Twins at Chicago. Bitch Sox 5, Twins 4.

The problem is, Batgirl just isn't herself when we play the Bitch Sox. She tries. She tries so hard to keep everything shiny and happy because, you know, it's supposed to be fun, right? Baseball is supposed to fun. It's not supposed to make you want to rip out your own eyeballs.

Oh. Sorry. The point is, whenever we start a series with the Bitch Sox, well, despite her best intentions, Batgirl finds herself on edge all day. "Stop being so damned fuzzy," she yells at BatKitty 1. "Don't give me that look," she snaps at BatKitty 2. "And you," she says to 3, "That I'm-so-cute-I'm-a-kitten thing is getting way old, you hear me? Way old." This is BatKitty 3's first baseball season, so she tends to take it a little personally, but BatKitties 1 and 2 are totally used to it by now. And it's not like they're not tense either—BatKitty 1 beat the crap out of BatKitty 2 this morning just because he has Bitch Sox colors.

The point is, Batgirl is tense. Dammit. After all these years of all the back talk from the Bitch Sox, who don't seem to understand that their proper place is one slot below our guys, she has this innate desire to have us beat the papal conclave out of them every time we play. If they would just accept their chronic inferiority, we could all get along and Batgirl would stop stressing out the BatKitties—did she mention the BatKitty blackheads?--not to mention the members of Team Batgirl who tend to stay far away from Batgirl during these series, lest she throw something at them. Hard.

So, these games tend to take on a little more import for Batgirl, and she can be forgiven for settling down in front of the BatTV at about 4pm tonight and beginning to mutter to herself and rock back and forth. Though today, it seemed her pain would ease early when Bitch Sox starter Jose Contreras pitched as if he had BatKitties in his freakin' pants. (They are awfully wiggly, you see. There was this one time…oh, never mind…) Contreras loaded the bases in the first inning, giving up back-to-back walks to Chairman Sideburns and Big LeRoy. It was all so pretty, all those strapping young Twins on all those Bitch Sox bases--with just one out!-- and Batgirl was just awash in the beauty of it, she sat in her BatCouch and hugged herself and reveled, yes, she reveled, and Torii Hunter, he reveled too, he got up to bat and he reveled and he was so busy freakin' reveling that he didn't pay any attention to NOT HITTING INTO A FREAKIN' DOUBLE PLAY and as we all know Torii Hunter has to pay special attention not to HIT INTO A DOUBLE PLAY, he has to put on a whole special NO HITTING INTO A DOUBLE PLAY HAT and he has to STRAP THE HAT ON and maybe ADD SOME GLUE and he forgot the DAMN HAT! Where is the DAMN HAT?

Well, sans hat, you can guess what happened. Inning over, threat dead, no runs. But Batgirl was sanguine. For Jose Contreras was pitching like ass, and surely his ass was going to be bigger than our ass (Kyle Lohse). And our ass, well, didn't he look rather good tonight? Sure, there was that whole Carl Everett solo homer thing in the first inning, but, you know Lohse kept his composure, and that's all we ask, Kyle, keep your composure, wear your special COMPOSURE-KEEPING HAT, go back to the dugout and get it if you have to, we'll wait. We're happy to wait!

But, no, he didn't need the hat, he was just fine. He kept his composure totally through innings two and three and four, and meanwhile Contreras balked in a run and there was no composure there, I tell you, Contreras then proceeded to suffer the five stages of grief right there on the mound. (First there's a walk, then a stolen base, then an error, then a wild pitch to score the runner, then you get taken the hell out of the ballgame.) Oh, God, it was beautiful! Batgirl wept with the beauty of it all! And finally, all that Contreras-sucking was going to pay dividends! Truly, it was just going to be the beginning of the Twins offensive onslaught!

Or not. In the bottom of the inning, Lohse gave up a two run homer to Joe Crede to tie the game at three, and then in the bottom of the sixth, well, Carl Everett came up again, and that is where Kyle Lohse really could have used the composure hat. For Carl Everett has been owning us, he's owned us for so long the mortgage is totally paid off, he could take out a second mortgage and THAT would be paid off, and Carl Everett already hit a homer off Lohse earlier in the game and Lohse knew that and all he wanted to do was NOT give up another homer to Carl Everett, because Everett is big and scary and there's a runner on base and if he gave up another homer to Everett the Twins would be behind by two and Batgirl would make fun of him and nobody wants that. So Kyle Lohse closed his eyes and concentrated very hard on how much it would suck if he gave up a homer to Carl Everett and then he reared back and threw the ball. And…and…and…

Lohse gave up a home run to Everett. A really, really, really big home run to Everett. The sort of home run where everyone in the park just stops what they're doing and turns and looks and says, "Damn. That was a big home run." (Unless you are Matthew LeCroy, in which case you say, "Dang.") And Batgirl said some things, well, she said some things that cannot be taken back. And BatKitty 1 pounced on BatKitty 2 and proceeded to gnaw at his throat, despite his horrible BatKitty 2 screams she kept gnawing and Batgirl began speaking in tongues and, well, let's just say Jeb and BatKitty 3 decided it would be a good time to explore the underside of the bed.

It's not all Lohse's fault, of course. It seems most of the Twins forgot their No-Hitting-Into-Double-Plays hats tonight. It's all well and good when Terry Tiffee hits a lead-off double in the eighth inning, but when, three outs later, Young Tiffee is still standing on second base, somebody is cruising for a BatBruising. It's fine when Captain Cheeseburger Sabathia mows us down, because he's actually a good pitcher, (despite being a total wanker who needs to straighten his stupid-ass hat) but it required five Bitch Sox pitchers to make us strand so many runners on base, when really one or two would have sufficed.

Of course, Batgirl may be taking it all a little too seriously. It's April, and the Twins have been playing rather marvelously. Batgirl will take a bad game or two, though she'd prefer it were against someone else. And Joe Mauer got his first homer of the season and it was so purdy! Did you see it? Did you see how purdy it was? BatKitty 1 even stopped chewing out BatKitty 2's throat to watch it go. Anyway, Batgirl must remind herself that if the Bitch Sox did not beat us in April they would have nothing to collapse from in September. And what fun is that?