Yeah, it would have been fun to watch Jim Thome hit home run No. 600 at Target Field.

But for the Twins and their fans, Monday's excitement came at precisely the right time. We all know how badly the season has gone, and it was nice for a night not to have to think about that. If the struggles ruined your excitement about Thome's milestone, get help.

It kind of caught us by surprise. Thome hasn't exactly been thumping homer after homer in the way that he did when he joined the Twins in 2010, and his health has been an ongoing thread -- which shouldn't come as a surprise given he turns 41 later this month -- that kept him from reaching 600 sooner.

While they weren't moon shots at the Target Field flagpole, both of Monday's homers were healthy opposite-field blasts that spoke to Thome's prowess as one of baseball's greatest all-time sluggers. He became the eighth player ever to reach 600, and I know that many of us keep lists in our heads in which he ranks higher, owing to the drug taint that surrounds three of the guys ahead of him on the list.

The only thing that sullied the achievement was in the lead-up on Monday, with the sarcastic yammering in the TV booth about Derek Jeter and his 3,000th hit earlier this season. Someone explain where that came from. I hope our mindset isn't such that we need to denigrate the attention paid to another future Hall of Famer's achievements in order to feel better about the local guy. Somehow, I don't imagine the Yankees broadcast crew making mock of Thome's achievement because it came during such a disappointing season or by a guy who hasn't played the field since 2007.

A friend emailed this morning wondering whether the right thing for the Twins to do now would be to trade Thome to a team that has a chance at the World Series. You know, put him on the plane with the Yankees at the end of the weekend or send him to Texas or whatever.

I'm against it.

I'd feel differently if Thome had never played in the postseason, but he's made it often enough to have been in 67 games in nine different seasons. You'll remember that he propelled the White Sox into the 2008 playoffs at Twins' expense by hitting the home run in that 1-0 victory in Game 163.

Just because Thome's 600th didn't happen at Target Field doesn't mean we shouldn't have chances to celebrate his achievement and his entire body of work. I want Thome to stay healthy enough and Gardy to give him enough at-bats that he can take serious aim at the nine home runs needed to catch Sammy Sosa for seventh place on the home run list.

Given the state of the season, that would be an excellent quest.

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Here's an excellent blog post about Thome by Joe Posnanski. It's worth another five minutes of your day.