The Twins are having an odd series with the Royals in KC, part of a whole knot of curiosities. The Twins looked well out of the play-off race at the trade deadline due to horrid offensive output and a rough series with the Tigers, so they traded a consistent second basemen and lead-off hitter in Luis Castillo (who was on his way out next winter anyways) and called up a couple young infielders to start building next year's team. Surprisingly, they got a bit better and a lot more fun to watch as the inept Nick Punto went back to being a utility infielder, Brian Buscher got some hits at third replacing him, and the new second baseman wasn't that much of a drop-off, and another good hitter, Michael Cuddyer, is back in right field. Meanwhile, with a little help from the Black Sox, the Indians and Tigers have been losing games, giving the Twins another opportunity to get back into the race. Finally they had a chance to turn around their anemic output, which led them to play around .500 record with a lot of close games. Unfortunately, the heart of the line-up still didn't produce any runs, and Brian Buscher is out indefinitely with an infection in his leg, so we're back to the 3rd baseman who forgot how to bunt. They really can't catch a break.
Then in the first game in KC, the lights went out in the stadium. Even first baseman Justin Morneau, who has more home runs than anybody in the American League but A-Rod but has been struggling lately, had to admit that a "power outage" was an ironic atmosphere for a Twins game. Then last night, presumably following the example of Pedro Cerrano, Justin pray to Canadian socialized medicine to take fear from bat, and hit a ball off the rail in the outfield. Off the rail, up in the air, and back onto the field... where nobody knew if it was a home run or a live ball. Morneau was smart enough to just run, and easily made it into third base as the throw from the outfield sailed in, but the third base umpire (and two others) signalled home run, so he went home. Then they had a conference to decide if it was a live ball, pointing at second and third, so Justin went back to third base and stood there to symbolically make his case that he thought it was a triple (at least). After much more arguing, a decision was reached that it was a ground rule double, which I don't get since the entire point of that call is that an unplayable ball gives the runner an extra base, and the Royals obviously played Morneau's hit. Then Torii Hunter settled the argument the old fashioned way, might makes right, and hit the next pitch out of the park, sending Morneau home anyways in karmic retribution (3rd, okay, but no way he goes back to 2nd). It was a great hitting game for the Twins: Michael Cuddyer drove in a run in the first so they could play with a lead, they batted around in the 3rd scoring 5 more runs, and won by a final score of 11-4. So I thought things were looking up, and then they get shut out this afternoon in a 1-0 loss to lose the series. If they can't put away KC, then they really aren't going to catch the Indians and Tigers, but then again, last year they looked hopeless and were four games back on the Tigers with four games left to play and won the division, so 5.5 back in August might not be so bad.
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