Philadelphia at Twins. Phillies 11, Twins 6

Batgirl owes Lew Ford a smooch. When he came up in the 7th with two outs, Dougie on, and the Twins behind two runs Batgirl exclaimed that if he hit a homer she would kiss him. This, apparently, was motivation enough for Ford.

Boom.

First I'll have to get to him, of course, and that may be hard, given I think there might be a long line of Twins fans and players who owe Ford a smooch, at the very least. Goober likens Ford's performance so far this year to Doug Mientkiewicz's at the beginning of 2001; in April Doug hit .400 and led the team to the top of the division for much of that year--announcing that after years of bottom feeding, the Twins had arrived. Well, the Twins have stayed in that mythical place—even if no one outside the state of Minnesota chooses to acknowledge it, and if we are in first place now despite a DL the size of France, and massive offensive slumps, it is due to Lew.

Not that Lew's dinger ended up winning the game for us. We were all bunched up into the ninth, until Terry Mulholland put a couple on, and then J.C. Romero shouted, "Come on, boys, I'll send you home!"

There are probably people in Philadelphia that owe kisses to Jim Thome tonight—but Thome's probably used to it by now. He must have office hours a few days a week where people come in and pay their kissy debts. I think we should be grateful that with the bases loaded in the ninth, Thome only scored two. It's a sign, I think, of his essential charity. Less charitable was Ricky Ledee's subsequent three-run homer to make the game 11-6. 11 runs, really, isn’t that almost ostentatious? Who needs 11 runs when 8 will suffice? That's just not how we do it in the Midwest.

Anyway, the Phillies have scored 342 runs in their last three games--and unlike the Mets, they convert with the bases loaded. It's time for Silva to show his old team what they've let go.

Note: I do not know what in the Sam Hill is going on with J.C. Romero, but something is very, very wrong. Remember at the beginning of the season when he didn't give any runs for about three weeks? That was cool. We all said, "Well, we lost the Hawk, but J.C.'s back." A J.C. in his 2002 form is a pretty good substitute for the '03 Hawk. The '04 J.C., however, is something quite else. I can’t help but feel his problems are mental, but, you know, how very very mental they must be. Let's hear it, BatLings—what's the problem? And more importantly, what's the fix?