Back To The Ballpark

Twins 7

Orioles 4

My longest gap without attending a sporting event in over 20 years ended Tuesday night, as I made my long awaited return to Target Field. No, I did not cry. That might happen when I return to the purple palace.

Thankfully, the woeful Twins have started to be a little less woeful the last week. They've won some games. They've scored without always needing homeruns. Yeah they're still well under .500 and buried in the standings, but at least on a game by game basis they are starting to look like a representative baseball team.

And they did again on Tuesday. Yeah the O's took the early lead, thanks to a terrible error by Andrelton Simmons. But the Twins answered right back, with a 4 run inning begun by a massive Polanco bomb, and including a pair of runs scored on wild pitches.

Jose Berrios wasn't real sharp, but he never gave up the lead. A Donaldson sac fly and Kirilloff double padded the lead. 

We did have to deal with another chapter of Alex Colomoscopy, who comes in and immediately gives up a homerun and a pair of singles. The crowd was listed at under 10,000 but booed with the force of a full house.

Taylor Rogers came in and stopped the madness. Then Rob Refsnyder hit a homerun, his 3rd extra base hit of the game, to get the lead back to 3. Refsnyder also had a great diving catch earlier in the game. Look, when a 30 year old journeyman is hitting over  400 you know it's not meant to last, but this team has needed more of this kind of hustle and OVERachieving.

Rogers nailed it down in the 9th and the Twins won their 5th out of 6. They officially pulled out of last place in the central. Baby steps. Look, with the White Sox looking great and the AL East looking like a safe bet to scoop up both wild cards, the chances the Twins can get back into anything resembling real playoff contention are not good. But maybe, just maybe, they can at least spend the summer being an entertaining product.