Kansas City at Twins. Twins 1, Royals 0.11 innings
We live each day believing it to be something new, a fresh path unfolding before us, a novel waiting to be written, a road untravelled and we the intrepid explorer. But it is all a lie. There is only one story, one path, and we travel it again and again, blithely, blindly, noticing nothing, learning nothing, just running on the great big hamster wheel of life until the family cat eats us.
What I am saying is we have been here before my friends. You remember. I know you do. I know it's blocked out, buried deeply behind your prom hairdo and that weird thing your seventh grade science teacher used to do with his hands when he thought you weren't looking. You put it there on purpose, scurrying into the attic of your mind under cover of darkness, where you thought it would never torment you again.
You were wrong.
It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times, when men were men and ass bats were ass bats. We know it as the season of hell, others call it 2005. As the Twins sunk further and further into ignominy, as we thought it could not possibly get any worse and then we would discover new and fresh ways to suck, and every once in a while those ways would be so new and so sucky that we would say, This, this is the worst game of the season. And then something else would happen, and we would think of that previous sucky game and remember how young and innocent we were, before our souls had been chewed up and regurgitated, and realize, no, no, this is the worst game of the season.
It was the worst game of the season, the sucking to end all suckings. The 800-1 losses to the Indians in September didn't even matter after this final insult, so excruciatingly emblematic of all of our terrible, terrible woes. It was a Thursday afternoon game, Royals v. Twins, Kyle Lohse v. some pathetic cog in the rusty ol' shit heap Royal pitching machine. Lohse was masterful, the Royal pitcher was not—the Twins had a runner in scoring position in every inning but one—yet somehow the whole damned thing was knotted up at 0 'til the ninth. The Twins had threat after threat and pissed them all away like Batgirl pissed away her youth. And, then, of course, in the bottom of the inning some damned Royal got on base and somehow you knew, you just knew that that was going to be it. And it was. All told, the Twins left 13 men on base, which sounds like a book by the bastard child of Agatha Christie and W.P. Kinsella—but it wasn't, it was all so horribly real—and ended up scoring absolutely no runs and lost the @#$#@$#@ ballgame 1-0.
And now we are going through a mini sucking time of our own, and we've run into giant ass-bat in the road, and here we are again on a Thursday afternoon knotted up at zero with the Kansas City Royals, with scoring opportunities aplenty, and suddenly it seemed the fate of the entire season rested on whether we could manage but one run against the gruesome twosome of Zack Greinke and Jimmy "Gobble" Gobble. And for quite awhile it seemed we would not—every time the Royals mounted a threat our doom hovered just ahead of us.
But no. Dammit. No. Not this time. For it's April, not August, and as sucky as this week has been it gets nowhere near the astronomical suckitude of 2005. And when it got to be the 11th inning, Justin Morneau said, "Enough already, eh?" and did one of those pretty base hits he's been doing, and then Jason Tyner yelled, "Eh!" in camaraderie and got another one and a then a battered Mike Redmond, who would surely show the whole team his bruises later, shouted, "Fucking-Eh!" and hit Morneau in. Game over.
Now, let's get our heads out of our ass-bats and play some good ball.
Oh, and Greinke, you pansy-ass prepubescent weasel, don't hit people in the face.
Thank you, BG. Sometimes, we just need to get it all in perspective.
Posted by: CarrieICL at April 26, 2007 11:31 PMSuckitude. Nice.
Someone needs to gather up those ass-bats and send em through the wood chipper Fargo style.
Posted by: Shelley at April 26, 2007 11:39 PMWho keeps letting that child pitch for the Royals? I want to smack him around a little bit, and Torii did too for about 0.4 seconds, until he realized he'd be beating up a child and that's an ugly thing to do. Well done, Torii, way to restrain yourself. I'd be happy to deliver the smack myself, if I can just be sure someone would bail me out of jail after I did so. It'd be worth it.
Posted by: Carmen at April 26, 2007 11:46 PMYou know what's funny? We remember 2005 which such hatred but we still finished above .500. I still looks good in teh overall legacy.
Although, the Whitie Tighties did win it all that year...
Posted by: AdamOnFirst at April 27, 2007 12:26 AMYep, Sox have Twins to thank cause if not for suckitude that year it is quite possible Twins could be 5 for 5 in division titles. Twins didn't pose a threat for the Sox for one year and they took advantage of it.
