Now let’s get to the day’s most exciting news story:
The Twins took the field tonight against the Chicago White Sox trailing by one-half game in the AL Central. But they had the Chisox reeling after two straight victories at home. Kevin Slowey started and pitched three perfect innings, but in the top of the fourth, the wheels came off. With one out, a White Sox batter hit a ball to the wall in right center. Our rookie (or almost-rookie) outfielders, Carlos Gomez and Denard Span, both dashed toward the ball. With 45,000 Twins fans shrieking, they couldn’t hear a thing, nor did they take their eyes off the ball.
Sickeningly, to us Twins fans, they collided. Either could have caught the ball, but instead, they tumbled to the field while the ball dribbled away. That play was followed by a slow roller to third that Brian Buscher couldn’t get out of his glove. After that, a White Sox batter drilled a ball up the middle, off Slowey’s wrist. Slowey picked it up and tried to make the throw to first, but, with his injured arm, he threw it wide. The upshot was that Chicago scored six runs to take a 6-1 lead. I shut the TV off before the inning was over.
Slowey had to leave the game and was taken to the hospital for X-rays. But the Twins lost no time starting to chip away at the White Sox’ lead, scoring two in the bottom of the fourth. They kept chipping away, with Gomez and Span leading the way, seemingly trying to make up for their blunder in the field in the fourth. Gomez went four for five with two triples, three runs and two RBIs, Span went three for four with a run and three RBIs. These paragraphs from the Star Tribune’s account indicate how exciting the game was:
But the Twins climbed back into the game, as Gomez electrified the crowd with triples in the fourth inning and the sixth.
Span drove in Gomez with a suicide squeeze in the sixth, trimming Chicago’s lead to 6-4.
In the bottom of the eighth, Span tripled Gomez home to tie the score at 6-6, and the fans went completely insane. Here is Go-Go Gomez, the fastest runner in baseball, scoring the tying run:
In the bottom of the tenth, Alexi Casilla singled Nick Punto in from third to give the Twins a 7-6, come from behind win, and first place in their division. With the exception of Joe Mauer, who had another big game, and closer Joe Nathan who got the win, the game’s heroes were all rookies or near-rookies. The Twins probably aren’t the best team in baseball, but they have to be the most fun.
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