Span and Gomez

Collided while they hustled

Then they kicked some a$$

Have at it, friends.

But first…

To Hawk and D.J.

You can put it on the board

Grab October bench

Execution, execution, execution.

Yes, it’s a morning where 1 1/2 games out feels like 11 1/2. I’m hoping/expecting this too shall pass.

Joe C. blogged in the wee hours about Gardy’s usual lack of flexibility in using Joe Nathan — and I understand the tie-game/ninth-inning/home-road thing. But it felt like last night was a ninth to put in Nathan’s hands, which is too easy to say after the fact. In a 7-7 game, if Gardy could have felt fairly confident that the Twins would score in the 10th, would he have been more likely to go that way?

But the Twins offense hasn’t done much to inspire confidence on this trip. In the seventh, when the Twins tied the game at 2, it really was reasonable to expect more than one run from a second and third/one out situation with three/four/five coming up. Walk/sac fly/ground out was a disappointment.

The other option was keeping Boof in the game. He’d only thrown 13 pitches to that point.

Here’s the bigger picture: When a reliever with Crain’s stuff — mid-90s fastball, good slider, sweet slow curve — has multiple failures in tense situations, it’s not about the arm. Last night, Crain simply didn’t locate his pitches to Emil Brown and Curt Suzuki. One walk and one sat-on fastball and the Twins had another painful loss against a weak team.

In his blog, LaVelle points out that Mauer has one extra-base hit in his last 40 AB’s and Morneau, while hitting the ball hard, is expanding his strike zone. (He also points out that Punto has raised his average from .256 to .293 since August 10.) LaVelle writes: The lads need to calm down and let their hitting talents show. They are good enough to hit good pitching.

Not much else constructive to add here. Oakland’s starting a winless guy with horrible numbers tonight against Slowey. The lads should be good enough to hit that kind of pitching too.

other people are here too

Of course we have.

But there’s not going to be any trashing and bashing and tee-heeing here. We don’t do that in Section 220. (wink) No, siree. Sure, he’s made that catch dozens of times — but never on a drifting drive off the bat of Nick Punto, right?

The Twins opened the road swing by doing what they needed to do in a fun game to watch. I’m not going to buy the “playoff intensity” theme because there’s no way that Sean Rodriguez, the minor-league slugger, comes in as a pinch-hitter and gets asked to put down that (failed) sacrifice in the 10th — and no way that he hits with two outs in the 12th instead of bench options Gary Matthews and Robb Quinlan.

Mike Scioscia, the Angels’ manager, was putting Triple-A-Rod up there in an important situation because he’s probably a candidate to get that kind of at-bat in the 12th inning of a post-season game when all other options have been used up. That’s one of the beauties of having a 15-game lead with six weeks left in the regular season. Thanks, Skip.

The other thing I would have been interested in hearing about is if Justin Morneau had ripped a hit in one of those at-bats when Joe Mauer was intentionally walked. After all, Scioscia is the greatest manager who has graced a dugout in the third millennium and few have been willing to come at Morneau in the last month or so. Seriously, I’ll be trolling the Los Angeles media later in hopes that someone asked him about that.

I really do think Scioscia is a very, very good manager. I also think Gardy ain’t so bad at the job, either.

And Punto? And Matt Guerrier? I’ll turn it over to you all to offer up the praise.

Back in the Twin Cities and just in time for the Twins to play one more and leave town for the next 43 years, or something like that. A few scattered thoughts:

*Kevin Slowey looked in good form last night and there was something subtle that was good to see. The second at-bat of the game was a 10-pitch strikeout, which wouldn’t seem to bode well. If oakland had something figured out, Slowey made a pretty good adjustment to pitch seven strong and strike out a career high of 12. I like the rest of the rotation, but if I had to bet on an ace in 20-10, it’s Slowey.

*Randy Ruiz has a better bat than I thought. When I first saw him, it looked to me like he had fine bat speed — for Triple-A ball. (See Garrett Jones.) But he’s looking increasing comfortable in his role as a hitting specialist and, given the lack of right-handed pop, I’m expecting the Twins to find a way to keep him on the roster when Alexi Casilla returns.

*My suspicion is that will be done by telling Adam Everett that his wrist is really, really sore and needs until September 1 to heal. Gardy will go with Punto/Harris at shortstop if everyone is convinced that Casilla is really 100 percent.

*Did anyone else feel sorry for Sean Gallagher, the Oakland starter, last night? Being left out there to give up 10 runs, capped off by the Gomez homer, was exceptionally ugly.

*Can the Mauer/Morneau thing stay hot on the road? When Mauer is in a groove, he’s absolutely amazing to watch. It was impressive last night to see the stat that Morneau has almost as many hits to left as to right, and that most of his hits have been between left-center and right-center.

*If Denard Span had started the season with the Twins, would he be the front-runner for Rookie of the Year?

Day game today. No guarantees, other than that the A’s will see a different Liriano than they did on that ugly April afternoon in Oakland.