Baby Hockey Jesus 2; Sidney Crosby 0

I wonder if this is the Untypical Girls at work. In their original post about Baby Hockey Jesus, Sidney Crosby was the sacrifice. I'm thinking that this is Baby Hockey Jesus collecting on that offering. Thank you Baby Hockey Jesus for your brilliant timing.

Meanwhile over at No Pun Intended, Elly is attempting to make herself feel better with Knob Hockey and alcohol, and I'm sure Steph is off somewhere gloating about the 2-0 lead and the fact that the Twins got owned 19-3 over the weekend. I really, really don't want to talk about it, Steph. The game tonight will be telling. If the Pens lose at home, they are screwed. Obvi, right? If they can't win on the road, and they can't win at home, I guess they would not win anywhere and therefore get swept, but sometimes I need to lay things out so that I can understand.

In keeping with my theme, right now it seems to be Baseball Gods Five bajillion; Minnesota Twins -.500

The Twins fans are complaining about a lack of power, but I really think they need to be complaining about the fact that our bullpen kind of sucks, and so does the fielding of certain players. *coughyoungcough* Other stupid people are complaining about the fact that Justin Morneau isn't playing as well as he should be, but really, he's been hitting pretty consistantly, getting plenty of RBIs, and he seems to be pretty capable of catching the ball. On top of that, he is not arbitrarily deciding when he will and will not play. Gomez, I've got news for you amigo, you are a rookie and in hot water for some of your fielding decisions. You should not be trying to tell Ron Gardenhire what you feel like doing, because judging by his umpire wars, he's not afraid to tell you what HE feels like doing. Think Red Foreman.

Joe Mauer may not be playing long ball (I wonder if that will hurt his fan club, as the ladies love the long ball), but he's getting on base, and in these times of barely .500 baseball, every little bit helps. That being said, he does not have ANY homeruns this season, and even Everett has one. Really, Joe? I have often wondered why Gardy doesn't have him hitting 1 or 2 instead of 3, but like I said before, I don't think it's wise to tell him how to run his baseball club/he knows more about baseball than I ever will. Cuddyer is doing the best he can, and I admit, he's had some struggles at the plate with just one homerun, but he's been making up for it on the field, and seems to be providing veteran leadership in the clubhouse and helping to keep things loose and fun. Besides, he has not run into a wall and broken his throwing hand, nor has he made an error in judgement that cause the opposing team to tie up the game in the 9th inning when the game was 3-0. I'm looking at you Gomez and Young.

We have a completely different infield for the most part, and I think they are still doing some shuffling around trying to see who fits best where. The fact that they are all getting injured is really hurting the team. The AAA club was getting really annoyed with the fact that they had no players left in the infield because the Twins had called them all up.

Lastly, the bullpen has not been stellar. Jesse Crain has been brutal this season, and I freak out every time he is put in the game, especially since he has been in towards the end of the game a lot. This does not give the team time to recover from him WALKING IN RUNS, SOMETIMES MULTIPLE RUNS IN AN INNING. Juan Rincon is totally off his game this season, though he's not anywhere near as bad as Jesse Crain. I only cringe a little bit when he's put in. I usually figure we just lost the game when Crain is put in. Joe Nathan was mad at Delmon Young last night, but he gave up a bunch of hits to allow all of those people on the bases, so he should be more forgiving and doing some apologizing of his own to Mr. Nick Blackburn. Blackburn has been pretty good for us this year, and he pitched really well for 8 and 1/3 innings last night. Mega shout-out to him, even if he does look alarmingly like Joe Mauer when he has a ball cap on.

If you made it all the way through that post that you thought was about hockey but was really about baseball, good job, and Go Twins!