Padres 10, Twins 1: giant batch of “don’t care”

Still pretty young Twins starter Joe Ryan got absolutely walloped tonight, homer after homer, part of the learning process. Maybe the Twins will make trades before next week’s deadline. My guess, though, is that the Falvine will never bet on an iffy team. And, therefore, never get more than an iffy team.

Here’s my attempt at inning-by-inning notes:

1: Did you ever want Kyle Garlick as your leadoff hitter? Do you enjoy guys with fun splits, and all kinds of opportunities for jokes about vampire lore? Well, you ruined baseball. Garlick does nothing, nothing, I tell you, he’s practically a feeble human familiar here.

With two outs, Luke Voit (short a Jon and “g” of getting attacked by Appalachian rednecks + currently owning the politics of Appalachian rednecks) Big Dongs off Ryan. Padres 2-0

2: nothing

3: Because there’s A Time To Kill in this inning, a Grisham

and, that’s all I got. There’s a Grisham in the Padres lineup? (Legal novels, something about that). I guess? Somewhere? Who gives a flying flatuence. I gave up caring.

Let’s face it, the Twins aren’t going to be much of much without significant trade deadline help, and unless I’m very surprised, won’t be getting that help. Why would corporate executives risk doing anything when they can do the same thing every other corporate executive does? In this case, never make a move worth making because the Twins aren’t quite “there” yet, justifying such a risk.

Thereby ensuring the Twins will never, in the near future, be good enough to justify such a risk. And this is the logic via which you get to see many, many remakes and reboots of other things.

Studs: Buxton hit a homer

Duds: everyone else, mostly the Falvine

I really wanted a fun late-nite gamethread on this one. Joel, Brandon, norff, mikecardii and others wanted it too. We got bupkus. Falvine, please just quit on the season already, don’t keep us up past our bedtime.

I'm fine with gamethreads in lost seasons. I enjoy chatting with the folks here. It's more fun, though, if we all acknowledge we don't think the Twins have any chance at anything... or, if we're revved up on various chemical stimulants, debating how the Twins could have a chance at anything.

This season's Twins have zero chance. You know it, I know it. Or, rather, let's look at their chances, via scientifically-determined Odds:

Making the playoffs: 50%, increased from 5% via Tony LaRussa continuing to be a thorough, uncompromising asshat

Winning a playoff game: 5%, and basically only that if Buxton keeps being held together via Scotch tape (local corporate shoutout, buy me tickets, 3M)

Winning a playoff series: hahaha are you kidding?

I'll give you my simile, or metaphor, or whatever, on the Twins' chances of doing anything but bowing out boringly this postseason.

I was on my way home from work today, and stopped to buy Mrs. James a treat at the store. I had a savage need to pee. I'm a professional driver, and had gone from St. Paul-to-Woodbury-to-White Bear Lake-back to Saint Paul without a pee stop. In rush hour, through construction mess. We're talking hours.

Buying the treat, I got stuck behind two people at the store getting MegaMillions lottery tickets. I wanted to scream at them, "let's save some time. You hand me the money, I'll tell you Nope, Didn't Win, and we'll all be on our merry way."

But I didn't. I am nothing if not polite. I instead stared at the back of their heads with the fury of 1000 exploding supernovae and one bloated bladder, and this did not expedite matters to any notable degree. To make it home, grab a nap, and get up in time to... what? Recap this s**t? Why the f**k bother? I liked discussing movies with folks in the gamethread, there's no point in a recap.

"In the first inning, the Twins" and screw that noise, it's not worth typing. Or finger-poking on a phone.

(Since it's TwinkieTownAfterDark.com, I'm generally all in favor of finger-poking. But it's not the same as typing, it's slower. Not that slower's necessarily a bad thing, it depends.)

Dangit, I stared pure fury at people in front of me at the store for THIS? Mad they were ignoring pretty obvious odds against? Well, when projecting silent rage at the back of somebody’s head, we're allowed to be as irrational as we want, I say.