This is not the day for a complaint about the pace of play in Major League Baseball. If you're going to take nearly four hours to play and watch a nine-inning game (final score: St. Louis 7, Twins 5), it might as well be on a gorgeous, summerlike day in mid-May at Target Field.
As a perk of the job, I wandered over and arrived with one out in the top of the second inning at 12:41 p.m. Twins starter Lance Lynn was already in full-on laboring mode, and he made an event of the rest of the inning while escaping eventually with just one run allowed.
Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas also labored with deep counts and long at-bats. By my count, he and Lynn combined to throw 116 pitches in the first two innings.
By 1:26 p.m., it was time to go back to work, and I had seen exactly five outs recorded — not even a full inning in 45 minutes. As far as Lance Lynn goes, it sure was nice weather at Target Field.
Read Michael Rand's blog at startribune.com/randball. michael.rand@startribune.com.
