BOSTON — I laughed out loud twice early in Wednesday’s game, watching Manny being Manny in left field. I honestly love watching him play. It seems like everything he does is funny or spectacular, and sometimes both.

Ramirez was supposed to be struggling. He had gone 5-for-31 on Boston’s 3-7 road trip. He had a scrap with the team’s traveling secretary. On Monday, this city was abuzz with Manny Madness after he stared at three pitches right down the middle from Mariano Rivera in Sunday’s loss.

Sure enough, Ramirez got the big eighth-inning hit in Monday’s 1-0 victory over the Twins. On Tuesday, his two-run, eighth-inning homer off Matt Guerrier tied the game and made Fenway shake. On Wednesday, Ramirez went 3-for-5 with two doubles.

He finished the series with six RBI.

“You have scouting reports saying this guy’s cold, this guy’s not swinging good, but when they get here in this ballpark, you throw all that out the window,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said after Wednesday’s 18-5 loss. “This is a tough place to play. You make mistakes and their hitters come alive here. We’ve seen that over the years and this was a great example.”

Besides the offense, Ramirez made a momentum-turning defensive play in the sixth inning. With one out, Nick Punto tried going from first to third on a single to left field by Brendan Harris. Ramirez lumbered after the ball, spun and made a perfect throw to third base for the out.

“Manny looked like he was doing his thing, non-chalanting it, and Manny’s very deceptive out there,” Gardenhire said. “And honestly, he’s very accurate with his throws, and he threw it right there on the bag. If he doesn’t … Punto’s safe.”

The Twins finished 3-4 against Boston for the season. Once again, Ramirez had the last laugh.

Note: La Velle is set up and ready to go in Detroit. Check back here Sunday with an update from the All-Star festivities in New York.

Thursday update: You’ve gotta see this Manny photo from Wednesday’s game in the Boston Globe. They’ve got a caption writing contest going. My favorite so far, “Hey Punto, think you could run on me from here?”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 7:50 pm and is filed under Twins thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.