Trouble started before the game did. The crowd started to shuffle in toward the end of the first game, bringing a wave of extra-stupid Twins fans (assuming that what follows the Twins deserves to be called “fans” rather than just Circlemeberts). They were vaguely offset by the arrival of the home town crowd, including one bunch that – doubtless in honor of the antler giveaway – brought a sign with a picture of a moose and a picture of tacos. That would easily win Rebus of the Year Award if such an honor actually existed.
Worse was a bit of franchise-typical disappointment. The Royals were supposed to induct George Toma into the team’s Hall of Fame. Actually, this was supposed to happen yesterday, but the rain started early in the afternoon and drowned the festivities well before they got underway (hence the doubleheader today). As the rain was still coming down fairly hard before the start of game one, I figured they’d occupy the dead space between games by giving Toma his due.
Nope. Nothing. Not even a second anthem or a Buck Seat occupant or anything. They didn’t even make the game two lineups available until the last second, leaving me scrambling to get iScore set up before the game started.
All that would have been okay (except the Toma deal, and I assume they’ll do his ceremony during a later game), but oh Baseball Gods was the game awful. Or to be more precise, our starting pitcher dug us a hole that even a better team would have struggled to get out of.
We’ve all gotten used to The Luke Inning, so when he gave up four runs in the top of the first we were able to console ourselves with his past record of coughing it up for one frame and then settling down to a more professional level for the rest of the game.
The grand slam by Joe Mauer in the top of the second killed that hope in a hurry. Three batters later Hochevar was gone, his pitch count a measly 63.
And here’s the real crying shame of it: we came almost all the way back and nearly won anyway. Everett Teaford threw solid long relief, combining with his teammates in the bullpen to hold the Twins scoreless for the whole rest of the game. On offense we went to work on them. In his MLB debut, David Lough hit a couple of singles and scored a couple of times. Billy Butler went three for four with a walk. Salvador Perez went four for five. And more directly to the point, we managed to score seven runs, one shy of what we needed.
Free baseball is still a pretty good deal, but it would have been nice to at least split the doubleheader.
The box score: TWINS (8) AT ROYALS (7) TWINS AB R H BI ROYALS AB R H BI Ben Revere 4 2 1 0 D Lough 5 2 2 0 Alexi Casilla 5 1 2 0 Alcides Escobar 5 1 1 0 Joe Mauer 3 1 1 4 Alex Gordon 5 0 2 1 Justin Morneau 4 0 1 0 Billy Butler 4 3 3 1 Josh Willingham 3 1 1 0 Salvador Perez 5 1 4 1 Chris Parmelee 3 1 1 3 Mike Moustakas 5 0 2 2 Trevor Plouffe 4 0 0 0 Lorenzo Cain 4 0 0 0 Drew Butera 3 1 0 0 Eric Hosmer 4 0 1 2 Pedro Florimon 4 1 2 0 Tony Abreu 4 0 0 0 TOTALS 33 8 9 7 TOTALS 41 7 15 7 TWINS 440 000 000 -- 8 ROYALS 201 200 200 -- 7 LOB--TWINS 3, ROYALS 9. 2B--Pedro Florimon, Billy Butler, Mike Moustakas. HR--Joe Mauer, Chris Parmelee. TWINS IP H R ER BB SO HR Liam Hendriks 3 2-3 11 5 5 0 5 0 Anthony Swarzak 2 2-3 1 2 2 1 2 0 Tyler Robertson 0 1-3 0 0 0 0 0 0 Casey Fien 0 1-3 1 0 0 1 0 0 Kyle Waldrop 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 Glen Perkins 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 ROYALS Luke Hochevar 1 2-3 6 8 8 4 3 2 Everett Teaford 5 1-3 3 0 0 0 0 0 Kelvin Herrera 2 0 0 0 1 2 0 WP--Liam Hendriks, Luke Hochevar. SO--Justin Morneau, Alexi Casilla, Drew Butera, Trevor Plouffe, Pedro Florimon, Alex Gordon (2), Tony Abreu, Lorenzo Cain (2), Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas (2). BB--Josh Willingham, Joe Mauer, Drew Butera, Ben Revere, Chris Parmelee, Billy Butler, Lorenzo Cain. LOCATION: The K CONDITION: Damp WEATHER: Cloudy, Cool No Buck Seat, guard or anthem Umpires: H: Welke 1: Schreiber 2: Everett 3: Ripperger Time: 6:42 Temp: 77
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