Twins 10, Cleveland 0: In the big inning

All-over-the-place pitching finally catches up with Cleveland starter Triston McKenzie, and gets exacerbated by one key umping brainfart in a nine-run Twins inning. Randy Dobnak returns to civilization from St. Paul and throws six scoreless frames, which is longer than most Twins starters have been averaging lately.

Inning-by-inning notes:

1: Luis Arraez has more walks than strikeouts so far this season. Is that allowed in 2021? Manfred should change the rules to adjust. Maybe count any take pitch that’s close to the plate as half a strike; give players bonuses for super-bomba foul balls. It doesn’t matter anyway, as Arraez pops up a 3-1 pitch from the walkingest pitcher in the AL. Our Mrmumph observes: “Interesting hitting strategy against a guy who has control issues — hopefully it caught them off guard.”

2: These notes are interrupted by a completely annoying medical device that completely stinks and completely sends both me and Mrs. James into a moment of wanting to destroy the device before we burn the house down just to escape its infernal beeping. Is there baseball going on? Maybe I’ll pretend the beeps are coming from the radio, a new part of the broadcast. Albeit a stupid part that causes tears and strains marriages, like Hawk Harrelson.

3: New Twins hero Rob Refsnyder hits a dong! That’s good, because the other Twins have decided that neither working counts nor getting hits are appealing options. Randy Dobnak gets Eddie Rosario to ground out on a sinker after throwing two other sinkers. Is this magic sinker Dobstache’s way back to Awesomeness, or is Cleveland kind of a crummy offensive team? Well, they ARE a crummy offensive team, but both things could be true! Twins 1-0

4: Maybe I was hard on the Twins before for not working counts; maybe they needed to see what young Triston McKenzie was throwing first. Maybe the Magic Leprechaun of Walks showed up with a little pipe and a cheesy fake-Irish accent (fake because you can’t understand real Irish people without subtitles) and went “faith and begorra, laddies, this boy be wilder than the selkies at high tide.”

Whatever it was, the Twins walk thrice and touch home triply off McKenzie, who is replaced by Phil Maton, who ALMOST gets out of the bases-loaded Pickle with only one further run scored, but a crappy ball call that should have been Strike Three, Out Three on Josh Donaldson keeps things alive for walk, double, single, double, and no more Maton.

After that loooong inning, radio says Dobnak is “visibly frustrated” by tight umping in the bottom half. Sorry, Dobbers, you don’t get to complain about that after the other team got Boned By Ump to the tune of four not-deserved runs! He gets over his upsetness, and the Spiders don’t get any baseball points.

I almost feel less guilty about letting that beeping device make me a crabby jerk and Mrs. James cry. But not really, it was still bad. Twins 10-0, you read this correctly

5: Aforementioned hero Refsnyder strikes out; trade him now.

Radio advertises a dog-friendly bar in Minneapolis which I will not encourage by mentioning here. You know what happens when you set poured beers in front of dogs? They drink them. This is either animal cruelty or a waste of good beer. If it’s bad beer it might be worse animal cruelty, but I’ll accept that rather than allowing a human to drink Coors. When it comes to suffering, I value my species first.

6: A neat highlight for Cleveland fans is first-ever-game reliever Jean Carlos Mejía. After ending that woeful fourth, he’s struck out five Twins while allowing one hit and no walks. Randy Dobnak gets through 93 pitches with no Spiders making scores. Is that a neat highlight for us? Hopefully?

7: Yesterday’s doubleheading Twins relievers totaled 80 pitches among four guys, so it’s “who didn’t throw that many?” time. Jorge Alcala is first. Radio says he hits 100 here. MPH, not pitch count. Random thought: does the radar gun in Toronto register in kilometers?

8: New Twins reliever is Luke Farrell, and despite what you may think he is not the lovechild of two actors in “Old School.” Miguel Sano goes old school by switching defensively to third base for some reason. (OK, it’s to sit Josh Donaldson for precautionary reasons.)

9: Cleveland misses a big opportunity to pitch a position player and start some stupid beef when a Twins hitter swings 3-0. Twins win first back-to-back games since May 2 & 3!

COTG goes to trigozobob’s “Liftoff for Kirilloff per Atteberry. I like that phrase.” Atteberry’s a dang national treasure. Robot Roll Call:

Kenta Maeda attempts to prove he isn’t actually hurting with some undiagnosed awfulness tomorrow at 3:10, against the guy who beat him out for Cy Young in 2020, Shane Bieber. Join the gang here for commenting fun and wild squirrel recipes!