Author: Brad Zellar

If you’re a resolute glass-is-half-full sort of character I suppose you could find something to bitch about from last night’s game. I’m not sure what, but I’d be delighted to hear from you all the same.

I’m always delighted to hear from crackpots.

Another entertaining and efficient Ramon Ortiz performance (fifteen ground balls). How often do you see a game with twenty-five hits, four walks, and thirteen runs that clocks in at 2:27? Not very often.

It was an entertaining game all around, really. Of the Twins’ fifteen hits, ten were for extra bases (including eight doubles, three from Joe Mauer). There was Hunter’s grand slam, of course, following an intentional walk to Justin Morneau. There was the satisfaction of seeing the Twins beat-up on the petulant (and grossly overpaid) Jeff Weaver. Minnesota also came up with some big two-out hits, played error-less defense, and turned three double plays.

Tonight should be fun. I’m looking forward to seeing 21-year-old phenom Felix Hernandez. The kid has pitched seventeen scoreless innings so far this season (four hits, four walks, and eighteen strikeouts). Hernandez struck out twelve batters and out-dueled Oakland’s Dan Haren on opening day, and then pitched a one-hitter to spoil Daisuke Matsuzaka’s Fenway Park debut. The Twins should get some idea of what opposing teams felt like facing Francisco Liriano last year.

Take another kick at my heart.

Or as Tom Kelly would say: Oh my.

It must have something to do with cosmic vibrations or something. Joe Nathan can take comfort in the fact that Mariano Rivera blew his own first save today, on a two-out, three-run walk-off homer to Oakland’s Marco Scutaro, who in this lifetime is a light-hitting utility player. In a past life, however, he was a notoriously unscrupulous bookkeeper who died in jail for embezzling money from the Medici.

Also, did you see Kyle Lohse’s line against the Cubs today? Eight innings, four hits, twelve strikeouts and a walk. A very good Johan Santana start, in other words. The other ex-Twins in the same game –Juan Castro and Jacque Jones– didn’t fare quite as well; they were a combined 0-7. There was a classic Jacque flashback in the sixth, when, with runners on first and third and nobody out, he struck out flailing on an outside breaking ball.

Good to know Kyle was paying attention when he was wearing a Minnesota uniform.

Damn straight!

There’s not much finer than seeing the Twins’ offense living as large as its starting pitcher, and when that starting pitcher is Big Sid, brothers and sisters, that is very large indeed. Large and in charge, and very, very greasy. The guy allowed eleven base runners in five-and-a-third innings yet surrendered only two runs. That’s pitching! That is sheer craftiness! The appreciative home crowd rewarded Siddhartha with a well-deserved standing ovation when he left the mound.

Almost as entertaining as the performance of the Twins tonight was watching the beer league baserunning and defense of the Devil Rays. That would be a mighty tough team to root for, would it not? But, you know, also sort of fun in a sadomasochistic sort of way.

Seriously, though, has there ever been a reason to cheer for Tampa Bay (all right, maybe Aubrey Huff, maybe Rocco Baldelli –nah)? The franchise has been around, what? Ten years? The career victories leader is Victor Zambrano with 35. The team has never had a guy win 20 games. They’ve never even had a guy win 15 games (Rolano Arrojo won 14 in 1998). The Rays managed to win 70 games one year; they finished in fifth place in the East in eight of their first nine seasons –that 70-win season under Lou Pinella bumped them up to fourth in 2004. They play in a warehouse that makes the Dome look like Ebbets Field, and some of the larger Old Country Buffets in Tampa draw better crowds.

Still –what the hell?– this train wreck of a baseball team managed to beat Johan Santana one night and lose to Sidney Ponson the next.

Baseball’s a beautiful game.

So Johan Santana’s 24-game unbeaten streak at the Dome comes to an end at the hands of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. I figured it was going to happen one of these nights. Actually, I figured it was going to happen tonight. It’s a law of averages thing, and it also happens to be Friday the 13th.

I’m a superstitious guy, and all day I didn’t have a good feeling about Johan’s chances tonight. He didn’t pitch poorly, which is small consolation, and the Twins didn’t exactly swing the bats for him –again, small consolation– but it’s pretty meaningless in the ultimate scheme of things. I expect Johan’s got plenty of astonishments remaining in that left arm of his, and I also expect that one of these days the Twins are gonna put up some seriously crooked numbers. Solo home runs from the MVP aren’t going to be worth a whole lot unless they’re consistently of the walk-off variety.

No, I think what we need to see in the next week or so are some games where the Twins bat around and blow things open early and give their pitching staff a little breathing room.

That would be encouraging.

