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Touch 'em all? Not today.

Blackburn is doing pretty well already. Scoreless game as of the top of the 4th.

TOP O' THE FOURTH:

Mauer grounds out and Morneau is up. Both have been a bit lackluster the past few games, although Morneau had that nice homer two nights ago. Morneau hits it, and it's caught.

Kubel is up. I saw a post-game interview with him last night and almost lost it; he's so adorably bad on camera. He's walked.

CREDE HITS A THREE-RUN HOMER! It's 3-0. I love life.

BOTTOM O' THE FOURTH:

Tolbert and Buscher get a nice double play, keeping the A's from scoring.

TOP O' THE FIFTH:

Two walks from Blackburn, and Anderson takes a little quick trip out to the mound. SHITE!

Daric (Barton)? Really? I've seen Derek, Derrick, Deryck, but DARIC? Wow.

The third double play for the Twins this afternoon, and the inning's over.

BOTTOM O' THE FIFTH:

AHAHAH, no idea why the radio announcer was talking about how quiet and respectful the Twins players are, especially Mauer, Morneau, and Kubel, and then all the sudden is like, "Now Jason Kubel, married with a child; Morneau just got married; and Joe Mauer is, of course, single. But they all get along." WEIRDEST QUOTE EVER!

And then nothing happened this inning BYE.

Okay, and then during the commercial break, Morneau is repping Continental Diamonds, talking about how he just got married. Okay, um ... weird.

TOP O' THE SEVENTH:

The sixth inning was really boring.

Near-miss homer by Young; second out. Dude, Delmon is stepping it up a bit more the past few games. I'm digging it.

1-2-3 inning. Boooor-ing.

BOTTOM O' THE EIGHTH:

Triple by the A's, followed by a base hit, and they score 1. Also, the 7th was boring too.

And a homer ties it. Oh. Jesus.

FINAL: 4-3, A's. Oh, don't worry, we let two players walk, and then Rajai Davis got a nice hit up the right baseline. THE VERY END of the 9th inning.

California knows how to party.

Won, 6-3.

Scored 3 in the 9th to pass up the A's when we were at 3-3.

Kubel had a nice homer; Morneau did some good work ; Crede was there, which is hot, and hit a nice triple; Span is still out, being checked out back in Florida; Young had a couple RBIs.

Tomorrow's game isn't telecast,which grosses me out. Buuuut, if I can find it on the radio, it may be time for another live-blog-a-ganza, because I live with my parents now and don't have a job or friends. WOOOO, JOIN THE PARTY!

And WHOA, when did Breslow jump ship to the A's?? I almost cried when I saw him pitching tonight.

Oakland A-Holes!

Oh. My. God.

We managed to get a 10-0 lead against the A's, until someone decided it was a good idea to let Baker try to close the game as well as open it.

What happened?

Two runs, bases loaded, three walks that were TOTALLY unnecessary thanks to Mijares THAT BIG JERK, aaaaand then Joe Nathan swoops in with a basket of awesome.

Game ends, 10-5. BUT:

• Despite my bitching about Young, guy managed three RBI's tonight to help us with our 10 runs. Uh, sorry Delmon. I'll buy you a Dome Dog the next time I'm in town.
• Morneau hit a beautiful homer!
• I fell asleep as we scored like 4 runs. BOO!
• I think it was Kubel or uh someone that hit in three runs one time during my aforementioned nap.
• Casilla dropped two balls hit to him that could've saved us a few runs in that nasty 9th inning.
• Span was out way at the beginning thanks to wooziness/dizziness/equilibrium troubles. He was replaced by Gomez.
• Crede got beaned in the left forearm, and is now day-to-day, but it didn't hit bone. Just PILES OF MUSCLE. AND IRON. (he's bionic??)
• Apparently today, draft day, we picked up like 4 pitchers. I AM OKAY WITH THAT. EVIDENCE: TONIGHT.
• Tolbert took the #2 spot on the batting order.
• RBIs: Morneau (2), Gomez (2), and Kubel (3 - thanks to that choice hit).
• RUNS: Tolbert (1), Mauer (1), Morneau (2), Kubel (1), Crede (1), Cuddyer (2!), Harris (1), and Young (1).
• Cust, player for the A's, was at bat with the bases loaded in the 9th. He hits it just foul, a ball's width right of the right foul line, and Dicks laughs to Bert, "Cust? That's what you might've done if that had made it in!" Bert is all like AW HELL NAW! And Dick's like, "How does that work out for you?" and Bert is like, "Not very well. I don't want any time off right now," as Dick laughs his ass off. Oh man.
• I also just noticed I've been spelling "Bert" like "Burt" this whole time. Even the tag is wrong. I'm a moron.

