In the early 90s, I was a freshman at a college in L.A., and I’d struck up a kind of dating / friendship thing with a very out-of-my-league lady; much my superior in looks, decency, and maturity. It wasn’t destined to last and it didn’t.
I did spend some time at her parents’ house, in the San Diego suburb of Rancho Santa Fe. One weekend — maybe over Thanksgiving? I don’t remember — her grandparents were visiting, too. The grandparents were very rich old Southern types who grumbled over all the troublemakers
in labor unions and such.
After dinner, we retired to the veranda / back porch / deck, and Gramps was getting comfortably sloshed on mint juleps. It was a pleasant evening to watch the daylight fade and the stars begin to appear. At one point, there was a light moving in the distance, and Gramps said, “I do declare I believe that to be one of those there U.F.O.s.” Others suggested an airplane or weather balloon, yet Gramps wasn’t having none of it. “Nope, no sir, that there is most assuredly a U.F.O.” He wasn’t terrified or angry, it was just like saying what he wanted for dessert. We let him have the point.
Later that evening, I watched a movie with my lady friend. What was it? Close Encounters, of course. (She didn’t like it.)
A few years after I left that college (I’ve left a few), there was an awful mass suicide event by members of the “Heaven’s Gate” cult, who believed that via dying, the aliens would come collect their souls for the afterlife. Where were their mortal remains found? In that very same San Diego suburb of Rancho Santa Fe.
And, of course, the most well-known comic book / sci-fi / fantasy convention is the San Diego Comic-Con.
So I don’t think the Twins lost this game because the Padres are simply a better baseball team. I think the Twins lost because of interference by the Aliens.
The game was scoreless in the 3rd when Fernando Tatis, Jr. hit a 396-foot solo homer, which accomplished two purposes; it gave his team the lead, and signaled to the Padres’ astral buddies that the team was requesting some assistance.
Now, the hyper-powerful beings from Planet Beeblebrox have mastered transwarp drive, but even so, they can’t just show up immediately. They’ve gotta gas up, finish hovering the dog, etc. So it took them a while to arrive, during which time Brooks Lee was able to tie it up with a dinger of his own. (One of four hits the Twins got off Padres starter Walker Buehler.)
When the Twins hit homers to tie the game, it doesn’t signal any extraterrestrial helpers; it signals the Twins pitchers that they can relax and let the other team threaten to take the lead right back. Which is precisely what starter Bailey Ober proceeded to do, giving up one-out singles to Tatis Jr. and Jake Cronenworth. (By the way, the cinematographer in Blade Runner was Jordan Cronenweth.) Happily, Ober got one of his three strikeout today by whiffing Manny Machado, and Ty France got revenge on his former team via flying out to end the inning.
The cloaked spacecraft arrived during the sixth inning, first causing Kaelen Culpepper to botch a routine grounder. E.T.s can’t prevent baserunning gaffes, though, and Kody Funderburk picked Jackson Merrill off. Other Kody (Clemens) almost failed to get the tag down in time, and Merrill was originally called safe; the call was overturned on review.
Then Xanax the Merciless leveled his potent Mind Control beam at the pitching mound. First, the Percepto Ray causd Funderburk to imagine that the hitters were all ten feet tall; he walked two batters, the second on four pitches. Derek Shelton brought Jeff Hoffman to replace the obviously hypnotized Funderburk.
With Hoffman, the space invaders switched tactics; they’d forgotten to charge up the Percepto Ray battery before leaving, and it only had enough juice left to make Hoffman walk the next hitter. Needing new tactics, Xanax fired up the Esteeminator beam. A voice went into Hoffman’s head. It said, “you’re not as intimidating as Trevor Hoffman in a Padres uniform. You’re not even as intimidating as Dustin Hoffman in Hook.” Seeds of doubt planted, Hoffman put a slider right over the middle and Luis Rengifro punished it; two runners scored.
Then the voice told Hoffman, “you don’t want to make the wildcard round, anyways. That’s extra work. You don’t want extra work. You’ve already worked hard enough.” Hoffman thought, “dang straight!” and invited Tatis Jr. to knock in two more.
Since you can count, you’ll realize that this only amounts to a 5-1 score, and the final score was worse than that. Well, by this point, the aliens had seen all the gambling ads at Petco, so they decided to win a few memecoins by messing with Travis Adams and Taylor Rogers, too. You want clips? Here’s where the clips are. Tatis Jr. hit another moonshot, by the way, don’t you wish the Twins had had a guy that good in the last 10 years? Me too.
The sweep leaves the Twins 2.0 games out of the final wildcard spot. Three teams are ahead of them, and one of those — the Blue Jays — won’t be facing an opponent with a winning record the rest of the season. The sweep is also the first time the Twins have been swept by San Diego before, per gintzer.
Comments of the game go to artistformerlyknownasgoose for “We’re stuck in a simulation that’s glitching out” and sandwiches for “‘Atteberry: “The middle innings have not been kind to the Twins.” Dude, almost no inning has been kind to the Twins.”’ Sorry I couldn’t help with the thread folks, I had to cook squash. Is squash boring? Yes. But it protects you from mind control rays.
The Twins fly to Sacramento (I still can’t believe I’m typing that phrase) for an 8:40 start tomorrow, featuring LHP Jeffrey Springs against our own Daniel Zebulon Matthews. By Grabthar’s hammer, this sweep shall be avenged.
Live long and klaatu barada nikto.
