Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Providing inspiration

Any day now, the wife of Minnesota Twins third baseman Trevor Plouffe will be giving birth to the couple's first child. When I heard of this development, I couldn't help but think of a Twitter message I  directed at Plouffe after a game at Target Field in mid April 2013.

We'll come back to that.

It was a Tuesday evening contest against the Anaheim Angels with the game time temperature in the mid 40s (it probably got down in the 30s near game's end). Plouffe had a bad night at the plate, going 0 for 5. Nevertheless, the Twins had a comfortable 8-4 lead in top of the ninth inning with one out. The Angels' Luis Jimenez then hit a routine grounder to Plouffe. Unfortunately the throw to first was wide, allowing Jimenez to reach. At this point, the remaining fans in attendance were at their wits end over Plouffe's ineptitude. As the inning progressed, Anaheim's Mike Trout eventually came to the plate with runners at first and second with two outs. After fouling off several tough pitches from closer Glen Perkins, Trout lined a double to right field which scored both runners and made the score 8-6 Twins. The invective for Plouffe only grew louder as Albert Pujols stepped to the plate as the tying run. Pujols proceeded to swing at the first pitch and hit a hard ground ball towards third. The ball hit the heel of Plouffe's glove and went straight up in the air. A collective loud groan emanated from the crowd in the realization that the go ahead run was about to come to bat. Amazingly, Twins shortstop Pedro Florimon snatched the ball off the deflection and in one fluid motion threw to first to nab the slow-footed Pujols (who was battling plantar fasciitis at the time) by about a half step. 

Upon sweating out the victory, I tweeted at Plouffe that he was essentially spared a mini fan revolt thanks to his shortstop. 




So upon the news of baby Plouffe arriving this week, pay special attention to the name. We'll see if Trevor follows through on his pledge. 

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