Rockies 6, Twins 4: Buxton still awesome, Paddack less so

Wouldn’t you rather see a picture of Bux being cool to kids than the Twins in losing-game action? I would! | Photo by Dustin Bradford/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Chris Paddack got his time zones mixed up and thought this game was starting an hour later, or earlier, or something. So-so Rockies starter Kyle Freeland solved the Twins bats when he needed to. Inning-by-inning notes:

1: Kris Atteberry makes a John Prine reference. Not really a great one, but I don’t care. If Atteberry is a John Prine fan, I now forgive him and apologize for anything negative I’ve ever said about his radio skills. All John Prine fans are excellent people. There are no exceptions.

Ryan Jeffers has a double and Carlos Correa a walk, and very good fielder Ryan McMahon absolutely robs Ty France of the two-out RBI(s). McMahon is related to former brash Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon; they’re both the illegitimate love children of former Tonight Show sidekick Ed McMahon. This may be untrue.

Double-double-triple to start Chris Paddack’s night. That’s not ideal. Then a homer. That is REALLY not ideal. With nobody out! Nine guys bat in total. Rockies 4-0

2: Radio with Fun Facts I didn’t know. Michael Cuddyer won the NL batting crown in 2013 as a Rockie (Rocky?). Justin Morneau, next year, same thing.

More good defense, this time by Ryan Ritter keeping Royce Lewis off base. The funny thing is that by most conventional defensive metrics, the Rockies are near-bottom in MLB. (The Twins aren’t much better.) Just a reminder that every MLB player has enormous talent and can flash it at times. The difference between an MVP and a AAA lifer is, who does it more consistently.

A homerun for Jordan Beck, who is the illegitimate love child of guitarist Jeff Beck — so’s his brother, who sang “Where it’s At.” This may be untrue. Colorado 5-0

3: Atteberry says two of his favorite movies are Police Academy and Spaceballs. I take back what I said about taking back what I said.

Buxton with the one-out single and Ryan Jeffers follows suit. Nothing happens. I don’t mean space/time freezes, just that the Twins don’t score. Although with how depressing my newsfeed is every morning, I wouldn’t be surprised if “space/time going to freeze permanently in October” showed up one of these days.

4: Gameday has this as the Rockies’ jersey:

Is that their City Connect? Yes, it is:

Photo by Justin Edmonds/Getty Images

Man, those things are uggggg-ly. Kinda like “let’s take the old Denver Nuggets jerseys and make them into crap.” I swear A.I. is designing these things now.

5: BUCK BOMB! A solo shot, natch, because Christian Vázquez is banned by MLB bylaws from ever getting any hits. More importantly, Buxton sings the Sheboygan sausages jingle on the radio commercial. We need more MLB players singing.

Have I used this before? Yes I have. I will use it again. It’s actually a fabulously-directed ad.

More traffic on the basepaths for Paddack. Is “traffic on the basepaths” an overused phrase? Yes it is. I will probably use it again. Or “a plethora of players plating pitches” or something. Paddack wins the 11-pitch battle with Ezequiel Tovar, and the Rockies steal third. Probably a double-steal and the runner at first missed the sign. Well, nobody scores. Twins need to start getting more runs, though. I’m not the boss of them or anything, it’s just a suggestion.

6: The Twins get two on with nobody out and Freeland picks up his first three strikeouts of the game. The Rockies score more, on an RBI double form Tyler Freeland. Cole Sands is the pitcher you can blame, if you wanna.

Another “Gameday” graphics thing, this quite sad. The retired numbers you can see in the graphic are Jackie Robinson’s, Todd Helton’s, and Larry Walker’s. That is not sad, they were all great players. The sad one is the initials “KSM.”

Those stand for Keli Scott McGregor, a Rockies team executive who unexpectedly died at age 47 of a rare heart infection. (This is why I’m excited to be losing my health insurance, I’m 52.) McGregor had been a NFL player for a brief period with the Broncos, and before that in high school and college. After his death, per his will, his brain was examined and evidence of CTE was found — the incurable brain damage you get from repeated concussions. That wasn’t what caused his too-young death.

Still, it’s amazing to me that Rod Serling was more realistic about how repeated head trauma affected boxers in 1956 than we are about the dangers of football seventy years later. Rockies 6-1

7: Once again, the Twins have two runners on... but this time, they score! Courtesy of a long ball by Willi Castro, the illegitimate love child of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara. (This may be untrue.) Once again, Buxton was involved, with an infield single to start things off. If this guy hadn’t had so many unlucky injuries, he’d have been one of the best players in Twins history. As it is, I’m happy for him this year.

Justin Topa pitching. Radio tells the sad story of how the Tommy John surgery expert David Altchek passed away this last week of a brain tumor — he performed TJ surgery on Topa when Topa was 19, and they eventually became friends. Atteberry says he’s had a brain tumor removed and otherwise he wouldn’t be here. I take back the mean things I said about Atteberry after the nice things after the mean things. Mile Highers 6-4

8: The Twins get a little action going until Brooks Lee hits into a GIDP. For-now cup of coffee-ing Travis Adams (he’s 25, he might be a future goodun) gets himself into trouble and gets out of it.

9: With Vázquez due up first, Rocco Baldelli chooses to pinch-hit with Matt Wallner, and it doesn’t work. But I like the choice. Had the inning ended up tied, that means Jeffers would have had to go from DH to catching and the Twins would have lost the DH — it’s worth taking the chance. I loved Gardy, as did we all, but he was absolutely paranoid about PHing for catchers and losing the DH. Which usually meant that Gardy teams had one catcher who could hit, one who hit less, and one who was good at doing dugout crosswords. If you haven’t read Zach’s analysis of Rocco’s strengths/weaknesses as a manager yet, check it out, it makes a lot of sense.

Rockies reliever Seth Halvorsen (a Twins draftee in 2018 who chose not to sign and played college ball instead) throws upward of 100 MPH and the Twins don’t hit him. Our side loses

Studs of the game: Buxton as almost always, Castro’s 3 RBI, Jeffers (4-5). Duds: Paddack’s first inning.

Comment of the game absolutely goes to sandwiches. I wondered why WCCO always seems to get louder at night, and he responded: “Yes, look up “clear-chanel radio stations” and it’ll have a better explanation than what I provide. But basically clear-channel stations have to power up to 100,000 watts at sunset. So that signal surge is that process taking place since ‘CCO is one of those stations.” (Indeed it is.)

Thanks to everyone who participated on the gamethread, which wasn’t anybody for the last 45 minutes and I felt lonely. But I still love ya folks.

Tomorrow’s game is at 7:10, and features Rockies starter Antonio Senzatela against a Terrible Bad Dude (TBD) who might be Zebby Matthews, he pitched four scoreless with nine strikeouts for St. Paul on Sunday. Catch you then, or later!

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