Twins 3, Sox 1

The family was in town, so we spent our Easter down at US Cellular Field watching Johan Santana deal to the Sox.

First of all, the weather wasn't half bad. I spent all week fretting that we'd be freezing our tails off, but then it turned out to be cold, but not unbearable. We sat in the left field bleachers in the sun and it was actually pretty nice.

The fans ran the gamut, some of those who sat around us were great, willing to chat about the Twins' bullpen, Jim Thome, or whatever. Unfortunately, directly to our right in the bleachers was an extremely vocal group of Sox fans. I have no problem with enthusiastic cheering, I've even partaken in my fair share. But, that refers to support of your team or a little bit of jeering of the opposing players. One guy in particular in this group regaled us with chants that ranged from the standard "Twins suck" nearly every inning, to instructing Twins' fans to "drown in Lake Huron" (I don't know why that particular non-Minnesota/non-Chicago lake). I don't want to devolve into a rant here, but this, unfortunately, became a significant part of the experience today. We even had the aforementioned "good" fans turn around and apologize for some of the ruder comments. Making all this considerably more tolerable was the fact that the Twins were winning the baseball game.

Ah yes, the game. In the middle of the game 24 batters, from Bartlett's second K in the fourth to Punto's flyout in the eighth were all retired in order. Twins or White Sox batter, it didn't matter, they all went down. Which was nice for a cold day, once we had the lead, clearly the goal was to just get out of there.

A couple of thoughts:

- Santana with the win, Nathan with the save, 2 for 2 so far. Santana settled down after walking 3 in the first 1.1 IP, retiring the last 17 batters he faced. Nathan also settled down after giving up two hits, retiring the last batter he faced for the save.

- Cuddyer went 3 for 6 in the abbreviated series, which was good, but the baserunning blunder Saturday still kills me.

- Mauer + Cuddyer + Morneau (5 for 11, HR, BB, 3 R, 3 RBI). Everyone else (1 for 22, BB, 6 K). Thanks Justin!

- Morneau has hit both of his homeruns off of lefties this season. Also he's hit both while I was wearing the Jersey of Fortune.

Speaking of which:

Twins record with jersey of fortune: 2-0
Torii Hunter with the Jersey of Fortune: 2 for 8, .250/.250/.750, 1 HR 2 RBI