mathematically eliminated #27 the Minnesota Twins

Like I said earlier in the Indians post, both them and the Twins have been out of wild card contention for a hot minute already, but because the AL Central is lackluster, they still stood an outside longshot, mathematically speaking, at their division title. Until today for both. The Twins actually lost to division leader the Chicago White Sox, at home in Minnesota, which only added insult to the injury of having your season officially over from a winning the World Series perspective. So let us sum up the Minnesota Twins season. On defense, it was like this...

And then on offense, it went like this...

And that's their 2012, in a nutshell. All apologies to Kirby Puckett's glorious memory. (Didn't he die? Didn't also like to sex up chubby chicks? I hope so. On the second, not the first.)
The Red Sox flirted with elimination today, but a 9th inning rally means they will survive mathematically at least one more day. I'm sure Bobby Valentine is proud.

Twins 4, Blue Jays 3: Ask Me How Good I Feel about Adam Lind as A Pinch Hitter with The Tying Run at Second

tears of a boss (note the absence of tears)

Seriously, ask me.


KS

Blue Jays 2, Twins 1: Joseph Batstista Again

scorin on you for just a sec 

Jose Bautista ripped one into the flower pots in left (I believe they contain pansies) to put the Blue Jays out in front for good in the sixth! Man that dude hits a lot of dingers at Target Field, like ten in ten games. Drew Hutchinson's start was odd in that one run in six innings will obviously totally do the trick, but the only run he allowed came from a bases-loaded walk. Weird, right? No less weird: Adam Lind getting a base hit, with a runner in scoring position, even (see above photo). Not even Francisco Cordero being pretty terrible again could keep the Blue Jays (or me) down on this night! They got some great bounces, too: a grounder off of Lawrie's glove that went right to Escobar, who threw to first for the out; a shot off Casey Janssen's glove that went to Escobar, too; and, best of all, a pop up that Lawrie bobbled in foul territory that landed right in Eric Thames' mitt! How about that!


KS

Twins 7, Blue Jays 6: At Least They Got It In, I Guess

baseball (above)

After a two-hour rain delay, Kyle Drabek (and the 'pen!) got slapped around to the tune of seven runs against a pretty awful lineup, but I have chosen to focus on the positive, which is to say: Jose Bautista's two dingers; E5's lone dinger; and the way the MLB guy doing the video recap of the game actually referred to Encarnacion as "E5" in the highlight package. These are all good things, except for how the pitching was, on this rainy night, if not an utter butt, then at least somewhat buttesque.


KS

Blue Jays 6, Twins 2: So Lowly, These Twins

do you know who is lashing out over their bad start? it is only one of the three guys here

This one was A-OK: my main man Henderson Alvarez pitched seven strong, and Yunel Escobar went four-for-four with a walk, and everything was cool right from top of the first when the Blue Jays scored a pair. The poor Minnesota fans though, man. The Twins look like they're setting up to be bad for a pretty long while here. At least the ballpark is a honey, I guess.


Also, on The Baseball Today podcast earlier, Eric Karabell said that the more he thinks about the Vladimir Guerrero signing, the surer he becomes that Vladi will be batting fifth for the Blue Jays in the playoffs. I would enjoy that were it to occur!


KS