Younger daughter told me today, without evident irony or sarcasm, which is rare, especially in a speech act of hers containing the word "blessed," "I feel blessed to be alive at the same time as Taylor Swift."
I've not been doing monthly summaries of the Twins' progress through the baseball season, but I am paying attention, and, again thanks to Aaron Gleeman, I realized recently that I've been impressed, though insufficiently, with their pitching. We're now almost at the all-star break and they rank first in the major leagues—best of all 30 mlb teams—in the following statistical categories:
Earned Run Average
Strikeout rate
On base percentage against
Slugging percentage against
On base plus slugging against
Innings pitched per start
Quality starts (at least six innings pitched, no more than 3 runs allowed)
Alas, the best way to convey their woes at the bat is just to point out that, notwithstanding the above, their record for the season is 45 wins, 43 losses. I will add, however, that Twin hitters have struck out more than any other team—52 more times than the Giants, the team with the second most. The Giants meanwhile have struck out 47 times more than the team with the eighth most: that is, the gap between the Twins and the team with the second most strikeouts is wider than the gap between the team with the second most and the one with the eighth most. Three-hop grounders and bloops over the infield can be hits but it's hard to get lucky when you're striking out.
Imagine how gaudy the stats for Twin pitchers would be if they ever got to pitch against the Twins.
I'm too jaded to drop a word like "blessed" but I may spend more time than my favorite Swiftie scrolling around on my phone, finding music to, er, love. Never heard of Lake Street Dive until I typed into a search engine "covers of Prince songs" and found this (almost as fun as the bass fiddle and the voice of the lead singer is the horn player's impersonation, when it's not his turn to play, of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier):
Here's the genius performing it himself at a famous First Avenue concert, August 3, 1983, commemorating my 25th birthday:
One more Lake Street Dive cover. That girl can sing. Our country is full of talented people who are barely getting along, one reason C-SPAN is so depressing.
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