Six wins, two losses, second best in baseball: the Yankees are 6-1.
I find I don't object to the piped-in sound or the cut-out figures in the seats behind home plate. Could just be that I'm desperate. A couple of times, I've listened on the radio while pedaling my stationary bike or driving somewhere, and the game sounds completely normal—though once, when several fielders converged on a high pop up, Twins broadcaster Dan Gladden said that they had no trouble hearing each other as "the crowd is fairly quiet."
Doesn't look normal, of course.
Nelson Cruz does not appear to have been adversely affected by the addition of a few more months to his 40+ years. Through 8 games, he's batting .333 with 3 homers, 11 RBI, and an OPS of 1.127. (OPS stands for "on-base plus slugging"; the stat's stratosphere is adjudged to commence at 1.0.)
Twins reliever Cody Stashak walked a batter in the game tonight against the Indians. That means he has now walked as many batters this year as he did all last season. Sure, he was a call-up, but it's not as if he never got the ball: he appeared in 18 games and pitched 25 innings. So he walked one batter while retiring 75. Sometimes when young guys get called up to The Show they are sort of nervous about throwing the ball over the plate.
Judging by the Twins' current series, the Indians don't have a lot of pop in their batting order: three runs in three games. Our new starting pitcher, Kenta Maeda, looked like Greg Maddux tonight, but not sure that's real. (When Shane Bieber shut us out 2-0 on Thursday evening, that was real, because our guys can hit.)
I feel like getting into this baseball season is a little like loving someone who's 90. Since it could end anytime, suddenly, maybe pull back a little, ease the pain. I'm not even sure they should be playing. If it was wise not to start in April, why was it okay to start in July? The public health picture hadn't improved much, or at all. But the heart does not take orders from the head. I see that tomorrow's game starts at 1:10.
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