Twins 2, Pirates 1: Correa hurt as Ryan, Twins outlast Paul Skenes

The thing you don’t want to see in a game you do want to see.

Carlos Correa had to leave in the seventh with what’s being called a “mild right ankle strain.” It puts a dour mood on a night where the Twins beat one of baseball’s top pitchers, with a gutsy getting-better performance by Joe Ryan. Inning-by-inning notes:

1: Von Ryan’s Express getting awfully close to a train wreck, here. Bases loaded, two outs — 33 pitches and not ONE has been a swing + a miss. Pitch 34 is a popup out, but when you’re facing the guy with the lowest ERA in all of baseball a short start from the Twins’ best pitcher is Not What You Want.

2: Paul Skenes spent ONE year in the minors and went to the pros and won Rookie of The Year and he is REALLY GOOD.

Begging the question: when you are facing a pitcher this good, do you use your best pitcher (if it lines up on his day) or a bullpen game? Just get through it, and assume you’re probably going to lose, save your top guy for the next day? I dunno. But Ryan is now at 51 pitches, so…

3: Will Kody Clemens save us? Sometimes this weirdly-named dude saves us. (Roger Clemens gave all his children names beginning with “K,” to remind the world how good he was at striking out batters.) Kody kan’t, not this time.

There’s gonna be a Nelly concert after the game. I’m not familiar with his music. So I checked out a big hit, “Country Grammar.” It’s not my style of music, but I can see the appeal. He’s a talented fellow. One bit from the video struck me. It’s at the 1:10 mark (screenshot by me):

That’s the biggest dang container of hot sauce I’ve ever seen.

I looked online, and this looks like it’s (probably) Louisiana Hot Sauce. So, I get it. I think about the best thing you could do with Louisiana Hot Sauce is to use it as barbecue marinade. (I love good barbecue, although I’m terrible at it, myself — the food in this video looks fantastic!)

I’m kinda of a hot sauce freak. I love the taste of Louisiana Hot Sauce, but it’s too thin for most of the things I like hot sauce for. I prefer Valentina, it sticks to the food a little better. And chili garlic paste for Asian-style dishes (not the squirt-bottle stuff, the stuff so thick you need a spoon to scoop it out of the jar.)

The best hot sauce I ever had was from a Hindu temple in Maple Grove (we visited for a World Religions class at Metro State, such beautiful shrine statues and our hosts were so great). They were selling hot pickled cauliflower as a church fundraiser. The sellers said “this is too hot for you.” I said, “nah, I’m a hot sauce guy from way back.”

I ate one of the cauliflowers on the ride back and had to leave the car, gasping for air. It was Death. There’s no way the “Hot Ones” guy ever had anything THIS potent. It tasted great, though! So I used it in chili and soup. ONE piece of cauliflower in a big pot of chili or soup. Those church people were right. I’m sure these barbecuers are right.

4: With one on and two out, old acquaintance Isiah Kiner-Falefa doubles in the run from first. That’s gonna be hard to overcome.

Dan Gladden mentions that one of the Pirates hitters had TWO home runs off Shohei Ohtani in the same game. Kris Atteberry says “that’s like one of the things you’d see on a baseball card under the cartoon.”

Gladden: “What cartoon?”

Atteberry: “You know, on the back of the old baseball cards, they’d have a little cartoon on top, a drawing of a guy riding a motorcycle or something, and underneath you’d have some stories about the player.”

Neither Gladden nor I have any idea what the heck Atteberry means. My baseball cards had the little stories on top and stats on the bottom, no cartoons.

ANYWAYS —

Buxton legs out the infield hit. Willi Castro hits into a FC by dogging it at bit. The Pirates tried for the DP, and Bux beat the throw at second, but Castro thought the ball was foul and didn’t run, so he can’t beat the return throw to first.

(The cardinal rule of the great Minnesota-born pitcher Charles Albert Bender: “Always run them out. You never can tell.”)

Still, Trevor Larnach guesses “one of Skenes’s seven different pitches might be a curve this time” and then BLASTS the curve. Homer runner!

The Twins now lead 2-1 after I said they wouldn’t be able to overcome it. That’s why my career at the Psychic Friends’ Network never worked out. Although I DO know the way to San Jose.

