Seattle at Twins. Twins 1, Seattle 0

A few days ago, Batgirl and her gorgeous and sexy husband Jeb were driving to a Bat-meeting and noticed something inexpressively wonderful. There was, on a corner lawn of a lovely house on a pleasant street, a ring of fencing, and inside that ring frolicked six puppies. There were humans inside the puppy pit, too, who were picking up various puppies and snuggling them close, while other puppies skipped around the pit in exuberant dances of puppy glee.

This puppy pit has become Jeb's happy place, a place he has to go to whenever the Twins bullpen pitches in the 8th. Jeb needed it very badly on Tuesday, when J.C. Romero gave up four runs. And he needed it again today, when a sparkling Johan Santana pitching performance threatened to be ruined after Terry Mulholland loaded the bases against the Mariners in the 8th. Oh, we'd seen this before, my friends. This does not end well. A good pitching performance by the Twins, a close game, the bullpen in the 8th. Crash! Bam! Allakazam! Losing game. Jeb gets nervous and starts swearing, and I say, "My dear husband, go to the puppy pit. Go. You'll feel better."

And then, there, with husband happily in the puppy pit, J.C. Romero came on. Yes, that very same Juan Carlos who so shattered us emotionally the other night. He came on and, crash! Bam! Out went the Mariners! Joe Nathan came on in the ninth and executed a perfect save, and there, my friends. There you have a one run Twins win, a rare and wondrous shut out. Santana, Juan Carlos, Nathan, Batgirl salutes you! Jeb salutes you! The puppy pit salutes you! (Mulholland, not so much. But we have to be gentle with him, he's way old.)

Joe "Automatic" Nathan pitches for his tenth save