Well, that game was less fun.

I went early and watched batting practice.  I don’t think I’ve ever been that close to Jim Thome before… that man is huge!  He didn’t hit 597 (HR) tonight, but he did have a double and single — and he even managed to score from second on a Delmon Young single.  Watching Thome “run” around the bases amuses me.  It makes me think I could be a professional athlete… if I also had hulking muscles and could hit 500 ft homeruns.  During batting practice, I watched as they took turns running the bases between their turns at bat.  While younger players like Matt Tolbert and Ben Revere busted their butts, Thome just kind of trotted — he really does look like a jolly Paul Bunyan out there.  But look at him crush this ball (for a single):

Jim Thome crushes a single

Unfortunately, Thome’s offense was about all the Twins had tonight.  By contrast, Oakland had it in droves and were helped out by some pretty terrible Twins defense.  The lowlight was possibly in the second inning when, after turning a double play, pitcher Nick Blackburn headed back to the dugout… except there were only two outs and a runner on 3rd who thought about scoring.  The Twins only had one error on the scoreboard — a muffed thrown from Joe Mauer to Tsuyoshi Nishioka that allowed Coco Crisp to steal not one but two bases in the first inning, which lead to the first Oakland run.  However, there were at least two other plays that were questionably errors as well: Danny Valencia missing a Scott Sizemore “double” down the line in the 5th which drove in three runs and Trevor Plouffe making a mental error, (over-)throwing to second on a hit and run when he had no shot at the runner.  Oh, plus Joe Mauer’s passed ball that led to a run… that’s five of Oakland’s 8 runs caused by Twins errors or pseudo-errors.  That’s the run differential right there.

Also, for the person who reads this that is enamored of him, Cliff Pennington had a double and walk, each of which led to him scoring a run.  I do not like your man Pennington, even if he does have a name that invokes images of British tea parties.

To end on a happy Jim Thome related noted, these pictures are from yesterday’s game.  If you don’t get it, go watch this first.

Jim Thome stand-ins: The men with the ox in the batter's box... two pictures to be sure you get both the mustaches and the back of the flannels