Chicago Cubs at Twins. Weekend Round-Up. Sweeeep.
Friday. Twins 7, Cubs 2.
Saturday. Twins 3, Cubs 0.
Sunday. Twins 8, Cubs 1.
I don't want to take anything away from the Twins this weekend. Cynics might say there's nothing impressive about sweeping a team as hapless as these Chicago Cubs, but anyone who's paid attention to the Twins over the last year knows we could be held scoreless by a bunch of monkeys playing Wiffle Ball. And the fact is, this whole streak of awesomeness started against the Boston Red Sox, who, last time Batgirl checked, were Good at Baseball. And if you look back over the course of our season you might find us decidedly not sweeping teams of the Cubs' caliber. (Or you know, on second thought, maybe you shouldn't look back. We're having such a nice time here, and it's Monday morning and it's Freedom Week and everything, why hurt ourselves so?) And what we had here was good defense, timely hitting, great pitching, and big ol' boom boom sticks. Friday was Justin "is Good" Morneau and Johan Santana combining for another Canezuela gem, on Saturday the Rochester Red Wings showed rookies are doing it for themselves, and on Sunday Bradke and just about all of the offense combined to turn the Cubbies into Batgirl's 10th grade volleyball team, minus the spunk and Bangles tapes. It is, after all, just another manic Monday.
The Twins tried to put an end to the Cubbies' suffering but there was only so much they could do. The North Siders kept finding new and creative ways to screw up—like Todd Walker and Phil Nevin sipping tea and munching on cucumber sandwiches as a ball rolled slowly between them—and no matter how hard the Twins tried, they couldn't get out. Torii Hunter did his best to hit into a double play with RISP but ended up scoring a run anyway. "I did my best, man," he would say regretfully after the game. "They just suck really, really hard." Little Nicky Punto felt so bad about it that after scoring he paused to mount catcher Henry "Cranko" Blanco comfortingly. (Goober: See, that's a difference between playing the Bitch Sox and the Cubs. When you score on the Bitch Sox you try to take their catcher's heads off, when you score on the Baby Bears you take the chance to have a nice snuggle.)
Watching Dusty Baker's face during the three game series was rather like reading "De Profundis," but without the profundity. Each time they cut to him, the mélange of emotions on his face was slightly different—here disappointment tinged with frustration, here anger with a note of agony, here dismay with a soupcon of psychosis. You got the impression the FSN director's default was to cut to Baker on every play given it was more likely his team would do something painful. It was like a three-day long Tums commercial (but without the profundity.)
Batgirl's not making fun of the Cubs by any means. She knows suffering. She knows what it is to scream things at the TV like "CALL FOR THE FRACKIN' BALL YOU NUMBNUT SHITBRAINS!" She knows what it is to tear the TV out of the wall and put her head through it. She knows the garment-rending and the eyeball gouging. We were there not so long ago. But the Twins have found their mojo, the future is bright, and BG's feeling so chipper she's going to challenge the Wiffle-Ball-playing-monkeys to a rematch. That's right. Next off day in Kenwood Park on BG's old t-ball field, we're going to do this thing. Oh, it's on, you bitch monkeys.
It's hard for even *me* to be cynical about sweeping the Cubs, really. I mean... what were the guys supposed to do - win 4 out of 3? We all know that only the Tigers can do that.
Now for the Dodgers. Eek.
Liriano and Santana. :cleansing breath: Liriano and Santana.
Posted by: neutrino boi at June 26, 2006 12:04 AMGiven that my two favorite MLB teams... at least ever since moving from the land of 10,000 lakes to the land of, well, corn mostly, as a kid... have been the Twins and whoever's playing the Cubs, this was a very enjoyable weekend.
Question tho... when the whiffle ball playing monkeys are down a couple runs in the last inning, what flashes on their jumbotron? Rally angels?
Posted by: JimCrikket at June 26, 2006 12:17 AMHey, anytime our boys can put together a 14-2 stretch, color me thrilled.
