Twins at Baltimore. Twins 8, Orioles 4.

This was a nervous day at the Batquarters. While the 2004 Twins have been unstable, the 2003 Twins are kicking ass. Eric Milton (who Team Batgirl's lawyers insist still owes us a season) had a no-hitter today going into the ninth inning. Even though Milty ended up with a no-decision, he still has eleven wins. And goodness knows what's gotten into Kenny Rogers. Sometimes you wonder if, like David Ortiz, he's just doing it to make Terry Ryan feel bad. Or perhaps K-Rog stumbled across a crate of little blue pills that Rafael Palmero had left behind in the Texas clubhouse. Anyway, he's tied for the major league lead in wins with 13, which, by Team Batgirl's calculations, is precisely one billion more than Kyle Lohse took to the mound today.

When Team Batgirl is nervous, we like to listen to music. Naturally, we choose our music like the Twins, who delegate the tunes to the starting pitcher. (This is the one good thing about trading Eric Milton---no more Kid Rock.) Because we don't have a starting pitcher, we do it based on snacks. If you make the snacks, you choose the tunes. For Jeb it's pizza, Rush, REO Speedwagon and Styx. For Sooz, it's canapes, Dido, Jem, and Olive (the band, not the food). And for Goober it's Mrs. Paul's fish sticks and straight-up gansta rap.

Today was Batgirl's day on snack patrol. And while she was preparing some delicious skewers made of tofu, wheat gluten, and tempeh, she cranked up the Kelis album "Tasty." On came the hit single "Milkshake," and, wouldn't you know it, Batgirl started to dance:

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard
And they're like, it's better than yours
Damn right, it's better than yours
I could teach you
But I have to charge

As you've probably suspected, Batgirl is quite a dancer. And "Milkshake" is a pretty infectious song. Together, however, it proved to be a dangerous combination. By the time the second chorus came around, Batgirl had managed to boogie herself right on out the door. By the time she got her groove off, she was three miles down the road, covered in tamari, and sorely in need of a nap.

Like Batgirl, the Twins both danced and slept today. Fortunately, they were dressed for either occasion in the baggy, powder-blue, doubleknit jammies of their forefathers. This uniform is absolutely vast; it looks like every single member of the team just lost 30 pounds on the Atkins' diet. Of course, these flashback uniforms bear no resemblance to the uniforms they're flashing back to. Back then, if it wasn't tight, it wasn't right. But the new version is so loose that Al Newman was able to keep three sandwiches in his pants, rather than the usual two.

Lew got the dancing started in the first, driving Shannon home with a sacrifice fly. Torii then knocked in the Punto Bean, who was almost too busy zhuzhing his sleeves to notice. (It was kind of sweet to see Nick rolling his sleeves like that; even on the real-sized players, the sleeves come down to their forearms. As Dazzle said, "they look like Dorf!") Lew did it again in the second, singling in Cuddyer. RBI singles are fine, of course, but why have RBI singles when you can have Justin "Guarini" Morneau smashing in three-run homers like he did in his next at bat. In the fifth, Corey singled in Hunter to remind us that we do have players who weren't in the minors last year. But then Cuddyer made us forget all that with a home run an inning later. After that, there wasn't much for the Twins to do except strut around in their finery and catch up on their zzz's.

From a purely temporal point of view, it was a strange game to see. While our boys were playing dress-up in old-skool uniforms, our old-skool stars were getting dressed-down by young punks like Ford and Morneau. In 2001, Corey, Doug, and Torii looked like the future. Now, not so much. And with the heartbreaking news just in that Dougie is going to be traded (my heart!), the future is upon us again, whether we like it or not.

After all, Justin Morneau's milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. And offensively, it's better than yours. He could teach you, but you're not that large.

Posted by Goober at July 13, 2004 11:18 PM