God gives Loaiza a Mulligan. Why not the Twins?

1. So, Esteban Loaiza really was awful tonight in KC: 5 R (all ER) off 4 H (Including a Reggie Sanders Grand Slam) and 6 BB. He must've had no control. Sander's HR was only the 6th strike of his night, (his 14th pitch). He walked the first two of the second inning before being pulled. Yet, rain fell from the sky enough to stop the game in the third and delete any of these events from offically having happened. Mientkiewicz's 2 bb. Reggie's GS. Kerry Robinson got his first major-leauge action in two years, going 2-3 with a run and an RBI (2-3 in 2 2/3 innings!). Heck, the Royals getting three innings of 1-run pitching against someone who isn't the Twins is not something to Sneeze at either. And it all never happened.

(I couldn't find any more details on the weather).

2. I would love to see Vince Young be the best player to come out of this NFL draft. I watched this year's RoseBowl replayed on ESPN classic last night after the Twin's loss. I started asking myself if Texas really did win.

3. Re: Twins. Wow. 27-1 over 2 games? I thought today's game was a night game, so I missed it. Maybe that's a good thing. I'm afaid to even look at the box. I'll assume Silva's sinker isn't sinking. I think that KC rain could've helped. Maybe the KC batters will help next Thurday.

3a. I think it's time to draw up my list of other teams to root for, in case I should need it.

1. Twins (No matter if they'll soon be putrid, the "TC" gets me every time.)
2. Royals (Just for fun, started following them as my second last year, and this year they have better unis. Also, they host the Negro Leagues Museum, and someday I'm driving to a game.)
3. Devil Rays (If I don't who will? Plus, they have Cantu!)
4. Brewers (I guess they're my NL team. Young and exciting.)
5. Reds (Bronson's my man. Next year's uni upgrade--less black--could make them my NL team.)
6. Braves (I can watch most of their Games.)
7. ChiSox (Won me over in last year's playoffs. Plus, they're the Devil you know.)
8. Hafners (If NoDak is MN's backyard, Hafner is basically a homeboy.)
9. Mariners (Eddie gets to give them Heart attacks now.)
10. Gigantes (Everyone else's Bonds-hate has made me a fan, like a reverse Jeter or Favre.)
11. Pirates (I don't even know enough about them to know how they suck. That's intriguing.)
12. Tigers (Did these guys really lose 119 three years ago?)
13-15. DiamondBacks, Rockies, Cards (The NL clubs I am fully neutral on.)
16. Nats (Pros: LeCroy, Robinson, Johnson. Cons: Screech, plus I just get a bad vibe this year.)
17. Marlins (I do enjoy the feast/famine cycle. I guess it's easier when you have no fans.)
18-20. Athletics, Orioles, Rangers (the AL clubs I am neutral on. I hope they're bad so they're easier for the Twins and Royals to beat.)
21. Astros (Nothing interests me about them, except maybe the outfield hill.)
22. Cubs (Would be lower, but I still like Jacque and Maddux has my complete respect. Would be higher but they really ruined LaTroy's rep. It's Dusty's fault for using him as a closer--he's awful with a lead in the 9th. It's a mental thing for him, but it's not going away. Work with it!)
23. Blue Jays (Could be up with neutral AL teams if they incorporated the old font a little bit. If you have a color in your teams' name, you should use it a lot. Unless you're the Browns.)
24. Angels (If only they didn't beat the Twins so much and Scioscia weren't such an ass.)
25. Padres (The Astros without an outfield hill.)
26. Dodgers (I think I may be bitter about the WS loss before I was born.)
27. Phillies (Will you look at the number font on the Jerseys? Do they think this is the NBA? Plus, I still rank them higher than most people in Philly.)
28. Yanquis (I keep waiting for Torre to quit and/or the team to fall completely apart like the recent Knicks of Philly Eagles. No such luck yet.)
29. Red Sox (Equal to the Yanquis except eveyone else's loving them (in 2004 made me hate them more).
30. Mets (Like the Yanquis, only Ugly and without the success.)

4. The Twins official site on MLB.com asks for All-Star game votes. I can't think of a single position player on the Team who would deserve a nod right now. Maybe Castillo? I'm guessing Santana will be the Twins' only rep unless things get turned around quickly. If not Santana, it will be Nathan.

5. LOR (formerly Luis R (v 2.0)) should be our starting SS, I think. If nothing else, he should be the focus of Gardy's Srubbini Fixation, not Punto or Castro.

6. Bad for the Twins being so dominated by Runny Hernandez on Wednesday. Good for Runny coming back from being DLed for being overweight on reporting to camp. Hopefully, his start against the Twins wasn't a fluke, and he can have success against. . . better hitting teams. His next test: Monday at Detroit against Bonderman.

