TwiMs Baseball 5/16/2012

I've always said baseball would be the best sport to care about, because there's so damn much of it.  This year I'm going for it, complete with a controversial "root for two teams" strategy.  I give you, The TwiMs!

1. The week that was - developments since last week's installment of TwiMs baseball.
a. Mariners. The Bombs went 2-4.  They are 1-4 on their current ten game road trip.  
b. Twins. Not to be outdone, the Twinkies went 2-5.  That's one more loss!


2. Does there exist a gif that encapsulates the 2012 Minnesota Twins season?
a. Yes.
b. 

3. Best game
a. Mariners. Kevin Millwood (!) and Justin Smoak (!) spoiled Andy Pettitte's return to the mound for the Yankees. Millwood gave up one run in seven innings, striking out six (including the 2000th strikeout of his career.) That's some first rate placeholding for any number of current Jackson Generals.  I'm an irrational Justin Smoak fan.  I love him for some reason, probably because he looks to me like what Sark would look like if Sark were a major leaguer and vice versa.  

Or maybe I'm just being racist against white people, but these guys look and vibe the same to me.

b. Twins. The Twins beat Toronto 4-3 behind recent minor league call-ups, SP Scott Diamond and SS Brian Dozier.  Diamond held the Blue Jays scoreless for seven innings. (More on him below.)  Dozier hit his first big league deep dong and scored twice.  The kids!  The kids!

4. Welcome Developments

a. Is Kyle Seager the best of the Mariners' young position players? He's playing like it, but hopefully not.  For the Mariners youth movement to reach its promise, Jesus Montero has to be the best player, and Ackley maybe has to be second. But still, Kyle Seager's emergence has been a needed home-grown success for the organization.  Seager leads the Mariners in RBI, and is second in OPS behind Alex Liddi (though you figure Liddi's numbers would come down with more AB's).  The point is, Kyle Seager is a stone cold producer, and the Mariners need to hit on a couple other non-sure-thing prospects like him if they want to be a playoff team.  Well done scouting team that drafted him in the third round in 2009.

(That's really strong snipping tool work from me there. That's near to as good as I got.)

b. Diamond's a (ahem) gem! Scott Diamond has started two games for the Twins this year since being called up from AAA Rochester.  Clearly ignoring mentoring from the incompetent incumbent starting staff, Diamond has put up back-to-back 7 inning, no runs allowed starts.  Diamond's numbers are eye popping: 0.00 ERA; 0.71 WHIP; 10 K's; 1 BB - but my favorite thing about him is, whenever he pitches well, that I get to impersonate the Jane Goodall-inspired character from that one Simpsons where she ran a monkey diamond mine.

"MY DYE-UH-MUNDS! MY DYE-UH-MUNDS!" That's just good clean fun for me.  Scott Diamond everybody.