Well, I got to see this one (see last night’s commentary) because it was on KXTX. :)
Jeff Zimmerman (am I the only one besides Jeff that thinks “The Zimmenator” is a stupid nickname?) tied a 73 year old record for consecutive wins by a reliever to start a career by going to 9-0. Unfortunately, his scoreless streak was broken at 29 2/3 innings. However, the way he’s pitching this year, it’s hardly noticeable (his ERA is now 0.88 after that run).
However, the story of this game was Pudge. He hit two home runs, driving in 4 of our 5 runs (Raffy had the other) with a solo shot and a three run home run. He also picked off a runner at third – his sixth pure pickoff of the season, the first at third. There’s no doubt that Pudge was the star of this game, it was quite cool to watch him play last night. Pudge also now has 20 home runs for three years in a row, tying a record for catchers. If Pudge gets one more steal between now and the end of the season (I think that’s a safe bet), he’ll be the first catcher in all of MLB history to have 20 steals and 20 home runs in a season. In fact, given there’s about 57 games left or something like that, I think there’s a good shot of Pudge getting to 30/30 providing he stays healthy.
Speaking of Pudge, I used to like Juan better than Pudge, but lately that opinion has changed a lot given the way Juan’s been behaving – I read an article about him verbally abusing Johnny and attacking a water cooler. I also saw the cooler last night (before I read about Juan’s battering of it) with the sign “Please don’t hit me, I’m a nice cooler”. It looked funny on the TV. :)
Burkett pitched OK – he’s definitely our fifth starter, but for him, it was a decent outing – I didn’t think he pitched bad at all, caught a few bad breaks, and was hit, but not lit up. I hope he can keep it going at least at this level for the rest of the season.
Attendance was pathetic for The Ballpark. Was only 24,720. I know it’s Monday, and it’s the Twins, but that seems really low for us!