Mariners 2, Twins 1: We’re gonna need a bigger boat

On a chilly Opening Day, the Twins lost via 2.0 runs given up over 4.0 innings by rookie starter Joe Ryan, which is slightly-but-not-much less than they would wish for over a full season. Minnesota’s bats produced exactly one run by their hitter-heavy lineup, which will be impossible over a full season unless all the players are constantly, considerably drunk.

Ryan gave up one dinger to pretty good dinger donger Mitch Haniger, as he did when I played “The Show” last night, although I blamed it on my new game’s settings being wrong. Ryan was, otherwise, OK.

Virtually nothing else of note transpired in this game. It felt, rather blessfully, and almost like the first time in some years, as a regular generic mid-season game would feel. Dan Gladden sounded as though his chest would explode from wanting to tell normal boring baseball stories. No doctor’s office or care facility has told me we’re completely back to normal yet, but I do understand the wish to be so.

Gio Urshela stroked a solo dong, because he’s a prude.

The highlight was probably prized flamethrowing rookie Jhoan Duran coming in the fifth, promptly giving up several hits and a wild pitch, then striking out everybody to leave a driftless Mariner firmly anchored on third. (Hey, there’s some references to Boats! Get it?)

You could hear the crowd at Target Field getting pretty excited about that. They may have good reason to be nervous about the Twins’ pitching overall, and the bullpen after dealing only known-name Taylor Rogers away, but Duran’s name was Rio today and he danced upon the sand.

This won’t be my bestest recap. I’ve been having some tummy troubles. I/O, as it were, where the I exceeded the O by a rather significant margin. This was worrisome, so I took some ancient OTC pills still existing in this house from before I got married and Mrs. James’s parents were not long since dead. As those pills were old, I took way more than what I could guess was the recommended dose on the bottle, although the bottles’ label is years-ago made unreadable via cupboard rot. This unrecommended dosage did work, after a few days. It worked so well, I spent quite a bit of today’s season opener in the bathroom. Where I took no baths. But I do need a shower.

Can’t do a comment count anymore, I’m afraid, the new comment system doesn’t work with it! But I’ll gladly give Comment Of The Gamethread to doomsdayshark with:

The confidence might be the most impressive thing to me. Duran got in a jam, but then he just kept pounding the strike zone. Ten straight strikes to end the inning, K’ing three in a row along the way. Beautiful.

Sorry about the final score, yet not a bad showing for Minnesota’s 2022 makeshift pitching squad, and hope to join y’all again when I’ve got fewer tummy troubles!