LAAAAAAA at Twins.
Friday, Twins 7, LAAAA 4.
Saturday, Twins 4, LAAAA 2.
Sunday, LAAAA 2, Twins 1.
Around two o' clock on Friday, the Twins started noticing that some of their things were missing. Nothing major at first—a shoe here, a towel there. Brad Radke couldn't find his Aveda Light Elements Detailing Mist Wax. A bucket of crawdads was missing from Matt LeCroy's locker. Lew Ford couldn't place his Queen Amidala (Naboo) action figure.
"Has anyone seen my volume of Rilke?" asked J.C. Romero.
"Has anyone seen my scalp Simoniz?" asked Torii Hunter.
"Has anyone seen my bench?" asked bench coach Steve Liddle.
Terry Mulholland, who had been napping in a corner, woke up to find all the players running around the clubhouse searching frantically in nook and cranny.
"What's going on?" asked Mulholland, rubbing his eyes. "Am I dreaming?"
"Oh," said Luis Rivas. "We're missing a bunch of stuff."
Mulholland raised a thick eyebrow. "You are?"
"Yeah. I don't know what's going to happen if Radke can't find his Detailing Mist. His hair's gonna, you know…" Rivas gesticulated wildly above his head.
Mulholland shook his head and sighed. "You're never going to find that stuff. It's Bartolo Colon. He eats everything."
A loud squeaking noise came from the direction of Little Nicky Punto's locker, then a disturbance moved through the air, as if something had just run at very great speed toward the clubhouse door.
Photo courtesy of kw
"Did you see something?" asked Mulholland.
"No," shrugged Rivas.
"So where was I? Oh, yeah, Colon. You should have seen it at Cleveland, with him and Captain Cheeseburger on the same team. You had to lock everything up or nail it down."
"Man," said Justin Morneau as the Twins gathered around Mulholland, sitting crosslegged at his feet.
"He ate my Detaling Mist?!" Radke said.
"He ate my Queen Amidala (Naboo)?!" Lew Ford exclaimed.
"He ate my crawdad bucket?!" said Big LeRoy.
"I'm afraid so. Why once he ate three players to be named later from the Pirates in a row. Finally, they stopped sending us guys."
All afternoon, Terry Mulholland told the Twins tales of Bartolo Colon and his exploits. He even took out his banjo and sang his original composition, "Bartolo Colon Eats Every Damn Thing, Every Damn Thing In the Whole Wide World," while the Twins clapped along.
Meanwhile, poor Little Nicky Punto had gone into Gardy's office and said he had some emergency and had to leave town PRONTO, but Gardy would have none of it.
"There's no emergency, Little Nicky Punto," said Gardy. "You're just scared of getting eaten. But you're the hot hand. I got to play the hot hand."
"But...," squeaked Little Nicky, "I don't wanna get eaten."
"Here, hold on." Gardy got up and moved toward the door. The last strains of "Joe Crede Likes To Stick His Elbow In Front Of The Pitch, But He Gets Called Back Every Damned Time" could be heard coming from the dugout. "Curly Locks," he shouted, "Come in here! I need you."
"I really prefer to be called Dr. Morneau," said Justin, entering Gardy's office.
"Whatever, Curly. Listen, Little Nicky Punto here is worried about getting eaten again."
"Eaten?' Morneau said, appalled. "AGAIN?"
"Yeah, sure," said Gardy. "He gets eaten a couple times a year. I guess you weren't here then…."
"No!" said Morneau, his eyes bugging out. "Why, that's awful. That makes me so mad! How dare they! Why don't they just pick on someone their own size!"
"I know," said Gardy. "It's a shame. So, anyway, will you watch over him?"
"Eaten!" exclaimed Morneau, his face bright purple. "Gosh! I mean! Arrgh!" With no other outlet for his rage, he picked up a bat and started smashing up Gardy's office. "YOU. SHOULDN'T. EAT. PEOPLE!"
"Okay, great," said Gardy, rolling his eyes. "Curly Locks will protect you, Little Nicky Punto." He ushered them out of his office and finished his download of "Crunk Juice."
So, when it was time to play on Friday, the Twins found themselves a little off their game at first. Carlos Silva had been keeping his Bangles t-shirt collection in his locker and, after much thought, before the game he put each shirt on under his uniform. "I didn't want it to get eaten," he would say later. But the resulting bulk threw him off for a few innings and before he could say, "Walk Like an Egyptian," he found himself behind 4-1.
