Blue Jays 9, Twins 3 (F/11): If You Use One of Those Old-Timey Reel Mowers, You Can Totally Listen to The Game whilst Mowing

An eerily dead-eyed Yunel Escobar scores in the first.

Given how much I enjoy at least the idea of mowing the lawn while listening to the baseball game on my tiny radio (it is also an MP3 player, if you can even believe that), you would think that my lawn would be the most impeccably maintained of any in my neighbourhood, whereas in fact it is probably the worst of the non-rentals. But it is a new spring and I am going to be a better man. Join me in that effort, won't you? I promise that it's going to be great.

Yesterday's game started off looking like a real slop show, and I say "slop" only because I think it would be wrong to utter a profanity right after coming clean about my lawn failings and saying I would strive to be better than I am. So we'll go with "slop," which pretty accurately describes a top of the first that saw a pretty shabby infield single, a wild pitch, an error, and a missed sign on a hit-and-run (it was either that or the worst jump ever) that led to Jose Bautista getting caught in a rundown between first and second. But the Blue Jays came out of it a run ahead, so everything is good, right? Well kind of, but in the bottom of the inning David Cooper messed up a toss to first for another error and a Twins run. Should Jo-Jo have done a better job of getting over to the bag? Maybe. But we have spoken before about how it must be when Jo-Jo is on the hill. Let us not belabour the point.

I have a small lawn, so I didn't take in much more of the game than that before moving on to other Saturday afternoon things, and didn't pick the game back up until we got to extras, specifically the top of the eleventh. When Jerry Howarth told me that Jose Bautista was due up in the inning, I thought, "OK cool, well, Jose will win it, then, awesome." This was not hope; it was expectation. Eventually this kind of hubris will cost me -- baseball feelingly, I mean -- but yesterday was not that day, as Bautista ripped a two-run shot to the haters in the opposite field, which is notable because Bautista pretty much always pulls the ball except for this one time last season which was also at Target field. It was also notable because it owned.

The four other runs the Blue Jays tacked on were almost unseemly, but these things happen. It's also worth noting that Jo-Jo is still looking for his first win in literally years. I would again ask that you pray for him.

KS