This entry posted by Twayn, on assignment for Bat-girl.com.

Twins 4, Tampa Bay 2

Well, that’s more like it. I was starting to get just a teensy weensy bit worried there. About the winning thing, of course, and how we weren't doing any of it yet. But first I got all giddy and happy like a puppy getting its tummy rubbed and I was all caught up in the excitement and exuberance of spring training and finally having the boys playing games again. Then Garza started things off on a roll and went all one-two-three, one-two-three on the Red Sox, just like that, and life was good again. For a couple of brief innings, life was good again. But it couldn’t last. And then Baker took the ball and struggled. And Silva took the ball and struggled. And Boof took the ball and struggled. And Ortiz took the ball and, well, he wasn’t horrible. Yet. And Sidney couldn’t even get permission from his government to struggle or be horrible yet, at least in games with paid attendance. And we couldn’t hit very well and we especially couldn’t hit very well with runners on base and especially with runners in scoring position and somehow it was déjà vu all over again. I was flashing back to last April and May and that is a very, very bad place for a Twins fan to go. Don’t go there. It’s depressing and creepy, like cleaning out a dead relative’s closets.

I mean, after that initial adrenalin rush of the first couple innings of the first exhibition game it seemed like a bit of a bobsled run, steadily downhill with shaved ice flying around and everything kind of blurry. Or maybe that was the snowstorms. Anyway, if it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Ortiz was late reporting because he couldn’t get his visa, and then Sidney couldn’t pitch in games because he couldn’t get the right kind of visa, and Matt LeCroy just hopes he can somehow make enough money playing baseball to keep his VISA®. And Lew’s knee was hurting real bad and might need surgery but might not, we’ll let you know, and Garza’s neck was hurting and then it was his head and then his neck again, and Lyle Lohse once again displayed his outstanding command of the strike zone by hitting Torii in the back of the cabeza (Souhan: "How do you know he wasn't trying to hit you in the head?" Torii: "Because he hit me in the head, man." Rimshot). And, honestly, it was starting to look like the 2007 rotation would consist of Cy Young and the four horse turds of the apocalypse, and that the short but painfully acute sucking from last year’s playoffs might possibly come out of remission and degrade into the long chronic tuberculin kind of sucking that nearly killed us off last year before the banishment of Lyle and the Dictators and the now storied and miraculous resurgence and adventure-filled Algeresque achievement of the division crown.

But spring training is like that. One day you’re up, the next day you’re down. The swing that felt perfect yesterday feels a bit off today, and could fall completely apart tomorrow, unless it’s genetically programmed like Joe Mauer’s. Timing still needs to be worked out. You never know for sure what might happen. Lightning could strike. Sidney Ponson could make the rotation and be the comeback player of the year and win 18 games. Don’t bet the mortgage money on it, but at this point of the year it is technically possible, even if it’s not very probable. So today Silva goes out on the hill and pitches three good innings and the sinker is sinking and he’s getting strikeouts and ground outs and all kinds of outs and finally in the top of the ninth the boys score three runs and the Twins have their first spring training victory of the year. And all is right with the world. Except I didn’t get to see it or hear it because it wasn’t on TV or radio. But sometimes serendipity happens, and you get something else good instead.

Tonight, because I’ve been good, I guess, and the baseball gods took pity on me, I got to watch the Twins beat Oakland again. It was the September 12th game from last summer. Intense pennant race time. We were a game and a half out of first place. Liriano’s season was over, Radke’s arm was falling off, Mike Smith was no longer an option, and Matt Guerrier was getting a rare start. Shaggy went four, giving up three runs. Willie Eyre gave up another in the fifth. With bases loaded and just one away, Sideshow Pat and his long socks came on in relief, got the Big Hurt to line out to Punto, and struck out Chavez on a wicked breaking pitch. Crain and Reyes kept it close, and in the bottom of the eighth, the offense got it done -- back to back doubles by Cuddy and the MVP, and a two-out, run-scoring wild pitch on which Jason Tyner struck out but reached first base safely. It was one of those piranha plays. Nathan with the save. Twins 7, Athletics 5. Good times.

Yeah, I guess it's a little too early to start worrying after all.