramos at third would be like that, except fifty times worse.

The Twins need to trade Ramos for a something like a third baseman or starting pitcher of hopefully similar quality. This should be a no-brainer.





“Japanese fans are the best.” They flew in from Japan. They bought Denard Span shirts at Mall of America. They glued felt sideburns to the sides of their head. They spoke little English.




This is the kind of enthusiasm I like to see.

My mom asked them if they were Hanshin Tigers fans. They said no way, they were Hiroshima Carp Fans. And then they gave us Hiroshima Carp pins.






You really do notice new things at Target Field all the time. While pulling a “watch-how-fast-I-can-get-a-Murray’s-steak-sandwich” trick on my mom Tuesday—that is, using my ticket from the day before to get into the exclusive champion’s club ordering area and avoiding the 4 inning long lines everywhere else—I discovered this:



It’s hard to tell from the picture, but yes—this is a huge mural of Doug Mientkiewicz, next to a much smaller picture of Justin Morneau. And it’s just them two on that wall. I literally walked by this several times the night before and didn't even notice! Dougie needs to come see this stat.





Rest in Peace Ernie Harwell. Baseball truly lost someone special. Hopefully he wasn’t up there today watching the Tigers drop the ball again, again, and again.