Cardinals 5, Twins 1: Welcome to 2021, if you missed everything through July

The Twins previewed their post-2021 “rebuild” in the Falvine era by basically hitting nothing and having a late pitching meltdown, which is probably going to be repaired via next season’s Colome/Robles. Inning-by-inning notes:

(This is gonna be one of those recaps, where it’s me and my typing vs. major exhaustion and also how many COMPLETELY G-RATED ROOT BEERS I’m “tenderly sipping” after a crazy day in Twins roster news /slash/ long week for me. Here it goes....)

1: Josh Donalsdon is a late scratch for Minnesota, leading to the brief hope that a late trade was so complex it finally cleared Ron Manfred’s Office Of Perpetual Boneheads, sacrificing J-Dawg’s completely welcome self-appointed “team leader” status for the millions of dollars this team could use to sign actual pitchers instead of prospect acquisitions. Alas, even Manfred’s office isn’t that full of drooling incompetents and there are no more trades to be announced, Rain Man's just got a whammy hammy.

2: In the best example of “why no DH is both leagues is cool,” the Cards elect to pitch to Andrelton Simmons with Sano on second, two outs, and Minnesota’s pitcher due up to bat. Griffin Jax isn’t much of a starter, and could be pinch-hit for if Simmons gets walked intentionally; also, Andrelton’s normally-”eh” batting has been <<< “eh” since the All-Star Break. They pitch to him, he hits, Sano scores, Twins 1-0

3: Jax, who miiiiighhhht be getting an audition for “we have no starters left” innings after today’s trades, is actually doing pretty well! Sure, 60 pitches thrown in 3 IP, but no runs, good for him.

4: Jax is now left in to bat with the bases loaded and one out. Auditions are one thing, but really? I guess this is a Pretty Serious audition and he hopefully won’t meltdown to get yanked in the bottom half. Anyhoo, he foul-pops out.

He doesn’t meltdown, either, only allowing a single/steal/couple/of/moving/runner/forward/outs to Tie This Baby Up 1-1

5: Nothingburgers from both offenses; apparently, new Twins acquisition John Gant is starting to stretch in the bullpen. Hopefully either by bench-pressing his namesake’s weighty arch-nemesis or copies of a basically unreadable pseudo-libertarian tome beloved by jerks.

6: Instead of John Gant, Tyler Duffey comes in and almost gets out of a self-created jam. But he doesn’t. Tommy “not Jim Edmonds” Edman clears the bases with two outs. Atlas shrugs, 4-1

7: This s**t’s still going on? OK. Extra-letters-Colome Danny Coulombe gives up a run. This inning-by-inning format doesn’t work when I’m too tired to even make bad jokes. “So’s yer mom.” There, that’s a joke. Not a joke anywhere in the Midwest, where both Minnesota and Missouri, kinda, are? I think of Minnesota as more Upper North and Missouri as Upper South. “So’s your mom” is more of an East Coast joke. It’s not funny, but they say it anyways. Gateway Arch 5-1

8: Gladden says the Twins messed up, somehow, I’ve lost track. In the commercial, he’s pimping for some company that claims “Customers First, Always.” JUST WHAT YOUR MOM WOULD SAY, DANNY

9: oh, who gives a (redacted)

Sorry for this, folks, but I’m dealing with all kinds of stuff both personally and professionally and I was hoping that a gamethread might be fun but it died and well, if gamethreads are dead, I ain’t paid for this either. Hope to be back on point, such as it is, two Fridays hence. Robot Roll Call:

COTG goes to trizonzobob and SooFoo for trying, thread-wise, via suggesting the heresy of ketchup on hot dogs; gotta save that for a Chicago game, though, my friends, nobody in St. Louis cares remotely about food.

Tomorrow will have Bailey Ober at 6:15 Central, I’ll be watching old movie adaptations of Dickens novels, enjoy the game!