Out?

It's now 3 am on Tuesday morning. Dick Bremer was right. How could someone sleep after something like that?

I wasn't going to post about this game at all actually. My plan was to go to bed and forget that this game ever happened, but it did. And I'm still thinking about it...

It was one of those games that you look back on your season and say "What if?" What if Cuddy didn't try and take two bases on a passed ball? What if Morneau catches that popup in foul territory late in the game? What if Gardy would have bunted with Redmond in the 8th or even used Mauer to pinch hit then, instead of with no one on and two outs? So many questions follow that game. Not too many answers.

Did the Twins feel that the 10 run lead was enough? Its hard to say really. I'm not saying that I'm some sort of expert but I've played my share of baseball games and while I've never been apart of a game that was like tonight's Twins collapse, I do know how it feels to be up by 10+ runs in a game. You get bored. You want the game to end. You don't take at bats as seriously. It's just how it is I suppose. Maybe this happened to the guys tonight, I couldn't tell ya.

And the pitching. What happened to the pitching tonight? Blackburn, coming off extended rest, gave up seven runs and struggled to pitch five innings. Blackburn. The most reliable starting pitcher that the Twins have. Maybe it was a sign to what was coming next. The effort by the Twins bullpen could be compared to my effort at work while I worked at K102. They pretended they cared. They tried a little bit. But realistically they just wanted to get out as fast as possible.

I have to speak my mind on that last play of the game. We get it. The ump blew the call. It happens, sometimes far too often. But that is not what I am most upset about. I'm looking at you Cuddy. Granted I respect your hustle and that you felt that you could score from 2nd on a wild pitch, but there were two outs. As a fan, I would like you to be a little bit more sure of your success rate while attempting to be the hero. If Cuddy didn't make that break for home the Twins would have had runners on 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs and Delmon Young up. Now, Delmon isn't Joe Mauer, but he has been hitting well lately and maybe this was the at bat to put him over the hump. A gapper would have definitely scored Go-Go from 1st (because he really is the fastest man alive) and would have put the Twins up by one with one of the best closers of the new millennium (who hasn't allowed a run in 23 1/3 innings) waiting in the bullpen.

When Cuddy rounded third and I realized that he was heading for home I stood up and questioned his decision. When the ball didn't get away as much as I thought it would I knew the game was over. How can you risk a game on a damn wild pitch like that? The ump probably thought the same thing. He saw that the throw narrowly beat Cuddy to the plate and even though he was more safe then Carl Crawford vs the Red Sox, the ump thought otherwise.

Its a shame really. We expect so much out of umpires that when they do blow a call they are blamed for the entire game. It wasn't his fault that Bobby Keppel couldn't get an out in the 7th. It wasn't his fault that Jose Mijares's first pitch sailed over the centerfield fence. It wasn't his fault that my fantasy team hit 6 bombs tonight. But it was his fault that he missed a call and he probably should appologize for it. It won't give the Twins a win but they way they played the last six innings, they probably didn't deserve one. But that's baseball. And I still love it, just not so much today.