But it didn't matter, for on Friday night Little Nicky Punto ran the bases like a man desperately trying not to get eaten (though when he dove into first for a head first slide, Gardy may have wanted to eat him himself) while Justin Morneau played the whole game in a fit of rage and hit the ball around as if it too were trying to eat LNP. Meanwhile, as the Twins began to catch up, Michael Cuddyer could be seen walking around the dugout wiggling his back oddly.
"What are you doing?" said Stewie.
"I feel really weird," Cuddy said. "Lighter all of a sudden."
"Hmmm," said Shannon Stewart. "Maybe it's because you're not carrying around that monkey anymore."
"I'm not?" Cuddy looked at his back.
"Nope. Did you leave it at home?"
"No, man," said Cuddy. "Hey! I bet Colon ate it!"
"Hey, that's pretty cool,' said Stewie. "Maybe you won't play like such ass-crap now!"
"Yeah!" exclaimed Cuddy.
And indeed, the very next inning, Cuddy hit in the go-ahead run, and two innings later, he knocked in the go-ahead-more run and the go-ahead-lots run with a ground rule double, and when he came back into the clubhouse, he beamed, "Man, it's sure easier to hit without that damn monkey!"
Saturday, things were much the same, for Colon had eaten Brad Radke's first inning problems as well as Juan Rincon's wildness, meanwhile LNP continued to stay in everyone's sight while Justin Morneau pretended the ball was Colon's face, hitting it approximately 96 moose antlers into the upper deck.
The whole thing went very well for the Twins, until they faced Colon himself on Sunday, for they had concentrated so much on his voracious appetite, they forgot that he can be a pretty damn good pitcher as well. Poor Johan Santana gave up two gopher balls while Colon had already eaten all the gophers in his range and as the batters came back into the dugout, one by one, shaking their heads, Gardy could be heard to mutter to himself, "Man, he's just eating us alive out there." And if Little Nicky Punto muttered under his breath, "See how YOU like it!" you could probably forgive him.
After the game, the Twins were a little dejected, especially Big LeRoy who found that he swings at bad pitches when not fueled by the power of crawdad bucket, but Terry Mulholland called them all around him again, and said, "Look, boys, we got the series win against a great team...we can feel good."
"But Johan's streak!" protested Juan Castro, hanging his head.
"Awwww, it's okay, boys," said Johan. "I'll just get another winning streak. Longer this time. Really, what's most important is the series victory, and that no one got eaten."
"A-men," said Littly Nicky Punto.
"That's right, Johan," said Mulholland. "You know, I have a song for just this occasion." He reached behind him, and then started to look wildly around. "Hey!" he exclaimed, "has anyone seen my banjo?"
Posted by Batgirl at May 1, 2005 10:07 PM
I feel so selfish, because I reacted exactly like Juan Castro, when I really should have been grateful that LNP was safe and didn't get eaten up by Bartolo Colon!
At least we got the series win, though I'm slightly fearful that the Twins transferred their no-run support rule from Bradke to Johan for today, since they got Brad 4 whole runs yesterday...)
Posted by: Webster at May 1, 2005 10:35 PMI must remember to send Doctor Morneau a plate of cookies and a bag of hockey pucks in thanks for keeping my boyfriend, Little Nicky Punto, safe from the big, bad, Colon of Doom.
nobody eats Li'l Nicky Punto!
Posted by: Tumbleweed at May 1, 2005 11:00 PMBG that was a beautiful weekend wrap up, as per usual. Has anyone noticed that Bartolo Colon actually does kinda resemble that vacumn sucking monster from the Beatles movie Yellow Submerine? No? It's probably just me.
Posted by: ysolla at May 1, 2005 11:42 PMThe most eye opening part of that story is that Ron Gardenhire enjoys L'il John.
Posted by: Ryan at May 1, 2005 11:44 PMThanks for the wrap, BatGirl. It gave me a giggle, and helps make up for the fact that I can't catch the Mighty Mighty Twins on TV.
Posted by: anita at May 2, 2005 06:10 AM>>"Eaten!" exclaimed Morneau, his face bright purple. "Gosh! I mean! Arrgh!" With no other outlet for his rage, he picked up a bat and started smashing up Gardy's office. "YOU. SHOULDN'T. EAT. PEOPLE!"
Posted by: kafumbly at May 2, 2005 06:38 AMhaha, Curly Locks. I like that. I was wearing my Justin Boyfriend shirt Friday night..I maybe will never take it off. Great games Justin...I *heart* u!!
