Slowey and more: A weekend of good things

For all the times when athletes, their bosses and their handlers don't tell you what's really on their minds, Sunday afternoon made up for some of that. In the aftermath of the excitement, drama and disappointment of Kevin Slowey's seven no-hit innings, I sensed that we were hearing the pitcher and the manager talk from their hearts about what happened.

Slowey said he was a little disappointed but understood what was going on. Ron Gardenhire said he felt the frustration of the fans -- and felt some of it himself -- but there was no question in his mind that he did the right thing. About three-quarters of the people who have responded to a startribune.com instant poll think that Gardy did the right thing.

There is no shortage of Internet and media love for Gardy this morning.

A sampling:

Aaron Gleeman said it was "exactly the right call."

Twins Geek wrote that Gardenhire and Rick Anderson "showed foresight, caring, courage and leadership. And that should be celebrated, not criticized."

K-bro was at the game and captured the crowd mood while writing that Slowey "was beginning to pitch erratically and leave some pitches up; he was getting outs by sheer luck. When he hit (Mark) Ellis, it was pretty clear he was done. Gardy made the right choice."

Mankato's Baseball Outsider mentioned this irony: "When even Bert 'pitch until your arm falls off' Blyleven doesn't argue with the decision to pull a pitcher, it's probably pretty obvious."

This isn't quite love, but one of Aaron's commenters offered this grudging endorsement: "Yeah there's no reason to criticize Gardenhire for this move. The man is a buffoon but he was right today."

Some people aren't going to be satisfied until Bill Smith calls and asks for their opinion, I guess.

If we were in Kansas City or Pittsburgh or Houston, Slowey could well have stayed in and the game would have turned into a quest for the cover of the team's 2011 media guide -- a woeful team celebrating its bright, shining moment and trying to sell it as reason to care about the future.

The Twins haven't rolled like that for years.

After Brain Duensing's marvelous complete game on Saturday and with today's day off, I was wondering too about the decision to go with Rauch as opposed to Jesse Crain in the eighth and Matt Capps in the ninth. I also wonder if Gardy's call would have been different if the Twins had gone into the eighth with a one-run lead instead of the 4-0 lead provided by Jim Thome's three-run homer.

But whatever the case, getting Rauch work with (what should have been) a comfortable lead was consistent with Sunday's most important thing -- winning and adding another game to the advantage over the White Sox, who have gone 3-7 while the Twins have excelled lately.

If you reduce the situation to one thing -- winning -- then all of the right things happened over the weekend.

Not only here, but in Chicago, where Ozzie Guillen watched his White Sox lose ion a ninth-inning homer on Saturday and get smoked by Detroit on Sunday, after which Ozzie said: "I'll be honest with you, the ball club didn't have energy today."

Poor Ozzie.