Back in the Saddle

Hello, everyone! With the advent of the Renaissance Festival--and therefore the ending of pre-Fest preparations--the pace of my life has slowed from frenetic to merely frantic and there is blogging time once again.

(Yes, there will be pirate pictures, once they've been culled and organized.)

Speaking of pirates, did you know there's a baseball team called the Pirates? It's true. They're from Pittsburgh, they're in the National League Central Division, and they aren't very good. Actually, they're pretty bad. They're not as bad as the Royals, though, who are in the American League Central Division. There's another team in the American League Central Division which is much better than either the Royals or the Pirates, and they're called the Twins.

(Don't the Twins sound better when you lead into the subject like that?)

This weekend, the Twins won a series. They only scored five runs, but they won the series. That's impressive, in an aenemic, fans-breaking-out-in-hives sort of way. They've actually won two of their four series in August so far, though you wouldn't know it from the mounting Prilosec bills among the team's loyal followers.

(Fun [?] fact: Lew Ford is the team's best hitter so far this month, with a .310 average, but he's only got two RBI because you need guys on base for that.)

On Friday, Johan "Dios, This Team is Heavy" Santana overcame lousy run support--one, count it, one run--by pitching a complete game shutout. On Saturday, Justin "This is My Boom-Stick" Morneau treated Joe "A Little Help, Here" Mays to the munificent total of two runs, only to see ol' Joe hack up twice that many in the bottom of the inning--apparently Joe only pitches mutual shutouts. On Sunday, Carlos "Please, No More Lone Ranger Jokes" Silva took the lone run his teammates managed to give him and nursed it until the sixth inning when, alas, some jerk ran in from third on a patented Silva double play grounder. But the Twins did eke out another run in the ninth to win it for fellow Venezuelan righty Juan "Señor Reliable" Rincón, so all's well that ends with a series win.

(All's well unless you're Juan Castro, that is--he went on the disabled list with a strained knee on Saturday.)

And now the Twins head back to the Central Division, and the Central time zone, to face the Whine Socks in the Windy City. These two teams haven't played each other since April, which coincidentally was about the last time the Twins were in the race for the division.

(Did I say that? That sounded a little bitter. What I meant was...well, pretty much what I said, actually.)

So what's at stake now? Pride, I suppose, or at least our tattered, patched and oft-darned dignity. We have enough games left with them to play the spoiler to their homefield advantage hopes, too, though that would require a whole lot of winning. And maybe a little ass-kicking.

(The fun starts at 7:00. In the event of a bad outing, multilingual swearing classes begin in my living room around the fourth inning.)