Here's hoping that the Jackal is The Focused Keeping-The-Ball-Down-In-The-Zone Jackal tomorrow, rather than The Confused Leaving-It-Up-And-Basically-Putting-It-On-A-Tee Jackal. I'm looking forward to groundballs aplenty tomorrow.
According to my friend Molly (a baseball writer and Dodger devotee), the Billingsley kid going against Silva tomorrow is The Next Big Thing, and would be this year's Liriano, if Liriano weren't already this year's Liriano.
Posted by: Chris at June 26, 2006 12:30 AMI like sweeping teams, I could get very used to this. Can we please keep the brooms out for the Dodgers?
Posted by: talldrinkowater at June 26, 2006 02:20 AMAs much as im loving this right now, it will mean nothing if we cant keep this play up through our next meetings with the tigers and bitch sox around the end of july. Hopefully they will fall off our pace and we can catch up a few games and really make those 2 serises really interesting.
Posted by: TwinsinBoston at June 26, 2006 03:37 AMI have all the usual reasons for loving the Twins recent displays of baseball proficency, however their current fabulousness is all the more timely for me. I am a member of a two part costumer superduo who are sewing ten Lord of the Rings outfits for a wedding that's in two weeks, and it's a little known fact that sports make the perfect TV backdrop for heavy duty, balls to the wall sewing. I'm sure many of you weren't aware that you could have balls to the wall sewing, but now you're enlightened.
Oh yes, the Twins have made my week, but the Astros are trying to kill me. It will be death from a thousand needle gouges. I was rooting for them last night over the BitchSox, but I went to bed in abject despair after they blew a 7 run lead, and then failed to score with runners on the corners in the the 10th. Bye the bye, does anybody know if they actually managed to beat the Bitchsox?
Posted by: ysolla at June 26, 2006 06:48 AM
Ysolla--
Indeed, Houston did their civic duty and stuck it to the Bitch Sox in the 13th.
Posted by: CarrieICL at June 26, 2006 06:51 AMCubbies, the other bitch meat.
Posted by: Thart at June 26, 2006 08:22 AM"balls to the wall sewing"
Now there's a phrase I don't believe I could have imagined ever hearing this side of a Project Runway marathon.
Posted by: JimCrikket at June 26, 2006 09:09 AMWhat you have to love is the fact that, with El Tigres and the Rainbow Sox (their new moniker, required by Ozzie's sensitivity trainer) whomping on everybody, our gallant boys are not deterred - they soldier on, creaming every would-be conquerer. Now, as a former Los Angeleno whose hatred for the Dodgers is nearly as great as my loathing of the Rainbow Sox, can we please whack the boys in blue? Thrice? Oh, and since the missus, the son and I will be in the Dome Saturday and Sunday (a bit o' vacation from our home here in DC), can we continue the whuppin' on the Brewskis? Pleeeeeeeeeease? Even if we never catch Detroit or Chicago, this is really fun. (Oh, and what is that speck in the rear view mirror? Oh, right - it's last year's media darlings, the Cleveland Indians, fading into the horizon...)
Posted by: adidasman at June 26, 2006 09:36 AMYea! ANOTHER COSTUMER! Will this wedding be at CONvergence?
Posted by: bhedrick at June 26, 2006 09:51 AMDear Mr. Crikket,
"Rally angels"...hahahahaha! Now that's funny.
k-bro
Posted by: k-bro at June 26, 2006 10:29 AMWould it be a friendly gesture to send the Cubbies the Bangles tapes from BG's volleyball team? Maybe that would give them a little more spunk.
Posted by: JustBeth at June 26, 2006 11:14 AM"and whoever's playing the Cubs"
snerk.
"Cubbies, the other bitch meat."
snerk. snerk.
"sports make the perfect [TV] backdrop for heavy duty, balls to the wall sewing"
My brain immediately goes to the "Bull Durham" scene: "Crash must have called the guy a c*#%$@&%@#!"
"Bitch Monkeys" is totally my next fantasy league moniker. (Yes, my teams usually suck.)
