Twins at Royals. Twins 7, Royals 5.

Kudos to all the Royals fans who sat in the rain today to watch their bullpen blow a four-run lead. Kudos to the huddled masses in the blankets and the slickers and the big umbrellas. Batgirl salutes you! She admires your dedication to your team—and Batgirl would be out there, with you—dear fans—shivering and dripping and sneering at all the lesser people making their way to the cars like pathetic, dry pantywaists. She would be with you, too, all the next week, guzzling TheraFlu and NyQuil and leaving rolled up balls of Puffs Plus With Lotion in her snotty wake.

But, frankly, if given a choice, Batgirl would rather not. Oh, she wants an outdoor stadium. She wants to sit with the summer sun on her SPF-45ed face, munching on chichi appetizers and marveling at the beauty of a world that has baseball in it. There’s something fake about the Metrodome--games there are a simulacrum of the real thing, under the eerie dingy glow of that roof. Let's build a real stadium, and let's get some chichi appetizers while we're at it.

At the same time, Batgirl is a pragmatist. This is Minnesota. It snows in April. And sometimes May. It rains a lot. And rainouts blow, and snow-outs blow worse, and while sitting in the sun watching baseball rocks, sitting in rain, snow, and/or sleet blows really, really hard. The Twins need a new stadium, and that stadium needs a retractable roof, otherwise we’ll never get in our 81 home games and Batgirl will spend the whole summer sniffling and heavily medicated. And you, her readers, will suffer.

Now, Batgirl’s esteemed colleague Twins Geek disagrees with her mightily on this issue, and he has a point. But, again, we’re in Minnesota. Batgirl hasn’t seen SafeCo Field in person (though she’s fielding offers) but it doesn’t look like the ambiance suffers much—and when it does rain in Seattle (i.e. every single day) the team can still play ball. Which is why we’re all here. To play ball.

Speaking of baseball…things looked pretty grim for the first seven innings tonight. Kyle Lohse just can’t seem to find his form, and Batgirl’s husband needed beer to lessen the pain. But—oh, have faith!—the Twins just kept coming, thanks largely to Corey Koskie and a number of good patient at-bats (since when have the Twins walked five times in an inning?).

When J.C. Romero finished up the 8th with the Twins behind by one, Jim Kahmann started cleaning out Romero’s muddy spikes for the bottom of the ninth—because the whole team expected there would be a bottom of the ninth. And how great was Michael Ryan, who has been hitting his way back onto the roster; he started the comeback by leading off the eighth with a single, then singled again in the ninth with runners on first and second, then skipped around the field for awhile. He was so happy to contribute, to come through, to be a part of the comeback, that he was just beaming on the base paths (see below)—and that, my pretties, is Twins baseball.

Mike Ryan can’t repress his joy after his rally-fueling single.