Pessimism

1. Well, Week 1, a 1-5 start, and I feel like the Twins are toast.
Then: Week 2, going 5-1 and the Twins are just shaking off the rust and going to contend.
Now: Week 3, 1-5, and what the hell happened to my pitching? We've still only got 2 bullpen decisions (Nathan 1-0, Crain 0-1), but Rincon picked up the team's first "Reverse Save*" on Saturday. Are we looking at a 4th place finish?

2. I think I'll predict a 5-1 week and a .500 April.

3. Two Saturdays ago, the televised game, Cat Osterman pitched a complete game shutout, with the only baserunner due to a HBP. Unfortunately, there was a lightning delay (no rain) after the second inning, and as I was fighting an awful cold, I fell asleep during the bonus coverage, only to wake up after the game was over. It didn't hurt that the bonus coverage was the previous week's televised big 12 softball game, which I had watched a lot of. (Yes, and here's where A&M

4. I've been fighting the cold all week and went away for the weekend (didn't watch any of the ComiskeyII games). That's why i haven't written anything. I did spend a lot of time staring at my Twins caps, and might try to do something with that in the next few weeks.

Cat on TV?

Texas softball takes on Oklahoma on ESPN today at noon (Centrat Time zone). Both Cat and Texas's #2 pitcher, Meagan Denny, pitched in yesterday's win over the Sooners. Cat went 5.1 to get her 1000th IP in her collegiate career. She gave up 1 R. Hopefully, she was pulled early so she can start or relieve in today's nationally broadcast game.

I don't want to have to wait for the CWS to see her pitch. Go Longhorns!

Optimism

1. The Twins have won four in a row and all a sudden I'm thinking great things. Maybe Tony Batista is a good idea at third, and maybe Castro is good for covering Batista's lapses and giving us decent production out of the 9-spot in the lineup and maybe Ford is a good idea in right and maybe Punto should be the guy to spell Castro at short. Yet, maybe Rondell White is done for his career and maybe Johan Santana will end the year 0-33 with an over-4 ERA.

2. Ten games, ten decisions for the starting pitchers. Does any other team still have no bullpen decisions? 2004's vulture was Rincon. 2005's vulture was Crain. Could 2006's vulture be the starting rotation?

3. By the way, whoever had "Lohse and Baker" in the "who gets the Twins first two Quality Starts?" pool, please step forward to claim your award. No, not you, liar.

4. I said it last year: I wish Castro were about 25 years old. He looks great at times and not-so-great at others and if we could just point at his age and say "maturing," we'd feel a lot better about the weak hitting. Tonight's at-bat was pretty awsome and I can't wait to see Will Young's win probability chart to see if he orLew or Baker got the most of that win.

5. I assume that like me, a lot of people had the day off for Good Friday. I think a daytime baseball game would have been great on TV, at least one in Wrigley, where daytime Friday games are not uncommon.

On appearances

(This post would be better with pictures, but I can't add them for some reason).

Justin Morneau just hit a homerun to put the Twins ahead. C just went to bed. H wakes up in 30 minutes, and I need to vent.

What team is this? These Pixie vests look like crap. I almost hope the Twins get stung with an awful loss tonight and that the Pixie vests get branded "bad mojo." If, like Jerry Seinfeld said, sports fandom is basically cheering for laundry, I will not cheer for this laundry.

It looks like someone took tore the sleeves off the unis, but was kind enough to give back the Kirby "34" patch. "This looks like it means something to you, why don't you keep it?"

And, it gives us a better look at the awful Nike undershirts. Blood-stain elbows and all.

The Twins should be weaing all-white like the heroes they are. I was actually hoping to see Shannon not get to Swisher's HR, because I thought he was a defender for a different team. And then I realized, that was my Twin running that ball down.

I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. I just keep looking at them trying to give them another chance and I can't get over it.

Okay, that being said, it looks like the rumours of corrugated helmets for the Twixies turns out to be mere truthiness. Thank heavens. I've seen a couple of teams wear them, with different results. They look okay on the A's because they're matte-er. They look awful on the Dodgers, a great classic uni marred with high-tech goo-gaws. They should go ahead and put names on the backs of the unis now if they're gonna give them cool flow reptile helmets. Do the Dodgers have a slightly lighter-hued from on them? I keep imagining it and that's even worse.

And then there's the Mets. I think they might have the worst uni in all MLB, but I'm trying to not think too hard. It's an all-out mess. So, a Black Helmet with vents and Blue star-ish thing as the "front panel" with a black "NY" with white trim? I guess "uglier" was possible. And now they're there.