Posted by: Nora at April 27, 2007 03:41 AMBert must be smiling: Johan hits next batter after Travis Haffner homers. Then Cleveland pitcher hits Twins batter later in same game. Now after Torii homers and doubles on Wednesday night, then he takes a pitch in the teeth from KC. I'm flashing back to 70's baseball. An eye for an eye, no it can't be, not in these civilized times.
Posted by: Tim at April 27, 2007 03:55 AM(( "Effing-Eh!" ))
Might I humbly propose that we have discovered our unofficial motto for 2007?
(Edited slightly only because I want StatFreak to learn the gerund forms of expressively foul language in the middle school locker room, where he's supposed to, rather than his father's keyboard.)
Posted by: tgd at April 27, 2007 08:02 AMMy roommate and I were just talking last night about how Grienke probably piddled in his nutcup when he saw Torii charging toward him....
Posted by: ForMorneau at April 27, 2007 08:31 AMI was running in and out of the gym to listen to the game on the car radio, doing a few stretches, running to the car, a little lifting, running to the car, some cardio, the car. I was afraid I'd miss a run or something, and I did. I am happy it was our run.
Posted by: al at April 27, 2007 09:20 AMMatty G deserves serious back slappage for tightening the jock strap and taking care of business by beaning ol' man Sanders, and for basically admitting to it afterwords.Torii should be giving Matty a bottle or two of the returned bubbly.
Posted by: Sa-16 at April 27, 2007 09:51 AMhaha: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/photo?slug=ea50b4169a11481c9f6219e13409fa3b.aptopix_royals_twins_hunter_injured_baseball_mnjm10&prov=ap
Posted by: jonner at April 27, 2007 10:40 AMI'd probably want to charge some ass, too, if I were Torii, but c'mon! It's the KC Royals. I know they handed our asses to us 3 out of 4 games, but in the long run that would be like beating up on the . . . KC Royals.
Posted by: Bring Back Reboulet at April 27, 2007 10:54 AMYou know what the saddest thing is, speaking of Kyle Lohse...I was waxing reminiscently about him just today in my mind in regards to Sidney Ponson. Seriously...if you're a starting pitcher and you make someone miss Kyle Lohse...you should just stop playing baseball.
Posted by: Josh at April 27, 2007 12:03 PMInsane game yesterday, really. Congrats on capitalizing on the idiocy of Buddy Bell, who brought Todd "I can't get an out in a critical situation if my life depended on it" Wellemeyer. If the Twins hadn't done such, I would definitely be thinking less of them right now. Kudos!
::offers some champagne for forgiveness from Zack's control issues::
Posted by: loyal2theroyals at April 27, 2007 12:05 PMOk - totally off topic:
Twins catcher Joe Mauer will be named one of America's 15 most eligible bachelors on a national Hollywood cable TV show next month. Filming of Mauer for the program was done this week at the Metrodome.
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Much love
WW
Oh my gosh, Bat-Girl is channeling my thoughts--oh wait, EVERY Twins fan is/should be thinking the same thing.
I found myself in the shower singing "gonna wash those ass bats outa my hair" before I even realized it. Maybe they make a shampoo for that we could put in the locker room.
Posted by: Sandee at April 27, 2007 02:25 PM"piddled in his nutcup" may be the funniest phrase I've ever read that wasn't written by Bat-girl herself. And thank God for old man Redmond lately.
Posted by: Dee at April 27, 2007 02:37 PMJosh: No one, and I mean NO ONE, will make me miss Kyle Lohse. We could have a chimpanzee with a 14.00 ERA pitching in the fifth spot and I still wouldn't miss him.
Besides, I doubt the chimpanzee would put together a fluke season to help him win in arbitration year after year...
Posted by: Dave at April 27, 2007 02:37 PMDave and Josh, this is the depth of my depair as regards Sidney Ponson...if the Reds offered us Kyle Lohse, he of the perpetual sulk, the grating Scott Erickson "why can't anybody behind me make a play?" whine, and the guaranteed collapse just when you start to depend on him, in exchange for Sid, I'd want TR to pull the trigger. That, my friends, is despair, writ large.
Posted by: adidasman at April 27, 2007 03:14 PM"Oh, and Greinke, you pansy-ass prepubescent weasel, don't hit people in the face."
Batgirl, things like that make me love you.
Posted by: TwinsPrincess at April 27, 2007 04:45 PMI was at that game on August 31 of 2005 in KC - it was my 21st birthday, actually - and that was one of the most frustrating things I have ever witnessed.
Posted by: Ryan at April 29, 2007 01:27 PM