In 124 games this season, the 36-year-old Raul Ibanez has hit .288 with 18 homers and 76 RBI in 483 at-bats. Which isn't bad. But in his other six games--against the Twins--the Mariners slugger is batting .538 with two homers and 12 RBI in 26 at-bats.

As the Twins kick off a three-game set in Seattle this evening, is it too much to ask not to give the guy anything to hit? Especially since he's batting in front of a dude, Adrian Beltre, who's hitting .246 on the season, and who has only two careers homers against active Twins pitchers in 87 at-bats, and an average of .253?

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1. Never talk smack to Jack Cust. While the pudgy Athletics’ outfielder is an easy target, he responds to hecklers by jacking line drives. So if there is ever the urge to yell, “Hey Cust! You got man boobs! Maaaaan boooooooooobs!” try your best to stay quiet.

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This weekend the Twins host a pregame benefit for the homeless.More >>

Pat Neshek, the baseball card trading, heavy metal loving Twins reliever is profiled in an ESPN web feature about athletes who don't eat meat. Turns out Neshek is a vegan (since January) and a juicing fanatic (the fruit and vegetable kind). Here's some of what the ESPN piece has to say:

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This genius bit is from today's Charley Walters column:

Ex-Twins pitcher Scott Erickson and his wife, Lisa Guerrero, will be in town this weekend to promote a movie they have produced, "A Plumm Summer," about a TV puppet named Froggy Doo who is "frog-napped" instead of kidnapped.

Apparently this is a real movie. Henry Winkler's in it. No word on whether Erickson's old pal Sidney Ponson is part of the production

USA Today and ESPN are reporting that the Twins have agreed to trade two-time Cy Young award winner Johan Santana to the New York Mets.

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Tucked neatly inside a busy weekend theater schedule for me was a visit to the upended doggy bowl we affectionately call the Metrodome (or just Metrodome, if you work at KFAN) for TwinsFest 2008. Luckily, a visit to the Twins' web site the night before warned me about what to expect. More >>

I heard a bad joke last night that makes me think of yesterday afternoon's acquisition of Craig Monroe by the Twins -- which, to be fair, is actually itself a bad joke.

The joke goes like this. A physicist, a chemist, and a statistician walk into a bar. Shortly thereafter, they see that there is a fire in the wastebasket. While the other patrons run out, the physicist says, "We have to cool down the materials so that their temperature is lower than the ignition temperature; then the fire will go out!" The chemist says, "No! Let's cut off the supply of oxygen; that way, the fire will go out due to lack of one of the reactants!"

Then they notice that the statistician is moving around the bar, starting other fires. "What are you doing?" they cry. Says the statistician: "Trying to get an adequate sample size."

This is not, you will note, funny. But neither is the trade, which makes me also want to start fires. And the joke holds a clue as to why I'm reaching for matches.

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Things didn't go so well this afternoon. Before an announced crowd of almost 14,000 (though any observer could see that there were fewer cranks than that), the Twins were swept by the Cleveland Indians, losing 6-2. The Tribe has won 16 of their last 20, boasts a lineup that is dangerous from top to bottom, and have sent a message to the Central in the clearest possible terms: this year's division title goes through them. To the rest of the league: see you in October.

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It was certainly a struggle today. C. C. Sabathia ripped through the Twins line-up, scattering six moribund hits over his eight innings... though four of those were from one player. Although Johan Santana has certainly seen better days, giving up four runs in today's 5-0 loss, the Indians didn't have a big inning, not once. In fact, they gathered their nine hits one inning at a time. A walk here, a key hit there, a home run one inning (Santana's 30th), and that was all she wrote. The 13th shutout against the Twins, the league record. Sigh.

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