Twins at Boston. Twins 8, Red Sox 2

That is how the NESN announcers* described the Craig Hansen pitch that Rondell White laced into right field for a double, and also how Batgirl described the place she was in at that moment. There've been a lot of dramatic battles this season—Mauer vs. Jeter, the battle for the central, the Toronto manager vs. his team, AJ vs. society, the BoSox vs. environment, A-Rod vs. himself, readers/field vs. Goober, but perhaps none so compelling, nay, momentous, as Torii vs. Fenway.** After Torii was felled by the Bermuda Triangle last season, his return to the site of his defeat was full of pomp and circumstance. Yesterday's Round One might have been a draw, with Torii launching a pitch into those Green Monster seats, and then a few innings later bouncing another one off the self-same ankle he shredded last year. And the Green Monster said, Ha! As Gardy carried Torii into the dugout, Torii steeled his eyes and stared over the field and announced, "I shall return. Bitch."

Tonight, the Monster seemed to be toying with him at first—in the 4th all three fly balls went to him, including one that smashed him and his elbow—which is a new place for him to get hurt—against the wall. And every time Batgirl for one watched with her hands over her eyes, but each time he emerged unscathed, shouting, "I shall live to fight another day!"

And boy, did he. When he came up in the eighth, it seemed this game was not to be for us, and Batgirl was readying to soothe the troops—after all, all we need to do is win the series, we're not going to win every game, it's too bad about Boof,*** he sure pitched the hell out of the game, and isn't that nice because he's had, what, five great starts now and he'll be our #2 guy in the playoffs, and that's more important than the stats anyway, too bad about that HR to Big Papi*** but, you know, shit happens, and anyway Santana's going to come out tomorrow, and, hey, we've got two runners on, it would sure be nice to at least—

Boom. With one sweet swing, Torii turned a one-run deficit into a two run lead, sending the ball over the Green Monster, and if as he rounded the bases he smirked slightly at said Monster, you shall have to forgive him.

Two other performances to note: no matter how much manpower they send after it, no one can put out the fire of the Boofster**** who continues to rage across the American League, leaving nothing but the charred wreckage of dreams behind. And then there's Bartlett, who continues to kill opponents softly with his glove, killing them softly-y with his glove, telling their whole li-i-ife with his glove, killing them softly...with his gloooooooove. Boof is on fire, there's fire in Bart's belly, there's fire, fire, fire everywhere, Old Lady Leary's lit a lantern in the shed and, my friends, it will be a hot time in the old town tonight.

And now, my dears, I want to show you something truly wonderful. It was transitory, of course—and isn't that the nature of joy? Isn't its very fleetingness was makes it so alluring?–but for one glorious hour the Central standings***** read thusly:

*(One of the things about being a Minnesota ex-pat is you get to watch a lot of opponent's feeds, and unless these opponents are the Bitch Sox who do have the worst broadcasting team Batgirl has ever seen, it is usually quite pleasant. The Cleveland announcers, for instance, are terrific, as were the O's announcers. The NESN announcers are batshit crazy, and of course Batgirl is very pro being batshit crazy. But there was this whole thing about Fabio, and Flabio, and how it was important to respect male plus-size models, and you just know these guys pull Blylevens all the time, and you just know that instead of everyone going all Puritan on them, they're, like, publicly celebrated for every Blyleven they drop—which is fairly ironic, because, you know, Massachusetts knows a thing or two about Puritans.)

**For more on Hunter v. Fenway, please see another excellent new Twins blog

***Also fun is hearing the mispronunciations of the other announcers. The NESN guys call LNP Punt-o, which has the wonderful advantage of rhyming with runt and just sounding like something quite wee. But the Cleveland announcers kept referring to Boof as Boeuf, which makes him sound like he should be served with a lovely Bourguignon sauce, and sort of changes the whole thing, doesn't it? Though Batgirl's not sure if Boeuf should be wearing fewer gold chains…or more.

****(Batgirl: Okay, Jeb, you get Junior Ortiz's 50th home run ball. What do you want for it?

Jeb: It depends. Is it Junior or Bonds? Because if it's Bonds, I'm keeping the ball. Then I'm going to poop on it, and then burn it, and then video tape it and stick the whole thing on YouTube. If it's Junior, I want the both of us videotaped singing, "I've Got You Under My Skin," and then I want season tickets for life.

Batgirl: What about BabyBoof's college fund?

Jeb: What about singing "I've Got You Under My Skin" with Junior Ortiz?

*****Oh, and our magic number is 6.

A huge BatThankYou to Twayn for doing such an awesome job guest blogging yesterday.