Game One: The Braves At The Dome

I say it all the time, but baseball’s a beautiful game when it’s played well, and when everything clicks it looks so easy.

Time and again this season, however, the Twins have demonstrated just how hard the game really is, and how ugly it can be.

The thing is, though, is that after Tuesday’s win they’ve crept back to .500, and to within five-and-a-half games of the Central lead. Given how brutal the team has looked at times, that seems frankly astonishing.

The opener of the Atlanta series provided a template of the kind of game the Twins need to play, and the kind of team they can be: Seven different guys scored runs; the first three guys in the batting order (Castillo, Mauer, and Cuddyer) were on base seven times; Bartlett and Punto at the bottom were a combined 4-8; Morneau and Hunter each drove in runs and also scored; Kevin Slowey was pretty much as advertised (and the Twins have won all three of his starts); and the bullpen was stalwart as usual –Guerrier, Neshek, and Nathan all have ERAs under two, and at this point those first two have to be the MVPs of the pitching staff.

Hell, Neshek might be the team’s MVP thus far. So much for the idea that this guy was going to be a novelty act, or that he was strictly a specialist against right handers. He has been phenomenal, and night after night has been thrown out there in the kind of old-school jams relievers used to have to try to wiggle out of all the time. It’s an added bonus, of course, that he’s just so damn much fun to watch.