I’ll tell you what I really don’t want to see: I don’t want to see Roger Clemens come out of retirement for the umpteenth time to sign with whatever team –and understand that in this situation you’re using that term very loosely– throws the most cash (and use of private jets and all manner of other ridiculous perks and allowances) at him. I say enough of this bullshit. It seriously shouldn’t be allowed. I don’t care how good you are, if you want to play Major League Baseball you make a commitment and go through spring training and play the damn game wire-to-wire. You comport yourself like a team player, and get treated like everybody else in the game. These aren’t the days of barnstorming teams, for shit sake. This is Major League Baseball. A guy shouldn’t be allowed to sit on the sidelines for the first month or two of the season angling for the best opportunity. It’s a joke, and if Bud Selig had any stones at all (and we’ve had ample evidence that he does not) he’d put the kabosh on it.

My only hope is that one of these times when Clemens comes back –hopefully this time– he’ll get rocked so hard and so consistently that he’ll make Lefty Carlton’s last couple years look like a graceful curtain call.

Here’s one of those situations where the way victories are handed out just isn’t fair. Pat Neshek, who found himself in a tough, tough spot (thank you, Juan Rincon) and kept the Twins in the game, should get that win, with an assist from Carl Crawford.

Or what the hell: give the thing to Carlos Silva, who’s done nothing so far but make all those spring training critics (not this guy, though) look like complete idiots. The Jackal was clearly paying very close attention to Ramon Ortiz’s start last night.

And people say it all the time, but it remains true at least a half dozen times a year: even if you waste entirely too much time watching baseball, you’re still guaranteed to see things you’ve never seen before, and I’m pretty damn sure I’ve never witnessed a 9-4-2-6 double play. Something like that’ll boggle your mind, and didn’t you just have the sense as soon as it unfolded that the game was over for Tampa Bay? I imagine everybody in that dugout said a silent prayer of gratitude that Lou Pinella is doing his suffering these days in a Cubs uniform.

That Morneau walk-off shot was also something to behold. It looked like he hit that thing off the end of the bat, couldn’t really turn on the pitch at all, and still managed to muscle it out of the park.

Isn’t a baseball season a fabulous thing? Those first two Yankee games already feel like ancient history.

There, there now. We got that fat Bronx monkey off our backs until July. Doesn’t that feel a whole lot better?

And after the bloodletting of the last couple nights wasn’t it nice to see Ramon Ortiz go out there and attack the Yankee hitters with what looked like a solid gameplan? To see a guy who was –let’s be honest– a pretty big question mark after his last several seasons pitch so quickly and with such enthusiasm (and, thank God, with so little perspiration)?

No dicking around. That’s exactly what we like to see.

And wasn’t it nice to see the offense, so inept over the last handful of games, come back and reward Ortiz for his eight solid innings of work?

Wasn’t it nice to see Alex Casilla out there? The kid sure looks like he belongs in the Major Leagues.

And isn’t it nice to see Michael Cuddyer continue to take pitches and work the count and get hits? And to have Luis Rodriguez, a desperation choice at designated hitter if ever there was one, come through with a couple hits?

Everybody in the lineup got on base. Wasn’t that nice?

Wasn’t it all so nice?

Isn’t it nice to be 5-3?

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all just settle down and give this season –and this team– a chance to get a couple months under its belt before we start hyperventilating and foaming at the mouth?

Yes, that would be nice, but it isn’t, of course, going to happen.

And, finally, wouldn’t it be nice if we never had to hear one more person point out that Doug Mientkiewicz, who bats eighth for the mighty Yankees, hit third for the Twins.

As if Mientkiewicz ever had any business batting third for any Major League team, and as if we didn’t know that all along.

Goodness gracious, as my mother would say.

Goodness fucking gracious.

What the hell can you say about a ballgame like that?

Well…

It only counts as one.

It’s still early.

Tomorrow’s another day.

It’s a long season.

It’s a marathon not a sprint.

The sun ain’t gonna shine on the same dog’s ass every day.

Still, the last week has raised some potentially alarming questions (Nick Punto, Denys Reyes, Jason Bartlett, the entire bottom of the order, etc.), has it not?

The horror.

It’s always a dozen different kinds of bad omen when Big Sid takes the hill. We all knew going in there was no way in hell the ball club was going to get through this day without incurring casualties. Thing was, though, was that there was really no way any of us could have imagined things would go quite so wrong, or so wrong in such a hurry.

Dude sweating like that gets everyone around him all jittery. You could tell right away the fellas were just hoping like hell he’d be showered and dressed by the time they got to the clubhouse.

No worries there, of course, but that don’t stop folks from worrying all the same.

Kurtz: Are my methods unsound?

Willard: I don’t see any method at all, sir.