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                       *****Late Breaking Bulletin*****

One of my favorite baseball writers (and human beings), Brad Zellar has said he'll "do his damndest" to live-blog or otherwise weigh in on the third and now most-important game of the season Thursday night--one in which the winner will reside in first place in the AL Central. Look for Zellar's take either at his formerly dormant blog at rakemag.com, Warning Track Power (most likely), or right here at On The Ball (less likely). I'll be at a cabin up north on Thursday--the reservations made long ago--with the radio on. Suffice to say that Zellar--a dedicated, die-hard diamond fan who is already well known to and cherished by baseball junkies in town--is a more than adequate replacement.

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Tonight's live blogging won't be quite as much play-by-play as last night. I figure you're either watching the game or have access to a recap. Instead this will be more observational. The trial and error process continues.

Pregame

A couple of obvious questions emerge. Can Nick Blackburn right himself after a horrendous stretch late in the season? Blackburn, a rookie, already has compiled 182 innings and would seem to be burning out. One silver lining: He remains a much better pitcher in the Dome (7-3, 2.92) than on the road (3-9, 5.69). Minnesota is 9-3 in Blackburn's last dozen starts at home.

Second, will Gardy trusting his gut and starting Jason Kubel over Michael Cuddyer, despite statistics arguing against it, pay off once again? Last night Kubes had two dingers and a triple despite being 2-21 (Gardy had said 2-19 last night but it is the same difference) against Tuesday starter Javy Vazquez. Tonight, Kubel has not faced lefty starter Mark Buehrle, while Cuddyer's 69 at-bats against Buehrle is far and away the most any Twin has seen (Morneau's 35 ABs is second). What's more, Cuddyer has hit .304 over that time and has slugged .493. "Kubel is my DH," Gardy said last night. It was absolutely the right move on Tuesday. What about tonight?

First Inning

The Twins table-setters again do their job, and get the home nine out to a 1-0 lead. During pregame batting practice, Alexi Casilla began by slapping five straight liners into the right field hole between second and first. Tonight, after a Denard Span walk, Casilla twice missed bunting him over, the second being some chin music from Buehrle that seemed to have bothered his hand a bit. But on an 0-2 pitch, he dropped a bloop single down the right field line, moving Span to third. Mauer followed with a slow grounder to second, driving home Span.

Ozzie Guillen may have said yesterday that he would make Kubel beat his team instead of Morneau, but Buehrle pitched to Kubel much more gingerly than he did Morneau, walking him with two out. Delmon Young continues to swing a big bat, but his long fly was caught by Griffey near the wall in right center.

Blackburn issued an opening walk in the top of the first, but got his MLB-leading 29th double play on a grounder to short on the next hitter.

Second Inning

Why is Denard Span playing so far toward center with Jim Thome up? When Thome ripped a hit to right, Span couldn't race it down quickly enough to hold him to a single. With Thome on second, two ground-outs brought him home to tie the game.

The home plate ump is the opposite of last night's ump. He refused to ring Thome up on an 0-2 that looked like a strike and Thome eventually got a double. He also didn't raise his thumb on an 0-1 pitch to Wise, but that didn't cost him, as Wise fanned with the bases loaded.

Blackburn doesn't look sharp. Four hits in the second inning alone. Fortunately the last three were singles and Wise left the sacks full. But the Twins bullpen will be tested tonight.

The Twins just keep coming. As I write this, they've got two runs in and the bases loaded in just one and one-third innings and the most solid hit of the night was Young's long fly out. Before the game, Gardy was talking about "Twins baseball," meaning executing the fundamentals and being aggressive on the basepaths. Well, after Harris got an infield hit and Punto forced him at second (doing his patented head-first slide into first, the idiot), Gomez beat out a bunt for a single. That was Minnesota's 64th bunt hit--the Cincinnati Reds are second in the majors with 33! Obviously Gomez has a lot to do with that--the TV graphic just showed him tied with Ichiro with 30 infield hits this season--but just as obviously others, such as Span, Punto and Casilla, also have something to do with it.

Unbelievable: The ump refused to call two pitches that were blatant strikes on Mauer, pushing the count to 3-1, and then he swings at what was clearly ball four, outside, and rolled a weak grounder to second. It drove in a run but that would have happened if he'd kept the bat on his shoulder. Then Morneau continues to come up small, grounding to first with two runners on. Twins up 3-1 after two in what looks like a it will be a high scoring game.

Third Inning

Blackburn sharpens, abetted by a great backhanded stop by Harris at third--and a beautiful stretch by Morneau--to steal a double from Cabrera. And the ump rings up Thome on a pitch very similar to one he ignored for strike three in the second inning.

Well, if Blackburn is off, Buehrle is screwed. His WHIP this game is 3.00, he's thrown 65 pitches through 3 and he surrenders two more hits, but again nothing really hard hit, in the third. But after the ump refused to call an obvious strike on 1-2 versus Gomez, Buehrle fanned him with high heat to wriggle out of a jam. With the K, Gomez saw his average verus Buehrle drop to .600 (6 for 10).

Fourth Inning

For the second time in two nights, Griffey crushes a hanging pitch over the right field wall to make it 3-2. Then two more singles, both sharper than anything the Twins have managed off Buehrle tonight. Fortunately the free-swinging Juan Uribe is up with runners at the corners and one out. He chased at least four pitches, the last one being a chopper to third that Harris went to home on for a rundown out rather than attempt the DP. And Blackburn, like Buehrle before him, gets out of the inning without further damange.

