This game reminded me why baseball is always fun. Crappy season, crappy team, whatever. Ervin Santana proved again that the Twins should trade him for a 1B/DH, striking out nine and allowing no runs in seven innings. End of his night, he gave up a double, IBB, and non-I BB to load the bases with two outs; then K'ed pinch hitter Michael Conforto. It was exciting and cool. Twins hold onto their 1-0 lead (granted via an Eddie Rosario dong).
Alas, bullpen time.
Ryan "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" Pressly coughed it up. Byron Buxton hit a 11th-inning solo moonshot for the go-ahead, and in came Paul Molitor's "closer." Mariano Rivera? Rollie Fingers? No, Brandon Kintzler, against lefthander Curtis Granderson. Granderson had 21 homers aginst RHP and 5 against LHP, so, sure, closer, and lead goes bye-bye.
Just to prove naysayers like me wrong, Molitor brought in Ryan O'Rourke to face Granderson with two outs in the twelfth -- he homered again. It's the first hit by a lefty against O'Rourke this season.
Your time of game: 4h, 15m. 15 pitchers used. Mets starter Seth Lugo left after five strong innings, because the NL actually involves strategy. I dunno how NL fans put these kinds of boxscores into their scorecards.
In team news stuff, Rosario left the game after diving into first, hurting his hand, and being out anyways. Proving once again that Nick Punto was wrong. Molitor said the hand looked bad after the game.
Tune in tomorrow for Kyle Gibson against the Mets' bullpen, because scheduled starter Jacob deGrom got injured, which is sad.
Comments of the game: Daniel going off on avacados, and Gunnarthor noting "this is a strange game thread." Thanks for keeping it weird in extra frames, everyone!
I broke the Robot Roll Call, I'm sorry. I accidentally posted the thread as an "article" instead of a "GameThread" and the SB Nation Cambot can't calculate comments for "articles." Never make the same mistake more than six or seven times, I always say.