Detroit at Twins. Twins 8, Detroit 4.

When Batgirl woke up today she thought it was an ordinary morning, that is until the phone rang. She checked the Caller ID and sighed. Not again.

"Hey, Boo," she said.

"Hey, Batgirl," said Boo.

"Now, Boo, honey, we've been through this. Brad and Jennifer are not getting back together."

"No, no, that's not why I'm calling. Do you know what today is?"

Batgirl sighed. Juan Rincon likes to play little games a lot, sometimes it gets a little annoying. "No, Boo. What day is it?"

"It's your BatVersary!"

Well, Batgirl was floored. Was it really a year ago that Batgirl's Baseball Blog, Inc was formed? Indeed, when she opened the front door to get the newspaper, she found her doorstep littered with flowers, catnip, a Snapper lawn mower, a case of beer from the Gluek Brewing Company, and a box which seemed to be full of crawdads. And she was moved, she really was. When Team Batgirl began their merry crusade to put the sass back in baseball, they never expected a reception like this. But, life is full of surprises, and Batgirl found herself very busy all day receiving celebratory phone calls. But, really, all the flowers, the crawdads, the diamonds from Jared Jewelry—well, it was all far more than Batgirl wanted. And when Torii Hunter called her at 4, she found herself feeling a little down. As always, Torii could tell right away.

"What's wrong, Beege?"

"Oh, Torii. I don't know what's wrong with me. My BatVersary is here, but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel."

"I think I know the problem."

"What's that Torii?"

"The BatVersary isn't about flowers or crawdads or Kubota tractors or diamonds from Goodman Jewelers. Even though a gift from Goodman Jewelers goes straight to the heart. Beege, what do you love most in the world, besides your fam, Jeb, and the BatKitties?"

"The Minnesota Twins."

"Exactly, Batgirl. The BatVersary's not going to mean anything to you until game time. And as much as we all love you, we shouldn't be devoting ourselves to buying you presents. Our job is to get out there and get you a victory."

Batgirl paused, and nodded slowly. "You think you can do that for me, Sweetcheeks?"

"We'll do our best, Batgirl. But you know, we always do that."

Torii was right. The truth is, Batgirl will trade all the Croton watches and Gutter Helmets and Shane Company diamonds and/or sapphires in the world for us to keep smacking the ball around like we did tonight. I mean, Kyle Lohse can be as Dr.-Jekyll-and-Mr.-Kohse as he wants if we score eight bleepin' runs a game.

I'm not saying the whole game was a fabulous anniversary present. In their first at bat, the Twins scored 5 runs with one out, until Shannon Stewart stopped the madness by hitting into a double play. Shannon Stewart isn't often responsible for three outs in one inning, and Batgirl can only postulate that he began to feel sorry for the Tigers, and Batgirl respects that. They're not the Bitch Sox, for Gardy's sakes. We don't need to humiliate them.

Okay, so that was all well and good and very BatVersary-appropriate, and it was 5-2 going into the bottom of the second and the Twins loaded the bases with no outs and Mssrs. Torii Hunter and Jacque Jones coming up, and Batgirl thought for sure that things were about to get extremely rout-a-rific—and then Torii popped out and Jacque hit into a double play. And at that point Batgirl screamed something that should probably not be repeated on a family blog. Or, for that matter, on hers.

And then there's the performance of Kyle Lohse. Lohse gave up a homer in the first inning, of course. But it was only one run, so, like, yay! And then something very strange happened. Kyle Lohse started to pitch well.

Now, we all know it's possible. Lohse was Batgirl's pitching boyfriend in 2003, and just about everyone thought he would be, like, awesome in '04. Until he started to actually pitch. Then he went around blaming everyone but himself for the fact that he totally sucked now, irritating the $#!& out of Batgirl and making her totally break up with him. And after last week's performance (and his concomitant 6-something ERA) it looked like Kyle was truly in mid-season sucking form.

But in the second inning tonight, after giving up a double and an RBI single, Kyle promptly coaxed a double play out of Craig Monroe ("That one's for you, Jackal!" he shouted) then a strikeout from poor Marcus Thames, who never really knew what hit him.

In the third, Lohse got an actual 1-2-3 inning, then in the 4th he shouted out to the Jackal one more time with another lovely double play ball, and then in the fifth—oh my darlings, are you sitting down? Are you sure? Sit down. Maybe take a drink of water. Did you take a drink of water? Proper hydration is very important—in the sixth inning, Kyle Lohse struck out the side.

Oh, Kyle. That was so hot when you did that. How did it feel being good again? Did you like it? Really? 'Cuz Batgirl liked it too. A lot. 'Cuz Batgirl knows that underneath that monumental 'tude, you're a good pitcher, and Batgirl also thinks once you stop sucking, you'll lose the 'tude, too, because it's some sort of defensive reaction to the sucking, like a blowfish or BatMom snapping a bit after a little too much catnip.

Normally, of course, the Twins can't afford to give up four runs, on account of how no one knows how to hit. But tonight, thanks to some weird-ass alchemy created by the sucking of the Detroit pitching staff, the import of the BatVersary, and the total lack of ass-bats, well, we scoff at four runs. We pee all over four runs! With light saber noises!

Oh, and once Kyle left the game, the bullpen came in, and once that happens, well, good night sweet kitties. The funny thing is the very first game recap on Batgirl ever was entitled "In the bullpen, no one can hear you scream." See, the bullpen wasn't very good last April, and even Joe Nathan, well, blew. But now, now my dear friends, we have Juan Rincon, now we have the good version of J.C. Romero, now we have Joe "Automatic" Nathan. And no one else does. In the 7th, J.C. struck out two (Oh, J.C., please be good this year? Please? Because Boo can't do it all by his Boo-some) and then in the 8th, Boo struck out three, and then Chocula came on and it was all so magically delicious.

Meanwhile, Terry Tiffee came back up to the majors today, and Batgirl was a little worried because not only was he going to play first base, not only was he going to bat clean-up, but he was going to come face to face with the large Puerto Rican mass that had haunted his nightmares ever since he went barreling into it on one dark September day last year. All off season, Terry Tiffee thought about what he might do when he saw the face of his doom again. Would he affect casualness? "Oh, hey, Pudge. How's it hanging?" Would he act all tough and just, like, grunt in Pudge's general direction? Would he acknowledge what had happened—"Hey Pudge, you know when I barreled into you last year and broke my philange? That really hurt my feelings. I just wanted you to know that." He needed a plan, for the last thing he wanted to do, the very last thing, was see Pudge Rodriguez and start to weep.

But tonight, when he stepped up to bat in the first with two on, he shot a glance at his nemesis...and started to laugh.

"God! You're so skinny!" he exclaimed, before pounding the ball into right for an RBI double. He laughed all the way into second, and then when Torii Hunter hit him in, he laughed all the way home. Pudge looked at him and said, "What are you laughing at, rookie?" and then Tiffee started laughing some more, because Pudge looked so cute trying to be all tough and stuff, and he laughed all the way through his next at bat, a walk, and he was still laughing in the fourth when he launched a two-run homer to right, he laughed all around the basepaths and when he got home Pudge glared at him and sniffed, "Aren't you going to barrel into me again?" And Terry Tiffee stopped laughing then, and he slowly shook his head and put his hand on Pudge's shoulder. "No, man," he said. "I don't want to hurt you."

Then he looked over to the BatQuarters and murmured, "Happy BatVersary, Batgirl."