So there's that. That game took waaaaay too long considering we had it in the bag until like two batters into the 9th. Oh well - a win is a win, especially on the road!

Only the good die Young.

Re-posting this because A. It's so true; B. DeLand is a gangster; C. SCTimes will probably take the story down in like 3 days:

DeLand column: Baseball's trade winds can be tricky

JUNE 7, 2009

In baseball circles, their names are jointly synonymous with serendipity and disaster, with a heist and a giveaway, with a well-intentioned trade that went astoundingly right for one team and horribly wrong for the other.

Lou Brock. Ernie Broglio. There were other insignificant parts of the equation, but that was the crux of the June 15, 1964 deal: Brock for Broglio, which turned out to be perhaps the worst trade in major league history — or the best, depending on your vantage point.

And now, the Minnesota Twins find themselves living with the residue of a deal that’s starting to take on the same sort of stench: Jason Bartlett and Matt Garza for Delmon Young, Brendan Harris and Jason Pridie.

If you’re a Tampa Bay Rays fan — fresh off a trip to the World Series, thanks largely to two of the best young players in baseball — the trade makes you indescribably giddy.

If you’re a Twins fan — aghast at watching Delmon strike out and stumble around in left field — you’re shaking your head (or something).

This sort of thing just doesn’t happen to your team. Didn’t used to, anyway.

The concept of being involved in a lopsided blockbuster deal is relatively new to the Twins, who didn’t have a whole lot of blockbusters during their first four-plus decades. Most of the ones they did have — Bert Blyleven to the Rangers in 1976, Rod Carew to the Angels in 1979, Frank Viola to the Mets in 1989 — end up generally being a wash.

Until the last decade, that is. One can easily make a case that the Twins’ two biggest trading heists and two biggest blunders in franchise history all happened since 1999 — and the results of those deals are splayed all over their current roster.

Those deals still have a ways to go to match the impact of Brock for Broglio — a trade that, on the day it was made, was widely perceived as a steal for the Chicago Cubs, and a blunder by the St. Louis Cardinals.

Broglio was a 21-game winner for the Cards in 1960, and won 18 in 1963. Brock — just 21/2 years removed from the St. Cloud Rox — had ordinary seasons with the Cubs in 1962 and 1963, and was batting .251 52 games into the 1964 season when the trade was made.

What happened subsequently, of course, was the baseball equivalent of Manhattan Island for $24 worth of beads and mirrors.

Brock hit .348 over the rest of the ‘64 season and led the Cards to a World Series championship. He went on to surpass 3,000 career hits, set the all-time single-season and career stolen base records and enter the Hall of Fame as a first-ballot selection in 1985.

And Broglio? He spent 21/2 seasons with the Cubs, went 7-19 with a 5.40 ERA and was out of baseball by the end of 1966.

It was a ridiculously lopsided deal, one that stands virtually alone in baseball annals in terms of its inequality. But the Twins’ 2007 deal with Tampa Bay is edging toward that level.