In the bottom of the 4th, Buehrle has a Mark Buehrle inning: three groundouts. He is owning Mauer, who is duplicating his April doldrums tonight with three puny grounders to Ramirez at second. More importantly, it was a low pitch-count frame, meaning he might be able to go 6 if he can maintain this rhythm--crucial because Chicago's bullpen is as unreliable as Minnesota's.

Fifth Inning

Jermaine Dye is killing the White Sox. After a Cabrera single, he grounds into a DP. He's hitless in the series thus far, has just three hits in his last 7 games, and has a mere 6 RBIs in the 19 games since Carlos Quentin was injured. If the White Sox do indeed spit the bit down the stretch this season, he's got to be one of the players growing goat horns. After a Thome walk, Blackburn faces Konerko, who is now 1-11 against him, including 0-2 tonight. The Chicago version of Cuddyer-Kubel has to be Ozzie's decision to ride Konerko while Nick Swisher stays on the bench. And yup, Konerko bounces weakly to short.

The most significant thing about the bottom of the 5th was that a walk to Morneau and a single to Young (5-6 and his only out a warning track shot in this series) boosted Buehrle's pitch count over 90. He'll probably go out for the 6th, but Chicago is going to have to use their bullpen soon.

Sixth Inning

Boof Bonser has been warming up the past two innings, but with Griffey up having jacked homers off righties the past two games, Gardy opts for Craig Breslow for the top of the 6th. And Breslow retires Griffey, Ramirez and AJ. As we salute Breslow, however, we also note that Blackburn lasted 5 and yielded just two runs. I think the Twins would have taken that outcome coming into tonight's game. Lots of baserunners but he left a lot of them on the pond and has given his team a chance to win.

In the bottom of the 6th, Buehrle again breezes with three ground-outs. He's over 100 pitches, and someone from Chicago just said he's pitching against Cleveland this weekend on three days' rest, so one would expect he's finished for the evening.

Seventh Inning

Who would have thought Boof Bonser would be handed the ball in the 7th inning of one of the most important games of the season? But here he is and is gifted to have Uribe his first batter. As much as the ChiSox miss Quentin, one would think the absence of Joe Crede and Josh Fields has been pretty keen in their slow fold the past couple of weeks as well. If Gardy can get out of the 7th with the lead via Bonser, it will be another tribute to his gut instinct. Boof has mowed down Uribe and Wise, who couldn't get the ball out of the infield. But Cabrera singles, bringing up the stone cold Jermaine Dye. Boof versus Dye: I don't like it. And Rick Anderson just hurried to the mound. Mijares is warming in the bullpen, but that's because Thome is on deck. It's Bonser and Dye with the tying run on first and the season on the line. Huge matchup. And Boof jams him and induces a soft liner to Punto at short. Hey, maybe the Twins are charmed this season after all. And yes, that is the first time I have really seriously thought that this season. If they can use Bonser in the 7th and still wind up a half-game back with 4 to play, something is in the wind.

Attendance: 42,126.

Wow, Ozzie brings Buehrle back for the 7th. One could argue it is because of the Casilla-Mauer-Morneau lineup, but lefties are hitting .306 versus the lefty Buehrle thus far this season. If things blow up here, Ozzie will be second-guessed.

Nope, figuring that if Gardy can use Bonser in the 7th he can use his workhorse lefty, Ozzie watches Buehrle retire the first two hitters, surrender a single to Morneau, who goes to second on a wild pitch that AJ should have corralled. But Kubel remains hitless on the night by grounding to Konerko and Buehrle walks off the mound after a whopping 121 pitches, a season high, having yielded just three runs.

Eighth Inning

With a trio of sluggers--Thome, Konerko and Griffey--up in the 8th, Gardy goes to Jose Mijares. Yeah, he's making just his 7th appearance of the year, but I like Mijares. Whether he'll pitch to anyone but Thome remains to be seen--Joe Nathan is already warming up--but this raw-boned lefty deserves to be part of the Twins set-up crew in front of Nathan in 2009. And as I've said all season, this year is all about preparing for the future regardless of what is on the line in 2008, and on that basis I endorse Gardy's bold move.

He gets Thome on a fly to center after falling behind 3-0. Gardy lets him stick around for Konerko and he gets Konerko on a grounder to second. That's 2 and 2/3 innings of one-hit, no-run relief. Make that three full innings as Griffey grounds out to Morneau. Breslow, Bonser and Mijares: Yeah, that's the bullpen ticket that back in April we all imagined would keep the Twins in the thick of a pennant race on September 24. What an enjoyable baseball season this has been.

Scott Linebrink survives Delmon Young's 6th hit in 7 at-bats by striking out Gomez for the third time tonight. Okay folks, this is why Joe Nathan gets the big bucks. To protect a 3-2 lead through the 9th.

Ninth Inning

Ramirez hangs tough, fouling off a bevy of two-strike pitches, before grounding out to Harris. AJ gets a welter of boos from the crowd as he comes to the plate, but why boo Pierzynski? He only brought the Twins Liriano, Bonser and the man on the mound. And then Gomez snatches a sure double from AJ, back-handing the ball in the left center field gap at a full sprint and the crowd goes crazy.

Nathan isn't sharp, which is to say, not dominating per usual. His control is off some, he's 3-0 to Swisher as I write this, and has looked the worst of the four Twins relievers. He's blown three saves since August 25. He just walked Swisher, and now faces Wise, who has continually choked in the clutch tonight. His second pitch to Wise was woefully short--nice save by Mauer. His third pitch is a foot outside to make it 2-1. If I'm Wise, I anticipate a strike and go for broke on the next pitch. He does, and grounds out to Casilla.

Players of the game: Delmon Young, Carlos Gomez, and the Twins bullpen. They are a half-game out with four to play and the Royals at home to close out the regular season.