Posted by: Mic at May 2, 2005 08:38 AMI'm actually a bit relieved that Johan lost a game. Less pressure now. Like it is with kickers in the NFL, tank one during the season so it doesn't become an issue when it counts more.
One more 2hit, 2ER no run support loss would probably help a lot in late August or September, as long as it's not against a division foe or other contender. We play Texas twice then. But lose no more in the interim.
This is my first post here -- hopefully the first of many! (I've actually been lurking and reading since last fall.)
BG, that was a beautiful recap. And it does explain a lot. What it doesn't explain, sadly, is why of all days Gardy picked Santana's start to put in his 'B' lineup. I mean, really, if you want to give your pitcher some run support, you don't swap in Castro, Rivas, and Redmond ALL AT THE SAME TIME. I was glad to see the Chairman and my guy Bartlett make it in near game's end (along with my beloved LNP!) but alas, it was too little, too late.
Oh well, watching Santana work was still beautiful. Even if he did give up 2 solo dingers over 8 innings, what's amazing is that that's ALL that he gave up, apart from 2 walks. I was reading an article yesterday -- written before spring training let out -- where Rick Anderson was cited as telling Santana: "You're going to win 30 games this year."
Provided our guys can put some points on the board for El Presidente, I can believe it.
Posted by: Salt-Man Z at May 2, 2005 08:57 AM
Lew Ford is officially my boyfriend now, as he endorsed my T-shirt with his signature on Saturday morning.
He thought it was very funny when I informed him that his T-shirt is the best-selling of all the Twins.
And yeah, Lew is even more unbearably adorable in person than he is on the field.
Posted by: TwinsGoddess at May 2, 2005 09:32 AMHow cool is that Twinsgoddess! Lew is so cute, that I just want to squeeze him like a little fuzzy kitten that just crawled out of a warm laundry basket.
Saturday I wore my Justin shirt and had about 4 people say, "No, he's MY boyfriend." I don't know how I'm going to break it to all these girls, that he is MY boyfriend.
Oh Tumbleweed, for his bodyguard duties, I think the Dr. would really enjoy some Rapala fishing lures too.
Posted by: HooliganKat at May 2, 2005 09:39 AMI was busy most of yesterday, and only heard the ninth inning. I was sad at the Santana loss, but pictured Bradke walking up to Santana at the end of the game saying, "I know how you feel, man."
I was soooo happy to see Bradke run-support on Saturday, and that Bradke only gave up one earned run. And, well, "MICHAEL GOT A HIT!", as I reminded Wee Sister all weekend.
And Little Nicky Punto didn't get eaten!
(Great re-cap, Batgirl. Pretty much the weekend right there.)
Posted by: Just Beth at May 2, 2005 09:40 AMI knew that after the day of uber-cool baseball Friday from all my teams, then the Bradke unexpected run support Saturday, there would be karmic hell to pay on Sunday.
Glad to hear the team has recovered with the help of Terry, and that LNP avoided being eaten.
Posted by: CarrieIC at May 2, 2005 10:02 AMBetter from me than from southsiders I suppose:
What is Shanoff thinking in the Quickie today? Is he starting a war? :) Here's the text:
"Santana is still the AL Cy fave, but not if ChiSox P Jon Garland keeps throwing 4-hit shutouts (first AL pitcher to 5 wins)."
Like there is a comparison...
Though, he's right in saying that If Garland keeps winning that he will win the Cy. He's putting up sick numbers right now, so tip of the cap goes out...
It's just always a shame to me to see pitchers that put up great numbers for sub-par teams... like Randy Johnson wherever he plays ;)
Regards,
YankeeFan
I was also really worried about LNP with a man with as large of an appetite as Colon. This is a dangerous homestand for LNP, what with Captain Cheeseburger on his way here and all. I bet he's licking his lips already with the thought of our dear LNP.
Posted by: Stacy at May 2, 2005 10:16 AMWell, well, well. The AL Central (like the other divisions) is interesting so far in this young season. Show of hands, if I told you in March that by the end of April, that the ChiSox would be the hottest team in baseball, that Baltimore would have a 4 game lead in the East over Boston and Toronto and they'd both be three and a half up on the Yankees, that Detroit would be 2.5 up on Cleveland for third in the division, and that the AL Central would have TWO teams in the top 4 best records in all of baseball, how many of you would have laughed at me?
It's an interesting year so far. Let's hope that it stays that way and that every division is competitive down to the wire.