5: Ryan at 86 pitches, now. Run him out for another inning? Hard to say. It was his first 1-2-3 of the game, so I would, but I don’t have Rocco’s Magical Arm Barn spreadsheet.

Case for bunting: Clemens gets on with one out, and low-hitting Christian Vázquez is up against one of baseball’s best pitchers. He pops out, and Buxton gets a through-the middle hit. That would have scored Clemens, if he’d been bunted over. Commenter falcontimmy shares this opinion.

6: The spreadsheet says get rid of Ryan, so ridden he is gotten of. It’s Danny “Electric Charge” Coulombe, and he manages.

Carmen Mlodzinski replaces Skenes, and the Twins do nothing against him, but this name reminds me of when Mark Grudzielanek and Doug Mientkiewicz were both playing for KC and making New York Times crossword writers very happy.

7: CRAP. Tommy Pham, trying to stretch a single into a double, accidentally runs into Carlos Correa, who is helped off the field. It wasn’t Pham’s fault at all. The last thing Twins fans need is another Correa injury. The last thing Correa needs is another injury. I’ve had to do rehab and even with the nicest, kindest PT rehab specialists, the process of rehab is a chore and I hated it. Above and beyond being a baseball fan, I hope he’s OK.

8: Capt. Grffin Jax, USAF, comes in and says “Paul Skenes, I FINISHED my service academy degree.” Skenes left after two years. The first day of your junior year, you owe the US government for the free college education you’re getting — you have to serve. Before then, you can bail and it’s no hard feelings.

Hey, I did it. I spent one year at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. It’s one of the five service academies — Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine — which is NOT the Marines, it’s for sailors. (In WWI, German U-boats were sinking American merchant ships sending supplies to Europe at such a high rate, fewer people were wanting to work on ships. So we established the Merchant Marine Academy to train sailors to be on ships in the event of another war, and quite a few USMMA students/alumni died in WWII.)

The regimented military lifestyle — where you’re told what to do and you follow it — was not for me. So I left after a year. But it is for some people! My brother liked it, and was in both the Navy and the Army. In the Navy during Gulf War I, which wasn’t so bad, not for him. In the Army for Gulf War II, and it’s something he won’t talk about, and it’s not my place to press. He’s a good man. Anyways, he liked military regimentation more than I did. Different strokes, folks.

And Jax does fine.

9: Patrick Nagel’s cover art does put on the tying run, but that’s it! Twims wim!

For the handful of people reading this on smartphone newsfeeds, the intentional misspelling “Twims wim” is just a weird thing we do around here, since this blog has always has a bit more of a weird streak than a straight sports-coverage side. It’s just a site thing.

Hence, COTG goes to Minnesota 1952 for this summary: “Two great starting pitchers. Two great bullpen outings. Larnach guessed correctly. Twims Wim. The end.” I’d post that as my whole recap but I’d get in trouble. I DID follow orders at the USMMA. Mostly. Until I kinda got tired of it.

Also, Nagurskiinnortheast for “This game is exhibit A for why I love baseball…joe is decidedly not fresh to begin the game… twins couldn’t possibly have looked more feeble the first time thru the order and it.just.didnt.matter in the end…. let’s go.”

And sandwiches for seeing my Bat Out Of Hell reference and anteing one better.

Studs of the game: duh. Larnach’s dinger, Ryan’s settling in, the bullpen, Buxton with two hits and a run scored. Duds: me for weird ramblings, here.

Hey, in the last ten days, I’ve had four wisdom teeth yanked out and my droopy eyebrows surgically lifted to avoid them impacting my vision. My face feels like Joe Mauer swung a bat at my mouth and then Justin Morneau threw me eyes-first through a plate glass window. I considered sharing a picture, but there might be CHILDREN reading this and they don’t need to see this face. Although you could use it to tell them what the boogeyman looks like who’ll eat them if they don’t clean their room.

Tomorrow’s contest is at 1:10, featuring Pirates starter Mike Burrows and the Twins’ most effective weapon, known only by his initials “TBD.” Enjoy the weekend, and our best wishes to Carlos Correa.