Twins at Montreal. Twins 8, Expos 2.

Once, a few days before Batgirl’s birthday, she got a spinal tap. That spinal tap “leaked,” causing her immense headaches, and on her birthday she went to a place called something like the “United Pain Center” to get it patched. Batgirl found the name uninviting, and told the nurse they should call it, like, the United Cute and Fuzzy Bunnies Center. The nurse told Batgirl that they were one of a leading pain management centers in the area. Anyway, United Pain Center turned out to be aptly named, and that year Batgirl had to spend the rest of her birthday flat on her back, peering vaguely at movies like To Wong Fu, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar.

This was a bad birthday, but not nearly as bad as the birthday Expos pitcher Zach Day had today. After pitching 13 shut out innings in his previous starts, Day pitched one of the worst first innings in the annals of time (outside of the Twins 2002 Division Series, that is.) He escaped with only three runs, thanks to the saving grace of a Jacque Jones double play—one can only assume Jones felt sorry for Day after he had walked the first two batters, given up two RBI singles, and thrown a wild pitch and passed ball to the same batter. In the second inning, after Joe Mauer hit a lead-off double, Day gave up an RBI single to Johan Santana. Yes, the pitcher. Who he almost walked. That was enough for poor Frank Robinson, who has suffered any number of indignities as Expo manager in the last couple of years. Happy birthday...have an early shower.

The 18-man Expos bullpen filled in ably after that, shutting down the Twins until the 6th, when after a Koskie walk, Torii Hunter dinged one off a left field speaker--which apparently is a homerun in Canada. In the 7th, “Sacré” Lew hit a two-run homer of his own, American-style to give the Twins the 8-2 lead.

But the story of the game was the Johaninator. After giving up a lead-off double to Brad Wilkerson, Johan retired 17 in a row. Whatever problems he was having in the first two months of the season seem to be gone; in his last two starts Johan has pitched fifteen innings, given up no walks, three runs, and has struck out seventeen. And those are good stats no matter what country you’re in.

BatAlert: Today is the final day for votes in the Haiku Contest. And please weigh in on this week’s edition of MINNESOTA TWINS: HOT OR NOT. Johan is definitely going to the finals, but should Dougie?