That’s 12 in a row for your third place Twinkies! Only 5.0 GB, I’ll take it.
1980, 1991, 2024, and 2025 — what do these things have in common? 12-game Twins win streaks, that’s what!
Joe Ryan finishes strong after a long couple of innings. The Twins don’t really score enough to win, but they do anyways. Inning-by-inning notes:
1: Singles by Larnach and Jeffers to open things up! Ty France RBI! Willi Castro smacks one off his knee and another Twin has died. (He is not dead.) One of the K-named Clemens child coterie gets another RBI.
Brice Turang (whoooooo?) opens Milwaukee’s half with a single. He steals and makes a very good slide to avoid the tag. Ryan gets out of it, but not until walking a guy and throwing 30 pitches. Twins 2-0
2: Mercy, mercy, DeShawn Keirsey! (This is a reference to something broadcaster Bill Schonely would say about Trailblazer Jerome Kersey, and yes I DO have a Jerome Kersey Dairy Queen glass. A Kevin Duckworth and Cliff Robinson, too.) He bounces one off Turang for a single. Then Vázquez and Larnach with hits… but Jeffers decides to honor Correa’s memory and GIDP. You’d like to have gotten more than one there.
Castro played defense last inning, but he’s out now. Replaced by Ryan Fitzgerald, who will be 31 in June, and this is his first MLB game. Way to hang in there, Ryan! Twins 3-0
3: Fitzgerald’s first AB is a flyout. Per radio, he was so popular with the Worcester Red Sox that, after he was traded, the team had an appreciation day for him, and almost 25,000 people showed up! Target Field doesn’t often get that many, these days. Joe Ryan really settling in: six straight strikeouts!
4: Royce Lewis pushes his average all the way up to .172. Nothing comes of it.
Ryan breaks the strikeout streak with a HBP. Still no runs allowed, but up to 79 pitches already. I’m guessing he gets another shot at the bottom of the order, then he’s gone. Lewis does the defense!
5: Rookie Ryan is now 0-2. Unfortunately “Chad” (really Chandler” Patrick is settling in. Seven-pitch inning for older Ryan!
Top 133 songs of the past 20 years, as voted on by The Current listeners, full list revealed tonight. Some good stuff on there: Janelle Monae, Neko Case, Lola, Big Thief, CHVRCHES, Animal Collective, Maggie Rogers, Dessa, Sufjan Stevens, M.I.A., Florence + The Machine, Amy Winehouse, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Tribe Called Quest.
No R.E.M., Aimee Mann, Mitski, Beck, Father John Misty, John Prine, Orville Peck, Yola — these are OMISSIONS. Also, I woulda picked a different Killers song than the one those voters did:
Yeah, that’s just better. I’m so-so on the lyrics, but that falsetto is GREAT.
6: Another hit for Clemens, who tops this lineup with a .788 OPS (on a .212 average). Nobody else gets anything. When Patrick’s sinker is working, it’s working. It’s working.
Surprise! Ryan stays in for now. This top of the order goes L/R/L, so it’s quite possible they will come up later in a key game situation, and it’s be nice to have Coulombe available there. A one-out double from William Contreras — Milwaukee’s second hit. A flyout, then a ꓘ to end the inning! 99 pitches to finish the game for Joe. Well done. Also I want my keyboard to have a ꓘ symbol on it.
7: Bullpen battle time. Tyler Alexander wins Round 1. Brock Stewart in for the Twins — radio says his HS nickname was Beef Stew. OK. Leadoff single for Sal Frelick. A strikeout, another single. Gulpity-gulp. ꓘ symbol again. And again! Gulping over.
8: Alexander still in. Wiki says he once had 10 strikeouts in relief… but the record (unsurprisingly) belongs to Randy Johnson with 16! Alexander gets less than 10 here, but the Twins can’t get to him anyways.
More surprisingly, it’s not Coulombe to face that L/R/L mentioned earlier. It’s Capt. Jax, USAF. A one-out single, but another ꓘ to finish things off… see why I want that key? I mean I can CTRL-C CTRL-V with the best of them, but that’s not the point.
Another handy one is CTRL-C CTRL-K CTRL-V to add links to things. Try it, you’ll like it, and it will get you Hawt Dates.
9: Joel Payamps, that’s a name I know. Vázquez gets a double and ends by basically rolling into second, this is fun.
It’s… Cole Sands for the save opportunity? OK. He’s been pretty good of late. Flyout, K, ꓘ! Twins win!
Studs: Ryan (of course), Sands, Kody Clemens? Sure, Kody Clemens. Duds We Love: Jackson Chourio, 0-4, 4 SO
Good gamethread tonight. COTG to our own Walter Koenig: “How do the Minnesota Twins keep scoring runs and winning games when it is clear that God hates them (injuries, Pope from Chicago, etc.)” Nagurskiinsandpoint on Ryan throwing so many first-inning pitches: “That’s no way to keep the nethers fresh.. just saying.” (Because Ryan uses Ball Talc.) And imakesandwichesforaliving with “my real name is J. F. Kennedy and I’ve been enjoying my life sailing back and forth around the tip of South America for over 50 years now”
Tomorrow’s game will be Pablo López against something called a Tobias Myers, at 6:15. Is Tobias any relation to the Myers who did this piece on a Wisconsin Snake Guy? Seriously, a guy in Wisconsin intentionally got bitten by snakes for 20 years. To each their own…