I, too, was sad to see Santana's streak end but it was still a pretty good game. What's encouraging is that he's not going to be pitching against a performance like that too often. And this Angels team is not exactly chopped liver. That's a pretty good team that he two hit.
In the division, Cleveland doesn't seem to be living up to its potential on paper. Detroit seems to be on the fence, showing that it can put it all together one day and ... not so much the next. KC, well, I feel really bad for KC but they need to have some patience. If they have the patience to see through the "let's put some young cheap players together, accept the growing pains and hope they gel into a team in a couple of years" plan then they might be ok. I just don't know where their leadership is going to come from.
The team that's dangerous this year is the ChiSox. Let's not kid ourselves. They're on a mission and they're playing like it. Barring a run of injuries, that team is going to make the AL Central one to watch this year for the rest of the nation that isn't Twins fans. Let's welcome the challenge and everyone step up their games. Good for the division, good for baseball and great for baseball fans.
Posted by: mmmarkiep at May 2, 2005 10:38 AMWith the Yanks down and out, it seems like the Wild Card could be between the Orioles or Boston (Whoever isn't winning the East) against whoever isn't winning the central. It would be nice to see two Central teams get to the playoffs. Gotta represent the Midwest.
Also, don't be dejected. The Sox gave the Twins their best shot (and 18-7 start) and the Twins are still standing. Sometime this season, the Twins will return the favor.
And whatever happened to Cleveland and Dmitri's Kittens, who were both supposed to be good this year? Neither of them has done anything at all.
OH NO!
I just heard that Juan Rincon got suspended for 10 days for violating the steroids policy.
Boo! What were you thinking?
NO, NO, NO.
k-bro
Posted by: k-bro at May 2, 2005 11:27 AMWTF Boo?!?!?! I hope you didn't share it with anyone else on the team!
*sobs quietly at desk*
Posted by: ndtf at May 2, 2005 11:37 AMWTF?? There goes the moral high ground. What the hell was he thinking?
Posted by: mmmarkiep at May 2, 2005 11:46 AM*sniff*
Is... is it _wrong_ to think "That's why he suddenly became reliable last season"? Because, maybe that's not why, but now... who'll trust his performance? BAD BOO! BAD!
Posted by: Katharriet at May 2, 2005 12:20 PMIt's not wrong, Kat. Sadly, everything he's done or will do will now be suspect. Like they used to tell us in the Navy, it only takes one "Aw, shit." to ruin 100 "Attaboys."
Posted by: mmmarkiep at May 2, 2005 12:26 PMDid anyone notice that LNP entered the game - only AFTER Big Bartolo showed off his 6 inch vertical jump, sprained his cankle, and left the game to go to Old Country Buffett.
Posted by: Hegs at May 2, 2005 12:47 PMBoo... no...
I am sobbing at my desk and people are looking at me funny...
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Posted by: kafumbly at May 2, 2005 12:53 PMhttp://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2051595
they're going to recall Scott (With Two T's) Baker.
Tootie, please help the crying stop.
Posted by: kafumbly at May 2, 2005 12:56 PMI'd like to hear a rendition of "Joe Crede sticks his elbow in front of the pitch but he gets called back every damn time."
Batgirl, storytime gets better and better. Especially the musical interludes.
Posted by: Brundlefly at May 2, 2005 02:08 PMfor sure, Brundlefly. I could use a good Terry Mulholland banjo tune right about now.
Posted by: kafumbly at May 2, 2005 02:44 PMI'm sorry for my Daddy's two hit's in yesterdays game, causing him to have his first lost in a long long time.
I kept him up all night crying and stuff. I'll try to sleep better before his next start.
Posted by: Baby Santana at May 2, 2005 03:19 PMspeaking of Colon. I wonder if former Detroit Lion linebacker Harry Colon is a relative. Does Bartolo mean "itchy" or "hungry" in spanish?
These are important questions that must be answered.
Posted by: Brundlefly at May 2, 2005 05:13 PMBartolo Colon shall not eat another thing! for I, Tumbleweed, have eaten HIM!
http://69.93.183.37/889/77/upload/p2909934.jpg
see me as I slurp him up, mid-pitch!
I shall save you, Little Nicky Punto!
Posted by: Tumbleweed at May 2, 2005 09:07 PMDear Tumbleweed,
I am so glad someone was there to get that excellent picture. Thank you for all you do.
Love,
BG
Dear Batgirl,
any time. just let me know if there is ever anything I can do to help.
Sincerely,
Tumbleweed
