This is weird. Well, a lot of what happens in this space is weird, but hear us out:

This morning, we went for a run. That's normal. We do that. It was fairly early, around 7:40 a.m., and we were trying to come up with ideas for blog posts for the day. That's kind of how it works: sometimes we go into a day with one or two ideas. Sometimes we have zero. The one we tend to plan the most is the first one of the day, but we were tapped out when we woke up.

We started fiddling around with clever* ways to incorporate a song into a post about the woeful Twins, much as we did a few months ago with Pavement's "Cut Your Hair." We got too fixated on more Pavement songs, and we never made it past a Bert Blyleven joke early on in Shady Lane (they moved the runners over, Blyleven's Dutch, Dutch, Dutch). We abandoned the cause in favor of a more straight-ahead post on Ricky Nolasco, Joe Mauer and big money players.

*not verified.

Follower Chris tweeted at us around 8:25, right when our run was finishing. We didn't see it until after the first post, but it reads: "We're going with 'Ricky Don't Lose That Ulnar' for the blog post right?"

Somewhere in the space-time-Twitter continuum, Chris knew that we were searching for a song even though we hadn't told anyone. And obviously, that is the absolutely perfect song right now as Nolasco has his elbow examined and Twins fans fret about possible damage to his ulnar collateral ligament and Tommy John surgery (even though nobody is suggesting such a thing yet). So a post late, and $48,999,999 short, here is Steely Dan's "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" re-imagined as a song about Nolasco and his aching elbow.

We hear you're hurting, that's OK
I thought you were just wild in the strike zone
I guess you scared yourself, you turn and watch balls soar
But if you have a change of heart
Ricky don't lose that ulnar
You don't wanna call Dr. James Andrews
Rest and rehab — it could be the way to go
Ricky don't lose that ulnar
It's the best one you own
You might use it if you feel better
When you get home
I know Gardy's worried, he's heard your name
We can work on the fastball, work on command
We could shut it down and not play games, I don't know
And you could have a change of heart
Ricky don't lose that ulnar
You don't wanna call Dr. James Andrews
Rest and rehab — it could be the way to go
Ricky don't lose that ulnar
It's the best one you own
You might use it if you feel better
When you get home
You tell yourself you're not OK
But you don't even know the severity of pain
And you could have a change of heart
Ricky don't lose that ulnar
You don't wanna call Dr. James Andrews
Rest and rehab — it could be the way to go
Ricky don't lose that ulnar
It's the best one you own
You might use it if you feel better
When you get home