Okay, the Mets have nice hats have got two good hats, especially the old blue with orange NY, but even their good black hat is streched over two hats. One hat has blue NY with orange trim and the logo pops and vibes with electricity as the wearer turns and the orange appears and disappears. Unfortunately, it's paired with a blue bill and a blue bead. (This is the road cap.) Their home alt is all-black composition (even the bead), but it has a Blue NY with white trim and an orange drop-shadow. Huh? Put the orange-trimmed Blue NY on the all-black hat and you've got a winner of a black hat, which is pretty rare.

Finally, I'm dreading the Purple-pantsed Vikings. I wish the Vikings would go all-white at home like the Dolphins used to (do they still?) and the Redskins still do. The Cowboys wear white kits at home but teal-grey pants.

There, I'm done.

Weekend Thoughts

1. Seriously, I could do without all the losing. At least it wasn't to the Royals (I'm looking at you White Sox...)

2. As bad as Joe Mays had it Wednesday, Lohse had it Friday and so did Jon Garland. And Garland's was against the Royals.

3. I think my five favorite teams in MLB are the AL Central. My Twins. The sad-sack Royals. The WS champion ChiSox (who I rooted against all last year until I saw my first postseason game... hey, they're our villians, plus: Ozzie's made them a lot less hateable than during the cocky Thomas years). The NoDakker-diring Cleveland Hafners. The resurgent Detroit Paper Tigers (Uhm, those wins were against KC and Texas).

4. C, who has no knowledge of racial sterotypes, was pretty sure that the Cleveland team was "the Sharks." I think Chief Wahoo's feather looked like a dorsal fin to her.

4a. If I were an artsy guy, I would do a mock-up of Wahoo as a Shark and also as a Hafner (my preferred name for the team). I've really got nothing against "Indians" but I still can't believe that Wahoo is still around. I do like the Script "I" alternate logo as it keeps the silhouette of Wahoo, like a way of fading him out without erasing him.

5. Sidney Ponson has hair! Wow!

Glasses Battery

1. I was surprised to see the game last night was not televised. Radio listening does not work with the kids, so we watched Nats/Mets instead until they went to bed.

2. Would have loved to see the Jays last night: Jason Phillips catching Gustavo Chacin. Is that the first time that a battery has both guys as regular glasses-wearers, so regular that they wear glasses in their mugshots?
and

3. I miss Matt LeCroy. And I've got another reason to miss him: Mike Redmond. Picking up where he left off last year, Redmond is proving he's too good a hitter to be a backup. But, as we only have two catchers of any talent on the roster (Morneau is the emergency catcher), we'll never be able to use Redmond as a pinch-hitter for anyone other than Mauer. LeCroy wasn't a great catcher, but it was nice to have him as a slightly-better-than-emergency catcher who had another role. If the Twins do find themselves out of contention this year, I hope we can trade Redmond to a contender (and bring up Heintz again). Side note: do we still have Corky or Bowen in our minors? I see they're not on the 40-man.

Dearest Joe Mays, I'm So Very Sorry about Bringing You Here, Love amr

1. Not a Twin anymore, but I watched the Gamecast of Joe Mays' debut for the Royals. Ouch ouch ouch. For a guy that fell apart down the stretch last year, it was not a good start. He started like he was Bradke: Double Single Double SacFly Walk/ScoreOnWP. 3 runs in the first, with the only out an RBI. But then: GIDP GroundOut K K FlyOut FlyOut Single GroundOut Groundout Double GroundOut FlyOut. Maybe he's getting it. But then in the 5th: Homer Single Groundout Homer. Afternoon over, 6 runs in 4.1 IP. Damn, I was rooting for the guy.


2. Everyone's favorite res-hall drug dealer, Bronson Arroyo, got the Win in Cincinnati today, hitting a Homer in his first AB as a Commie. I think I'm rooting for him a lot this year, just a decent pitcher for the Reds, a castoff from the Red Sox.

3. I haven't been able to watch enough of the Twins yet to have any thoughts really worth expressing that haven't already been elsewhere. Haven't seen if they actually are wearing the Lizard-Head Helmets. I saw some tonight on the Dodgers on TBS, and they look awful. Reserving judgement went to revulsion. Are the Twins wearing these?

The man who sang "Liberty Valance"

Gene Pitney, pop singer whose hits were mostly in the 60's, died last night. "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" is one of my all-time favorite songs. My earliest memory of non-children's music was my dad singing along to that song as it played on the cabinet phonograph in the basement. Had I had any musical talent, it was one of the songs I would regularly cover (along with Ice-T's "Midnight" and Oliver Nelson's "Stolen Moments"). Thanks for the records, Gene.