Bartlett — voted MVP of the AL Champion 2008 Rays — is leading the majors with a .373 batting average, and is on pace for 20 homers, 87 RBI and 41 stolen bases. (The Twins’ regular shortstop, Nick Punto, is batting .187 with no homers, and his fielding percentage is significantly worse than Bartlett’s).

Garza — who pitched the Rays into the World Series with a masterpiece in Game 7 of the 2008 ALCS — is 4-4 with a 3.67 ERA and ranks seventh in the league in strikeouts. (The Twins have three starters in their rotation with ERAs in excess of 5.36).

In return, the Twins got Harris, a passable hitter with no speed, little defensive prowess and no real position; Pridie, a minor-league outfielder with no future; and Young, the supposed centerpiece slugger in the deal.

Young is batting .231 with one homer, two extra-base hits (two!?!), five walks and 41 strikeouts in 117 at-bats. His slugging percentage (.265) and on-base percentage (.272) are comically low, and his fielding percentage is the second-worst in the league among regular outfielders (only Cleveland’s Shin-Soo Choo is worse).

Add up Young’s numbers, and you have absolutely the worst player in the majors.

Add up Bartlett’s, and you have one of the best. Throw in Garza, who’s only 25 years old, and the deal gets worse.

So, how does this trade rate in Twins’ annals? Well, these are the best:

Twins’ Top 3:

No. 3 — Feb. 3, 1987: Pitchers Al Cardwood, Neal Heaton, Yorkis Perez and catcher Jeff Reed to the Montreal Expos for pitcher Jeff Reardon and catcher Tom Nieto. The acquisition of stopper Reardon was the missing puzzle piece that carried the Twins to their first World Championship.

No. 2 — Nov. 14, 2003: Catcher A.J. Pierzynski and cash to the San Francisco Giants for pitchers Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano and Boof Bonser. This looked even better before Liriano hurt his arm, but Nathan alone makes this one a steal.

No. 1 — Dec. 13, 1999: Pitcher Jared Camp to the Florida Marlins for pitcher Johan Santana and $500,000 cash. Camp never made it to the majors, and was out of baseball in 2002 after 34 minor-league wins. Santana was 93-44 for the Twins, won two Cy Young Awards and has been the best pitcher in baseball since 2004.

And these are the worst:

Twins’ Bottom 3

No. 3 — Dec. 12, 1969: Third baseman Graig Nettles, outfielder Ted Uhlaender and pitcher Bob Miller to the Cleveland Indians for pitchers Luis Tiant and Stan Williams. Nettles went on to a near-Hall of Fame career; Tiant did the same, but not for the Twins (they released him in 1970).

No. 2 — Feb. 2, 2008: Pitcher Johan Santana to the New York Mets for outfielder Carlos Gomez and pitchers Philip Humber, Kevin Mulvey and Deolis Guerra. There’s time for this one to get better, but Santana is still the best pitcher in baseball. Humber, Mulvey and Guerra are all in the minors, and Gomez probably should be.

No. 1 — Nov. 28, 2007: Shortstop Jason Bartlett and pitcher Matt Garza to the Tampa Bay Rays for outfielders Delmon Young and Jason Pridie and infielder Brendan Harris. This trade just looks worse every day.

It has been frequently noted that the Twins’ two worst deals were both engineered by general manager Billy Smith, who has had the job for all of 20 months. It hasn’t been an auspicious start, to say the least.

But hopefully, two stinkers won’t make Smith gun-shy and prevent him from trying to bolster the Twins’ raggedy bullpen.

Because that’s the thing about trades: Sometimes they make you look smart, and sometimes they don’t. But you have to keep trying — they’re not all going to turn out to be Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio.

This is the opinion of Times sports editor Dave DeLand. Contact him at 255-8771 or by e-mail at ddeland@stcloudtimes.com

I'm going to go cry now while we lose to the A's (SHIT!) again.

Running Bear, young Indian brave.

10-1.  Oh, gross.

At least GoGo got to stir up some trouble.