JULY 21, 2009 -- MINNESOTA 3, OAKLAND 2 (10 innings)

A big win for the Twins, coming back from their worst loss in twenty-five years and beating the lowly Athletics in extra innings, 3-2. The Twins and Michael Cuddyer in particular got a break on Tuesday, as Oakland outfielder Ryan Sweeney inexplicably missed Cuddyer's catchable fly ball that ended up being the game-winning triple for the Twins. Granted, it would have been a nice running catch, but did you think that Cuddyer could actually have a clutch hit that wasn't screwed up in some way by the defense? The guy thrives on cheesy hits and pour-it-on run production, and we all knew that if it were Cuddyer that gets the winning run home, it was going to have to be on a play just like that. But, whatever, the Twins will take it, as they desperately needed to pick themselves off the mat after the Oakland Disaster on Monday night. The star of the game was undoubtedly Anthony Swarzak, who surprisingly pitched like a calm and collected veteran on the mound. He made the correct adjustments against the A's, a team that had beaten Swarzak a month ago, and his strong seven inning performance kept the Twins in the game and gave them a chance to win. Thanks to a misplay by Ryan Sweeney, the Twins took advantage.

Matt Guerrier got the win for the Twins, pitching two innings of near-perfect relief. Now, I will say this -- Guerrier is having a great season, but it's as good a time as any to bring up the fact that Guerrier is still in The Doghouse. Guerrier did this last year too -- pitch well in the first half only to implode (and I mean implode) in the second half. Last season he pitched to a 3.35 ERA ERA in the first half (over 45 games) and held opponents to a .241 batting average -- stellar numbers, especially considering that he had assumed Pat Neshek's eighth-inning role in mid-May and was still learning the role. The second half, however, Guerrier went 1-5, had an 8.88 ERA and opponents teed off against Guerrier to the tune of a .336 batting average. Along with the fact that Ron Gardenhire continued stupidly to bring Guerrier into close ballgames, Guerrier was perhaps the biggest reason that the Twins missed out on the playoffs last season, so it's mainly that resentment that's still lingering to this season. Even though Guerrier's been absolutely fantastic this season -- 2.18 ERA, 5-0 record, 0.86 WHIP, .191 opponent's batting average -- my heart still skips a beat every time that he's brought into the game. If Guerrier can put together a solid season -- an entire season, and not just a good half -- he'll be out of The Doghouse, but until then, he's still under hard watch. And think of it this way -- if Guerrier doesn't give up another run for the rest of the season but the Twins don't make the playoffs, that's still one blown season that's on Guerrier's record. So the resentment will always be there.

In a pre-game interview, Ron Gardenhire suddenly turned into Ozzie Guillen for a little bit, and his comments regarding how managers should be able to throw "red flags" like coaches can in the NFL were a little embarrassing. Gardenhire actually said it best after the game on Monday, that Mike Muchlinski's call should not have mattered because the Twins did not deserve to lose. He manned up and took full responsibility for the loss (well, he didn't blame himself, and that's the real issue here, but close enough). Then Gardenhire has to give this interview, and it makes him come off quite unprofessional, whiny, and still lingering on the bad call from Monday. Added to that was the fact that Gardy's "plan" was just plain asinine. I'm still having trouble making sense of the plan, so here it is from the horses' mouth, printed in the Pioneer Press:

"You'd have to have one (challenge) an inning, just for fun," Gardenhire said. "You throw it out and they go, OK, let's go look at it. Have a guy in a box that has a red scorecard and a green one and if (the call was right) he (holds up) green, you got it right, umpire. If you were wrong, you got red. You don't even have to talk."

So the umpires wouldn't look at the play? Some dude would hold up colored placards and that's it? One challenge per inning? Do we want to play a nine-inning game in five hours? I thought Bert Blyleven said it best during Tuesday's telecast, in response to Dick Bremer (not surprisingly) calling for expanded instant replay, "Why do we even need umpires then? Why not just have machines and robots make the calls?" If you're going to expand replay to calls at home plate, then you're going to have to expand it to include calls at all the bases, and then sooner than later you're going to just have a machine call balls and strikes. It's a game played by humans that involves some amount of human error -- Ron Gardenhire is certainly a prime example of a human making many mistakes -- what should be addressed is the fact that minor-league umpires like Mike Muchlinski are simply not trained well enough for the big-leagues. Why a Triple-A ump was given the task of umpiring home plate is beyond me. Clearly Muchlinski was out of position to call the final play on Monday -- what needs to be addressed is that these umpires, whether full-time or substitute, must be adequately trained for the big-leagues. As far as replays go, yeah -- do anything except whatever Ron Gardenhire was blathering about. That's childishly stupid, Gardy.