Derek Shelton’s Magical Arm Barn managed to quickly cough up a seven-run lead, but heads-up baserunning and a nice hit by Lewis sends the fans home happy. (Or starts off tonight’s postgame Ludacris concert with good vibes.) Inning-by-inning notes:
1: Do we get good Taj or bad Taj tonight? Well, six pitches and three outs. That’s certainly effective Taj.
Buxton has a one-out single. Radio guys Kris Atteberry and Dan “Answer Man” Gladden debate whether Buxton’s yellow shoes mean he’ll run or not. They
come to the conclusion that green shoes would mean “go,” but yellow means “caution.” This is what happens when you’ve broadcast a few thousand baseball games.
At any rate, Buxton doesn’t steal, and it doesn’t matter because two pitches later, a good thing happens.
Klobberin’ Kody Klemens, folks. Good grief! Over the top of the sandstone overhang in right. In his first four seasons and 265 games, Clemens had an OPS of .666 (the number of the Least) and a 1.1 bWAR. In his age-30 season, he’s currently at .784 and 1.2. Tell me he doesn’t have his dad’s old “special pharmacy” phone number. Twins 2-0
2: Well… here we get Lucky Taj. He walks one and gives up a hit, but fortunately with two outs the batter is Ezeqiuel Tovar (no relation to César). Tovar is batting .208 on the season with 81 strikeouts; make it 82.
Royce (he’s all fixed now) Lewis has the leadoff single. Brooks Lee decides to bounce one off the top of the right-field wall.
Tristan Gray puts down a good bunt, and pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano makes a terrible throw to first. Gray assumes second will be his on the overthrow, but Edouard Julien (we remember him!) makes a solid grab-and-throw to nail Gray by ten feet at second. So, a heads-up play followed by a TOOTBLAN, or a HUTOOTBLAN. Still, ex-Senators 4-0
3: A pretty easy inning for both pitchers, but Rockies CF Cole Carrigg has an exciting moment when he falls on his buttbutt going for a fly ball. He’s young, though, and gets up in time to go catch it. I’d probably still be on my buttbutt.
4: Second walk of the game for Bradley; second strikeout of the game for old friend Willi Castro. Gladden says the Rockies have been around for “about 25 years” which is only off by 27%, so we’ll call it a dart that misses the board but at least doesn’t put anybody’s eye out.
5: Bottom of the lineup, and it takes Taj eight pitches to get right through ’em. We shouldn’t get TOO excited — the Rockies have the worst record in baseball. But they’re only tied for eighth-worst in MLB on offense (with a 94 OPS+, where 100 is league average, adjusted for ballpark). They’re second-worst in pitching.
To wit: back-to-back two-out doubles by Trevor Larnach and Buxton. Clemens takes a nine-pitch walk, and Josh Bell doubles both runners home. The 830-ft.-high City 7-0
6: The Rockies’ second hit! Jake McCarthy, starting Bradley’s third time through the lineup with a leadoff double. A flyout to left means McCarthy can’t tag up and advance, and the next dude strikes out. Then a long pop fly that new RF Luke Keaschall calls everybody off for. (Not BRAND new; Keaschall has played one inning in RF before.)
Seth Halvorsen replaces Sugano. I think I recognize Halvorsen’s name from somewhere. I look at his player page, and no, I don’t know him. Maybe my alternate-timeline self is Halvorsen’s best friend, or he beat me half to death with a flounder one time.
7: Bradley gets ’em 1-2-3 and sits at 91 pitches. He’s never recorded an out in the eighth inning, so we’ll see.
Larnach singles and Buxton ALMOST knocks one out, but doesn’t because Clemens stole all his ‘roids.
8: Bradley still hasn’t recorded an out in the eighth; a double and walk end his night. In comes LHP Kody Funderburk. Per the Twins’ wesbsite, Kody’s entrance song is AC/DC’s “Thunderstaruck,” sadly without new vocals singing “Funderstruck.” An infield hit, groundout and flyout score two runs. TJ Rumfield, who’s 26 and looks 17, singles home another. Still, it’s the Millers Saints 7-4
9: Eric “Small Pasta” Orze in for the Twins. Hey, how about some Drama! A walk, flyout, Julien double and Jake McCarthy homer. Oops.
Anthony Banda in. First-pitch double by Kyle Karros. The Rockies’ best hitter, Hunter Goodman, up.
Aaaaand… the Rockies lead. Homer.
No more damage afterwards, but this is pretty hilariously bad stuff.
Antonio Senzatela trying to save it for Colorado. A one-out Austin Martin hit, a Ryan Kreidler hit, and that brings Buxton up. He grounds it to third and…
It bad-hops over Castro’s head! Tie game. Clemens pops one up, and Bell flies out, so FREE MANFREDBALL!
10: RHP Andrew Morris pitching. A FC (to Morris) pushes the runner to third. Then a slow Tovar roller to short, and Kreidler throws it home. Yer out! No scoring occurs.
Kyler Fedko (who?) pinch-runs for Josh Bell at second. The Rockies intentionally walk not-great hitter Victor Caratini to (I guess) set up the double-play possibility. Royce now up. On reliever Jimmy Herget’s second pitch, the ball barely gets away, and Fedko scampers to third. Then…
Lewis with a nice plain single! Twims walkoff wim! (We spell it wrong on purpose here sometimes.)
Studs: Bradley (7.0 IP, 2 H, 3 BB, 7 SO.) Royce walkoff! The Bash Brothers in Clemens and Lee, doubles duo in Buston and Bell, Keaschall for not embarrassing himself in RF. Duds: no duds, Twins win!
(except the bullpen management was really dudley do-wrong)
COTG go to SooFoo for “Are we secretly playing at Coors?” (because nobody made much noise rooting for the Twins), Nagurski for a bullpen management criticism that turned out to be prophetic, Zach for some blockbuster trade ideas, falcontimmy for reviewing the new Shakopee ampitheater, Matt for immoral support, and JustAnotherMinnesotan for “This is Ludacris” (referring to the bullpen and the postgame concert performer).
Thanks for everyone who joined in, I know it’s more fun to be outdoors on a lovely summer evening. (For people who like the outdoors, which is Not Me.)
Tomorrow’s game is at 6:10, featuring Michael Lorenzen’s Oil pitching against our own Mike Paredes. Catch ya next time!
