Popping the Balloon

What up world,

Before the start of the series with the Royalty of Kansas City, everyone in Twins Land was feeling good. Maybe a little too good. The team had just come off of series wins against the Angels, White Sox, and Red Sox, Target Field replaced Aphrodite as the most beautiful thing in history, and the team was starting to make some bold statements.

Hot Carl Pavano described the team as "great". Kubear said that he thought the team was capable of getting to the World Series and winning it. Scottie Baker said that his mom thought the Twins were the best team in baseball, and that she's very proud of her little boy.

Gardy sat back and listened to the ovations of the fans, his player's comments, and the rumblings of his stomach. He was nervous. Gardy doesn't like to be in the spotlight. He prefers the relatively anonymity of the upper midwest and the solitude of his personal booth at TGIFridays. All this attention and overconfidence was making him uncomfortable.

He decided to meet the problem head on. He held a players only meeting prior to the start of Sunday's game against the Royalty.

Gardy: Guys, we have to lose this game.
Guys: Awww, noooo.
Gardy: I'm sorry boys. We're getting too much attention. Fans heads are going to start exploding soon if we don't do something. They're going to be sitting in Target Field, watching us win again, and then...Boom! Brains everywhere.
Scottie Baker: Gross
Justin Morneau: Awesome.
Gardy: We are going to have to let this one go. Hot Carl?
Hot Carl Pavano: Yeah skip?
Gardy: We need you to throw them some meatballs up there.
Hot Carl: Come on. Really? I'm trying to impress Mrs. Baker.
Scottie: What?
Hot Carl: I've been meaning to talk to you about this Scottie. It looks like I might be your new dad.
Gardy: Sorry, Hot Carl. You'll have to do it another day. As for the rest of you, we need you to be awful. You're going to be on base, but we can't have any clutch hitting. I repeat, no clutch hitting. If you get an RBI, you're going to have to do sprints in our new treadmill pool.
Guys: Awww, noooo
Gardy: I'm sorry guys. We're too hot right now. We need things to cool off a bit. So lets get out there and make Kansas City look way better than they actually are!

With that the Twins proceeded to give up 10 runs (thank you Hot Carl) and leave 11 runners on base (thank you Morneau and Thome). Disaster averted. No exploding brains, no inflated expectations, and no unhappy Gardy's.

The Twins are hosting Cleveland for the rest of the week. Despite Gardy's misgivings, I want a sweep. Lets show him that Twins Land can handle the success.

-Sota