Twins at Seattle. Twins 8, Mariners 4.

It's amazing how much a little thing like a seven run inning can lift a gal's spirits. I mean, here we are, rending our garments, because the Twins can't seem to score any gosh darned runs. Because we're making Gil "Ga" Meche look like Jamie "Pupa" Moyer. Because our band of wide-eyed rookies and free-swinging veterans and leprosy victims could make BatMom look like Cy Young (no offense, BatMom, but you know you tend to slump in April). I mean, what happened to all the bats? I was led to believe there were going to be bats! Where are the bleeping-blargin' bats?

Well, I'll tell you. The problem, clearly, is that the Twins accidentally brought the ass-bats back from Florida. I don't know how this happened; you'd think they'd be more careful. Obviously no one realized it yesterday—I guess that makes sense; there was a theoretical possibility that Jamie Moyer just was kicking our butts. Fine. Better luck next time. But when it gets to be the thirteenth inning of the season and you've only scored one run, it's time to ask who brought the ass-bats.

I don't want to point fingers. I don't want to name names. It's not important to play the blame game. What's important is that at some point right before the top of the fifth Shannon Stewart—ever mindful of such things—took a careful look at the batting rack and could not believe his eyes.

"Hey! Who brought the ass-bats!"

Well, at first some people were angry; I mean Torii Hunter was made to look pretty ridiculous yesterday and he does have his pride. But pretty soon everyone had a good laugh. "All this time, I thought you guys sucked!" Gardy said. "But no, somebody just bought the ass-bats!"

"Man," said Matthew LeCroy, slapping his knee and eating a crawdad. "You shoulda seen yourself Jacque, swinging wildly with that ass-bat!"

"Hey Johan!" shouted Joe Mauer to his battery mate. "Don't worry, it's all going to be okay! We were just using the ass-bats!"

Johan just rolled his eyes. Those crazy guys and their ass-bats!

Well, everyone knew things were going to turn around pretty quickly, once they put those ass-bats away. So one of the bat boys brought out the real bats, and Lew Ford's eyes began to sparkle. "Now that's more like it," he said. "Darn, you know, I think I've been using an ass-bat all spring!"

"No, you haven't," said Scotty Ullger.

"Oh. Shoot," said Ford.

Well, anyway, everything changed after that. Right away in the top of the fifth, Ford got a single, followed by DJ Cuddy, followed by Luis Rivas and suddenly the Minnesota Twins had loaded the bases. Shannon Stewart—really the hero of the game for discovering the whole ass-bat thing—legged out a grounder and scored Lew, then Mr. Jason Bartlett got his second RBI of the season, and so it went, on and on like Gil "Ga" Meche's worst nightmare, until Jacque Jones strode up and hit the ball very, very hard and very, very far. And by the way, can Batgirl just say how glad she is that Mr. Jones is back? Because it seems if someone's going to hit the ball very very hard and very very long, it's going to be Little Sweetcheeks.

Well, anyway, seven runs in one inning was quite enough (even though Little Sweetcheeks added an insurance run in the seventh). After the first Johan Santana was his old self (Dearest Johan: please don't start having terrible first innings, because we have enough of that with Brad and there's only so much BG can take. Gracias! Love, Batgirl) then Jesse Crain, J.C. Romero, Juan Rincon, and Joe Nathan combined to keep the Mariners—even Richie Sexson!—silent.

In fact, the mood in the Twins clubhouse was quite ebullient afterwards, with the exception of Joe Mauer, who seemed rather thoughtful. And after just about everyone had cleared out, Torii Hunter found the young catcher just sitting on a bench shaking his head.

"Hey kid," said Hunter. "What's wrong?"

"Well, Torii, sir, I'm wondering about something."

"What is it?"

"Why do we have ass-bats anyway?"

"I don't know, kid. I just don't know."