SBG, if you're reading this, Gene releases a Stones-penned song "That Girl Belongs to Yesterday" in 1964, which is right when they started getting popular, I believe.

Brenda!

Way to go, Coach Frese! Score was 28-38 at the half, and the Terps turned it around.

Okay, I've been filling out Women's brackets for three years now...
2004 Connecticut
2005 Baylor
2006 Maryland

I'm worried there will be too much pressure on me next year. I know it's not as hard as picking the men's but only one of ESPN's commentators had Maryland out of their region.

My tip? Look for teams with Diana Taurasi or good centers who have beaten lots of other good teams.

Happy New Year!

C, H, and I watched as much of the start of tonight's game as we could. Here's a picture.

That's my hat from the year they changed to the dynamic M (1987?). I was 9 but we can tighten it so it fits her.

Before the game, there was a montage of Kirby moments. I had told C about him (a bit) back right after he died. Tonight I told her about his "owie" (the patched eye) that was so bad he couldn't play baseball anymore. C drew a connection to my "owie" on my forehead (lipoma removal). C said "I hope he got better." I really didn't know what to say.

Too bad about the game. I couldn't watch enough of it to get a feel. I do think that Halladay is one of the two best pitchers in the AL (him and Johan). I like that Shannon got so many hits (he was one of last year's worst producers relative to what I would expect). Is Crain now the set-up with Juan Rincon the 7th inning guy? Can Batista hit 162 Solo HRs? Can Castillo make us long for Rivas's defense? Hey, we're only one game back (behind the Tigs).

Overtime in the NCAA Women's Championship game... you go Brenda! The reason we're pissed is because we know you're awesome and we wanted you to stay. I'm posting this now.

Anyways, happy new year (of baseball)!

Cat Osterman Update

Just so you know...

Cat actually lost a game this year. March 17 vs Michigan. She gave up a 2-run homer in the 7th, and her team scored 0 runs to back her up. Homerun to Tiffany Worthy. Win to Jennie Ritter. The dropped Cat's record to 16-1.

As of today (April 4), Cat's record is now 23-1, in 27 apperances with 21 starts. 20 of her starts were complete games (19-1). 2 of her relief appearances were saves, while the other 4 were relief wins.

She has given 38 hits and 5 runs (all earned) in 157 2/3 innings. 23 Walks and 360 Ks.

So her stats are: 0.22 ERA, 0.38 WHIP, 15.98 K/7, 15.65 K/BB. That's pretty good, eh?

Mugshots!

The 2006 baseball season is upon us, and that means . . . new mugshots!

A few early thoughts:
Johan doesn't look like a Johan robot, he's actually breaking a smile
vs.

Shannon's hat is really crooked and he gets his chin-shaving tips from Kyle.
vs.

Bartlett must be the kid that got Mauer's sideburns in that commercial. (Yeah, I know Jason is older, it just doesn't look that way.)
and

Matt and Brad have (had) quite the chin-brushes. I prefer full beards, but these show some dedication.
and

Let's! Go! Base! Ball!

1. Man, there must be some pressure on MLB to make opening game this official. I think the rain delay was five hours* and they started play back up even though it is still really pouring. Thome just hit a home run and it's 6-3 in the fourth Sox. I'm going to bed, having watched just a few at bats of an official game. I wonder if it'll be called after the fifth.

*Might have only been two, but the women's basketball game was a blowout, so I wanted baseball.

Eww, Cleveland's grass-stain undershirt elbows look like blood.
Note: 4.5 played. The game counts.

Cleveland looks like crap, like they're not even trying fielding, holding off steals, it's now 7-3. Too bad they just can't get together, shake hands, and call it like if it were Curling. Save everybody's stats and keep anyone from getting injured from the water.

2. Preseason picks.
AL Central: WhiteSox (not just because I saw Thome's HR).
AL East: DevilRays
AL West: A's
AL Wild Card: Twins

NL Central: Brewers
NL East: Braves
NL West: Gigantes
NL Wild Card: Cardinals

AL MVP: Jorge Cantu
NL MVP: Barry Bonds
AL CY: Halladay (or maybe Clemens)
NL CY: Sheets (or maybe Clemens)
AL/NL ROY: Man, the only guys I can think of are Twins.
AL Coach: Devil Rays Coach (Don't know name)
NL Coach: Brewers Coach (Don't know name - Yost?)

3. Oh, and my NCAA women's national champ pick, Maryland, beat UNC tonight, just as I predicted. I'm a little spooked about it, too.