Posted by: BAT bandwagoner at June 26, 2006 11:16 AMCan I just take a moment to say how much I HATE interleague play? All the Twins do is win, and it basically hasn't made any difference because, apparently, the entire National League is the American League's bitch monkey. But Bud is happy because there were 42,000 people at the Metrodome on Saturday night. Bah. I can't wait for the real season to begin again.
Going into this season, the NL was leading in interleague play (all-time). This season, the AL has turned things around.
A lot of it depends on who you happen to get matched up with, really. If you're lucky enough to end up with that season's doormats, yay you! If you get matched up with that season's juggernauts, good luck with that.
Considering the way teams change personnel every year, and how many players switch leagues every year, the whole "AL vs. NL" argument really doesn't mean much anymore. If Albert Pujols, for instance, somehow ended up in the AL next year, the AL's All-Star Game fortunes would improve dramatically. Send a bunch of AL sluggers or aces over to the NL next year, the scales tip in the other direction.
I hate interleague play too BTW. Big time. I see it as an annoying interruption of the real season. We already had the All-Star Game and the World Series. This we didn't need.
Posted by: LaurieNY at June 26, 2006 01:16 PMBG, when are you going come up with a nickname for Francisco Liriano? That's seven syllables, for Pete's sake.
Posted by: Kevin at June 26, 2006 01:49 PMThe 'Cisco Kid or Kid 'Cisco.
Posted by: SledgehammerHeart at June 26, 2006 03:18 PMOr, for brevity's sake, simply "The Kid".
Posted by: Salt-Man Z at June 26, 2006 03:29 PMI just call him Frank. Unassuming enough to be comical.
Posted by: She-Ra, P.O.P. at June 26, 2006 04:42 PMI am not completely sure what my stance on Interleague play is. For the Twins, it just brought in 125,000+ fans for a three game series. If they played even the Yankees, I don't know if it would have been 100,000 or if they played the Royals, they might've cracked 60,000. So if it means bringing more money through higher attendance to the Twins--then I'm cool with it. Selig was trying to branch out a little bit. He had the smaller clubs in mind when making the decision to go with Interleague play. Does it take away from the World Series a little, because NL and AL teams have already played each other? Sure. But it's cool to see the Cubs/Dodgers/Padres (last year) come to town every now and then.
Posted by: ForMorneau at June 26, 2006 04:42 PMWe are so going to kick some monkey butt!
Posted by: mmmmarkiep at June 26, 2006 05:21 PMHey! Let's go easy on the Cubs. There, but for the grace of teamwork, go we. Wheeeee!
Posted by: Twinkee at June 26, 2006 05:30 PMOh, it is good to be back, and thank you, BG and Team BG, for all of the recaps and BODs (there are so many of them these days). I just read through the past week's worth (along with all of the Strib and PP stories) after a week's vacation in LA, and I am most grateful. Relying on the national media for Twins coverage is a terrible, ugly, hurtful thing, rather like trusting Management to do the right thing for Labor out of its innate sense of fair play and goodness. Honestly, you would think the Twins actually did get contracted back in 2002 for all the attention they get. But the family unit did get to do some advance scouting since my sister-in-law got us kickin' tickets to the Dodger game on Sunday. Yes, Dodger Dogs are as tasty as legend proclaims. It was Beach Towel day, so we scored a whole linen closet full of blue terry cloth. Dodger Stadium is getting on in years, but is layered like a pearl with year after year of tradition. Anthony Nomar Garciaparra is very good at hitting baseballs, almost as good as the Chairman. And, oh, Auntie Em, there's no place like home!
Posted by: twayn at June 26, 2006 06:17 PMKenwood Park was Batgirl's childhood t-ball haunting grounds? That's totally awesome!! I played recreational ball there for years and live only a couple miles away.
It's nice to find another Kenwood alumni.
Posted by: Spyder44 at June 26, 2006 06:41 PMRe: Liriano's nickname, can we call him Bruce to keep it clear?
Posted by: Peter Hentges at June 27, 2006 11:39 AMRE: Liriano's nickname --
She-Ra, P.O.P. wins. Mauer called him "Frankie" in the post-game last night and we don't argue with the Mauer.