Baseball is a funny game, etc.

Man, I don't like these west-coast road trips. The Twins in San Diego, me in Minnesota. I can never stay awake for the whole game. At least this trip is short.

Sunday, we watched the Twins win their sixth game in a row. That's pretty cool by itself, but there were a few other unique things about that game worth noting. In the first inning, Senor Hernandez (El Principe) set the D-Backs down 1-2-3. All three outs were scored 4-3 (groundouts to the 2nd baseman). I guess that's somewhat unusual. It was also a good sign. I had just read in the GameDay program that Hernandez wins when he induces ground balls. Good start against your old mates, Livan!

The redundancy continued:

In the D-Backs' 2nd inning, Conor Jackson singled (1b); Chad Tracy flew out to left field (F7);Mark Reynolds singled (1b), and Chris Young struck out looking on three pitches (backward K).

In the D-Backs' 4th inning, Jackson singled (1b); Tracy flew out to left field (F7); Reynolds singled (1b), and Young struck out looking on three pitches (backward K).

That was eerie.

In the 6th (I think it was the sixth -- my scorecard has some gaps in it after the fifth inning), the D-Backs had runners on first and second. The batter whiffed on a bunt attempt and Mauer threw to 2nd and picked off the runner. The throw was so quick and accurate that everyone, especially the D-Backs' runner, was shocked. That was fun to watch.

And the D-Backs showed a bit of hubris (or stupidity) by having their regular first baseman play left field without any preparation for the Dome's notorious roof (or was it the lights?). He lost a routine fly that lead to the Twins' big inning. So that was fun in a perverse way (as in: This place really stinks as a baseball park but sometime that works in our favor).

And finally, George Carlin's famous bit about football and baseball was one of my favorites. I add my voice to those who say "You done good, George."