Twins Sink Mariners, 6-5

MLB.com should be called the "Mostly Lies Bullcrap" website, because their so-called "writer" Doug Miller looked at Stats & Numbers and predicted this would be a fast-paced game. Of course those objective assessments are purest garbage, and as my gut foresaw, this one went loonnng. (My gut has amazing predictive powers. But only for Evil, never for Good. It won't say, "the insurance company will cover those expenses, don't worry!")

Weeelll, neither starter fared fabulous, meaning a total of 11 pitchers were used (7 by the Twins), meaning lots of warmup throws and jogs from the bullpens for ticketbuyers in the ballpark. Fun!

The Twins scored on dingers by Miguel Sano (cool!), Eduardo Nunez and Joe Mauer (whaaaaaa?), but that's not what defined this game. (Although Sano's 7th-inning, go ahead RISP single was a nice surprise.) No. HELLS NO.

It's all about the finish.

Your friend and soulmate, Kevin Jepsen, entered with a 6-5 lead (I know, I spoiled the ending) and walked leadoff batter Nelson Cruz. (Cruz would have been out on a foul ball if Sano hadn't botched the catch.) A single by Kyle Seager put the tying run on third with nobody out.

Jepsen looked amazingly unfrazzled, popping up Dae-Ho Lee and getting ahead of Franklin Gutierrez. We the faithful sat glued to our screens/radios/bionic carrier pigeons, wondering if, Ye Gods, Jepsen would Rolaids his way out.

And then THIS HAPPENED:

I have no friggin' clue what Seager was doing there. If it was a straight steal, why was he so late? If he was running on a pitch in the dirt, why didn't he quickly go back when Juan Centeno corralled the ball?

In any case, Centeno cemented his case for being enshrined in Recent Backup Catcher Twins Glory. Your Twins are now on a spectacular three-game winning streak and only 13.5 games outta first. Traditional wisdom holds that a team can make up about 1 GB per week, and there's more than 13.5 weeks left in the season, so keep that dream flag flying!

Comment Of The Game Thread goes to everyone who called Mariners starter Wade Miley "Miley Cyrus." I wanted to do this in the preview and did not, since I worried it would read like I was slamming Miley by comparing him to a girl. (As we know, girls are incapable of athletic excellence.) The commenters did what I was too dumb to figure out, and made jokes about Cyrus's awful music, not her gender. Well played, TTers.

The GIF Oracle will certainly be using this forever.

Robot Roll Call: