Actually, there’s not a lot for me to add — about the game or about where the Twins are at right now. There’s a lot of coverage and reaction here and elsewhere in the blogosphere. Watched the game from seats in the right field corner and TIVO’d the replay. Close play at the plate, Redmond made the tag in time, umpire looked wrong — both in the call and for the quick thumb on Redmond. You can see him asking, “What did I say?” after getting kicked out.

In the bottom of the inning, when the Varitek/Francona ejections took place, you can hear Josh Beckett toss an oath after not getting strike three on Brendan Harris. That was Varitek’s cue to keep his pitcher in the game by taking up the fight. If cursing loudly enough to be picked up by the field mike consists of arguing about balls and strikes, Beckett should have been tossed.

The teams ran into an ump who works vacation relief, Todd Tichenor, and was in his 17th game behind home plate. There’s been enough written about what happened that I’m not sure there’s much more for me to add. Here’s a quick summary from a Red Sox fan’s blog that works just fine for me. I also recommend checking out the postgame report from the Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo.

Outside of the umpire’s room, I think there’s near universal agreement that Tichenor didn’t handle the situation well. As the Boston blogger Paul Francis Sullivan wrote: “Remember, the fans pay good money to see the umpires.”

A  seasoned umpire, even a mildly seasoned one, understands that an excellent afternoon of baseball should not be remembered for how the umpire controlled a situation after it happened.

Now, the Twins go on the road and play Tampa Bay, which just got swept in four games at Cleveland and has lost both of their middle infielders in recent days. You have to think the Rays are looking at the Twins arrival as a get-well card. I have to think the Twins need to show their 5-14 record is related to an assortment of problems that have been — or are on the way to being — fixed. It’s a good series under any circumstances, made better by recent events and topped off by Sunday’s pitching matchup between Nick Blackburn and Matt Garza, who finally gets to face the Twins.

In the meantime, LaVelle’s scheduled for a Twins chat at noon and, if you’re not doing anything at 11 a.m. (Central Time), maybe drop in on a Red Sox chat at the Globe’s web site, boston.com, and see what they’re saying.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 9:56 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.