[sirsean]

In the first two innings the bullpen has pitched so far in the postseason, they have given up 3 runs on two home runs. Crain, Neshek, and Reyes have been used, and each has given up an earned run.

This is not what we were hoping for coming into the playoffs.

[sirsean]

The bullpen's turnaround begins with Rincon coming in and striking out the side in the 8th on 10 pitches. Hope it's not too late.

[erichartz]

Why would you dive for a ball you are not even close too, what were you thinking?

[sirsean]

He's Torii Hunter and it's the playoffs. You have to go for broke. While it's easy to say he should have backed off and made the easy play, he's never done that. If he didn't dive for that one, he wouldn't dive for others, wouldn't make as many spectacular plays, and wouldn't be Torii.

Did cost us the game though.

[Stephen]

Torii made a terrible judgment in error. Hfowever, he is Torii and that is what he does. ESPN agrees. You can't blame Torii. Also, the Twins lost 5 to 2. We would still have lost. The pitching has generally been pretty good. It's the hitting. Unless those guys start hitting, we have no chance.

Incidantly, just as Santana is apparantly of German descent, Hunter is apparantly of Japanese descent. Look up torii in the dictionary.

[sirsean]

For those that don't want to go look it up, a Torii is "a traditional Japanese gate commonly found at the entry to a Shinto shrine."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torii)

And now it's time for Torii to make up for it in this one. I'm looking for at least one good play in the field and 2 hits, at least one of which drives in some runs. (It'd be nice: right now we're 0-14 with runners in scoring position in the playoffs.)

Go Twins!

[Stephen]

Alas and alack. When the Twins clinched the division on Sunday everyone around here were so happy. Everyone was so optimistic. Amazing how fast a great season can collapse. The Twins are the first team eliminated. Assessing what went wrong is difficult so soon after a loss like this. But here goes.

I think the Twins were just too young. The pitching was not bad. The inability to hit in the clutch and the errors in the field, coupled with baserunning mistakes all point to having to many young and inexperienced players in the field. In today's game, it almost hurt watching them make three errors. It lead to five unearned runs. If the umpire had made the correct call on Hunter at the plate, the Twins would have been in the game, if not had actually won.

Oh well. There is still next year.

[sirsean]

Yeah, it really looked like these boys of summer couldn't cut it in the postseason. Too much pressure, perhaps, and every situation was a clutch situation, where we never seem to do well.

I didn't get to watch the game, but let me just say that watching the box score refresh after each pitch was very disheartening.

I can't say I was hoping to be saying "Well, there's always next year" this quickly, but we'll be a year older, a year more experienced, we'll have Liriano, and maybe -- just maybe -- we'll be able to play a full season, rather than just 4 months of it. (Wouldn't that be great?)