¡VIVA RIVAS!

While the big story for non-partisans and Royals fans was Jamie Moyer impersonator Mark Redman and his CGSHO, for Twins fans it was all about Matt Garza, who pitched into the 8th inning while giving up two runs.
In his previous outing at Baltimore, he gave up only one run in a quality start, but his strikeouts left something to be desired (only one) and hitters hit several balls hard right at people.
Tonight, he struck out 7 mixing his off-speed pitches down in the strike zone to counter his 96-mph fastball. While the Royals are, overall, a terrible team, this team has some serious talent on the offensive end, and lately they've been giving contending teams like the Yankees and Red Sox fits. As any fantasy baseball player worth his salt will tell you, David DeJesus and Mark Teahen should be good for years to come, and veterans Mark Grudzielanek, Mike Sweeney and Emil Brown are no push-overs, which adds legitimacy to Garza's effort.
With outings like tonight's, it's hard not to drool over visions of Santana, Liriano and Garza leading the team to the promised land -- a first round playoff victory over the Yankees. (I bet you thought I was going to say a World Series. Baby steps, baby steps. That's for next year, the 20-year anniversary of 1987) Wouldn't that be nice?

Garza leapfrog?

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Well, I can't say I'm surprised. Like I told my bro' before the game, I just didn't have a good feeling about this game. It's tough enough to sweep the Sox at their park, and to try to do so with 2006 Silva on the mound is nearly impossible. To the Chief's credit, he seemed to have his sinker ball going as he induced several double plays -- unfortunately he also had his meat ball humming to the tune of 3 HR. (He now the leads the league in that category)
Silva seemed to have turned a corner after the All-Star break, but now he's made two straight poor starts, which doesn't bode well for the Twins' battered rotation.
However, Silva wins my Twins MVP award today for nailing AJ right in the ass to load the bases. AJ didn't react even though it was obviously intentional, probably because he knew he had it coming. In his next at bat, AJ earned himself a rain check for another ball in the ribs for the Twins-Sox next series with yet another bat flip after a HR. (Souhan noted his antics this weekend as well http://www.startribune.com/150/story/639086.html)
What made the hit-by-pitch a little more satisfying is that we were going to walk AJ to load the bases anyway, so Silva just saved himself 3 pitches and planted a fastball into AJ. When was the last time you saw a strategic hit-by-pitch?
Another good sign was that Reyes and Rincon bounced back from their shaky outings last night and pitched effectively. Gardy ran them out there right away hoping to get their confidence back up and it worked.

Another classic game between the Twinkies and the Black Sox. Twins 8, Sox 7, 11 innings. While Hunter earned MVP honors last night, I've got to give the honors to Pat Neshek and his funky delivery for cleaning up Dennys Reyes' mess (2 BB, 0 IP). Reyes' control was so bad that Gardy pulled him in the middle of an at bat...about 2 hitters too late. Then Neshek came in with the bases loaded and one out and allowed only one inherited runner to score. The kicker: He struck out AJ to end the inning -- the same man who bat-flipped him the night before on a HR. Neshek even cracked a big smile on the mound when Mauer came out for a visit. You have to wonder what Chairman Mauer said to make Neshek smile in a situation like that. ("I read your blog last night, do you really collect baseball cards?") It's kind of like letting loose a good belly laugh on the on the beaches of Normandy. Of course, I'm not surprised that Mauer can make a man laugh in that situation. What can't he do?

Rincon used to own the 8th inning, so I was a little surprised Gardy

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What's more satisfying than watching the Twins beat the White Sox with a ChiSox fan? Watching the Twins beat the White Sox with two ChiSox fans, of course. The cherry on top is that the game had the wild card lead riding on it. That fact wasn't lost on the managers: Ozzie and Gardy micromanaged the bullpens in the middle innings like it was the playoffs, dragging the game out to about 3 hours.

That was my experience tonight at a local Waterloo bar and eatery, when two coworkers of mine (we won't call them friends since they're fans of The Enemy) and I sat down and cheered on our respective teams.
Some observations:

--How hot is Hunter? I was actually expecting big things from him in the clutch, and I didn't crack a joke about him swing at a slider in the dirt in the late innings.

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