Fantastic Five-Hundred

Thanks to the Boston Red Sox pitching staff doing their best pre-glasses impression of "Wild Thing" Rick Vaughn, the Twins were able to defeat the Red Sox 4-2 last night to climb back to .500.

The Twins, at 24-24 now, were able to capitalize on a MLB record 6 wild pitches and also got a strong outing out of Kevin Slowey (7-1). Slowey struck out 5 batters (all swinging) and scattered 6 hits over his 6 innings pitched.

Denard Span went 4-4 with 2 runs and a stolen base. With is 4-4 performance, Span is now batting .316 and with his speed on the bases is becoming a strong leadoff hitter for the Twins.

With his 1-3 night, Joe Mauer's batting average dropped to a mild .425. He's spoiled us all so far this year that 1-3 almost looks bad...but then we also remember that Punto would probably use all 3 wishes with a genie to have a 1-3 night.

Today's match-up is Josh Beckett (4-2, 5.01) vs. recent call-up Anthony Swarzak (1-0, 0.00) at 12:10. It will be interesting to see where Papi hits or even if he hits at all today. He went 0-4 last night to drop his BA to .193

Outside of the Dome

- Detroit RedWings defeated Chicago 2-1 in OT to win the series 4-1 and will now meet the Pens in the NHL Stanley Cup Finals. It is the first repeat finals in 25 years and pits two of the NHL's best goalies against each other. Let's hope that if Detroit wins the cup again this year, that a certain player refrains from breaking it during the summer Cup tour...

- LA Lakers defeated the Nuggets 103-94 to take the series lead 3-2. Kobe only took 13 shots and scored 22 points prompting Skip Bayless to wonder whether Kobe was sending a message to LeBron that less is more. Well when you're "less" is Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum compared to LeBron's "less" (a non-existent Mo Williams, Anderson Varejao, Wally, and "Big Z") then there really is no option for "less is more". Look for the Cavs to win tonight and the Lakers to close things out in Denver on Friday.

Thanks to those of you who enjoyed our disclosure of a possible new Twins logo coming with the new ballpark next year. If this change does indeed come about, remember where you heard it first!