Dear Joe Nathan,


What. The. Fuck.


Angrily yours,

BatKra

Advice From an Astronaut

Wooow...a lot has happened since my last post.

Adam hit a homer after that guy from the Stennis Space Center told him he needed to hit better, the Chief made a very un-triumphant return to the Dome, Kubel killed the Mariners single handedly, Brad Ziegler finally gave up a run, the Mets bullpen blew some more saves, as did Mo, and the Angels finally lost a series.

Catches were made, homers were hit, and Top Plays were turned.

And I didn't cover any of it.

Oops.

However, I am back, and here to talk about tonights win.

Can you believe that there were actually 2 home runs hit by the Twins tonight? By Buscher, which isn't to surprising, cause he's a big, strong, man, and GO-GO.

Carlos Gomez.

Mr. I'm hitting .190 in the month of August.

Yeah. His first homer in 224 at-bats.

I'm proud.

We scored lots 'o' runs tonight, with our bottom four in the line-up accounting for, like, 90% of the runs, so Slowey could go out there and pitch only slightly goodish and he could still win.

But no, he decideds to go out there and totally freakin' dominate everyone.

7 innings pitched, 2 runs, 1 earned run, 5 (I think) hits, and 12 strikeouts.

12.

That's a career high for him, and the most by a Twink since Johan killed 17 Rangers in July of '07.

12.

And it's wasn't like he was throwing 97 with sick movement either. But man, was he ever hitting his spots. He didn't walk anyone, even though he fell behind some 3-1.

He was totally doing his Timmeh Lincecum impersonation without making it look like he was going to have his head fall off.

Those guys on Baseball Tonight even said he had a little Greg Maddux going on.

Great praise for such a youngster, for sure.

Speaking of BBTN, what's with the Twins home-runs not getting much 'Touch 'em All' love lately?

LNP's constant Web-Gems make up for it, I guess.

As a little parting gift, I give you some Slowey.

He can have all the cookies he wants tonight cause he pitched better then Rich Harden (who went 7 and only got 10 K's. Ha!), Sheets (who just kinda sucked today), and Dice-K (who gets alot more credit then he deserves. He has major control issues. And he only went 5.)

So there.

Super Span

Uh, yeah. I think Denard deserves a HUGE cookie for keeping the Twinks in the lead in at least one game against Seattle.

I pretty much cried when he caught that.

But I was pretty much crying when Beltre hit it too...so either way...

...

Yeah, Span makes me happy.

(But not as happy as he is here)

Here are some other awesome SpanCatches-

Return of The Franchise

Yes, I was at the Dome yesterday to watch Francisco Liriano's return to the bigs.

And I was pretty happy with it. When he pitched himself into trouble, he pitched himself right back out of it.

There was room for improvement, yes, but it was definitely a successful first outing.

He struck out 5 batters in 6 scoreless innings and walked 3, dropping his ERA from the high 11 something to about a 7.2.

Of course, with this win, the Twinks have passed the White Sox and taken over first place in the big, bad, AL Central.

Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic about that, but a lot of people are making it sound like Liriano rocketed the Twins into first all by himself.

It's as if Liriano was some sort of super pitcher that could throw one strike that simultaneously strikes out all 9 batters 3 times.

And we all know Reyes is the only pitcher allowed to throw one pitch and get a win.

So yes, I'm happy that 'Cisco is back, and replacing Livan to boot, but a pitcher doesn't come back with his first major league win in two years and become the sole player responsible for moving a team into first place.

Just keep that in mind.

Breaking News:

Livan Hernandez and Craig Monroe have been designated for assignment and Liriano and Randy Ruiz have been calle up from Triple A.