In case you needed any further confirmation that baseball is the greatest game ever played, just know that this play has only occurred 14 times in the history of Major League Baseball.

And, for your enjoyment, here are videos of the two previous unassisted triple plays:

U.T.P. No. 13, Troy Tulowitzki of the Colorado Rockies on April 29th, 2007.

U.T.P. No. 12, Rafael Furcal of the Atlanta Braves on August 10th, 2003.

Last night's nail-biting win over the Red Sox should be encouraging to Twins fans. Even if they lose tonight's game, they've shown they can be competitive with the elite teams of the American League. A competent performance by Nick Blackburn, who worked his way out of a few jams, and some rare, unexpected power were the main highlights of a really entertaining game.

Craig Monroe's 2 home-run night has me thinking he should be getting a few more at-bats, especially when you look at Jason Kubel's performance as of late. The former 2004 Minor League Player of the Year is now batting .222/.238/.359, which means he's not getting on base and he's not slugging. And remarkably, he has fewer walks than the ever-patient Carlos Gomez. I'm just not sure what's going on with this guy.

The DH situation, and the team's offensive woes, makes me think that this may be a year where Gardy will have to go with whoever is hot. When Kubel is cold, play Monroe. When Lamb is not hitting, try Tolbert or Punto (once his hamstring heals) at third. Ditto shortstop and second base. This Twins team simply doesn't have enough players with established track records to allow guys to play their way through slumps. Which, of course, also means that maybe Delmon Young should see more time on the bench if he doesn't start to get it going.

In other words, this team is a long way from being the Red Sox. As I watched last night's near comeback, I couldn't help but think how much this Red Sox team is starting to look like the Yankees teams of the late '90s and early part of this decade, especially offensively. It's not just that they can pound the ball. Like those Yankees teams, it's their patience at the plate that just wears teams down. They work the count and they foul off tons of pitches until they get the pitch they want. That's why it was hard to feel comfortable last night, even when the Twins had a 7-1 lead.

But given that they don't have the offensive talent of the Red Sox, and help doesn't appear to be on the way, what's you're suggestion for the Twins offense?

The Twins will try to take three of four from the Red Sox tonight, which would give the Twins their first back-to-back wins since Chicago ended a five-game winning streak. While they've managed to maintain their spot atop the Central Division, the Twins lost more players to injury.

Gleeman dissects what Pat Neshek's arm injury means for the Twins. While Neshek's numbers so far this season suggested he had lost some of his brilliance, it will be a tough transition to settle on someone who can gobble up 50+ innings in critical, late-inning situations as consistently as Neshek has.

Meanwhile, over at MNTwinsTalk.com, Drew says the Twins have found their DH in Craig Monroe. A two-dinger day makes for a nice day at the plate, but without the pink bat, Monroe has as many home runs as he now does without the pretty lumber. With Jason Kubel hitting a paltry .222, it's hard to see who else might fit in those shoes, but being that the Twins are the team that penciled "Jason Tyner" next to "DH" on the lineup card. By the way, how's that Free Jason Kubel movement coming?

Despite making great strides in Minnesota's quest to make the Santana deal look better, Carlos Gomez's cringe-inducing misplay of J.D. Drew's double still reinforces the fact that there will be many "learning opportunities" ahead.

To be fair, the Metrodome roof is a fly ball's best friend and with the Twins winning the game it will be overlooked, but the fact that Gomez didn't even get leather on the ball with his cross-footed, and clumsy stab shows how poorly he played it. It's not the first time he's taken bad lines, and hopefully we'll see him steadily improve as the season progresses. (I'm also fairly certain I heard someone -- Joe Mauer, perhaps? -- yell "BACK!" as soon as the ball left the bat.)

And, if you're in the mood for a Monday morning chuckle, Howard Sinker stumbled upon the diaries of a few Twins players.

"Joe Nathan: Dear Diary, I know I gave up two runs tonight, but Manny Ramirez never had a flippin' chance."

(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Our friends at FOX Sports in conjunction with some hack from Askmen.com have decided that our Minnesota Twins are the 7th worst franchise in pro sports. I am not sure how prudish MPR is about curse words so I'll leave the last word out of this question: What the?!

According to some guy named Dave Golokhov:

"Moneyball" is to baseball what frugal is to cheap; it's a creative way of saying, "we're not going to pay for our stars or reward our veterans who have earned their keep." Sabermetrics and scientific stats are used to evaluate players and give a better indication of their worth, but teams like the Minnesota Twins use this strategy to kiss their superstars goodbye at the trade deadline or the first day of free agency. The Twins constantly sell proven veterans for prospects and draft picks, but when those youngsters finally develop, they get shipped away to start the cycle again. The Twins incessantly look to the future and winning now is not a priority. Translation: the Twins care more about the dollars than about winning."

The Timberwolves remarkably, are not on this list, neither are the Milwaukee Brewers or even our luckless Vikings. Then there's the NHL, where according to a commenter "they could have come up with a list of 15 or more trash teams". I guess if the point of the article was to get a reaction it worked. If it was supposed to be even semi-serious analysis, it failed miserably.

Carlos Gomez achieved one of the rarest of rare baseball feats last night when he hit for the cycle in the Twins 13-1 crushing of the White Sox, becoming the first Twin to do since Kirby Puckett in 1986. The last MLB player to hit for the cycle was Baltimore's Aubrey Huff, who did it on June 29th of the 2007 season.

Of course, nearly every player to hit for the cycle has to get a little lucky, as Gomez did on his 9th inning single, but that was about as legitimate a cycle as you're going to see. Here's a list of all the MLB players to hit for the cycle.

So in the span of a few weeks we've seen the valley and the peak of the Carlos Gomez era. And some noted skeptics are starting to turn into believers. We may be in a for a wild ride with Go-Go, but it sure will be fun to watch.

We've all been privy to melodramatic saga that has been Carlos Gomez's first month in Minnesota. You can say what you want about Gomez, but he's always interesting and often exciting to watch. He however, is just ¼ of the questionable bounty the Twins received for all-world ace Johan Santana. Here's a quick update on the other three players - all hurlers.

Philip Humber
The 25-year-old former 1st round pick is 1-3 with a 5.40 ERA at Rochester. He has appeared in 8 games, only 5 starts, which suggests he's having trouble staying in the rotation. In 25 innings, Humber has allowed 15 earned runs and 11 walks while striking out 14. Opponents are hitting .320 off the former Rice star and he's posted a WHIP of 1.76 so far. Not good.

ETA: At 25, he should be ready now, but unless Humber picks it up, he may be lucky to get a September call-up.

Kevin Mulvey
Mulvey is faring better at Triple A than Humber thus far. The soon-to-be 23 year old (May 26) is 2-3 with a 3.82 ERA in 6 appearances - all starts. Mulvey has allowed 14 earned runs and 12 walks with an impressive 34 strikeouts in 33 innings. His batting average against stands at .276 and his WHIP is 1.48. Considering Mulvey is two years younger than Humber and striking out hitters at a prolific clip, there is plenty to be encouraged about.

ETA: Sometime in 2008.

Deolis Guerra
The 19-year-old Guerra is currently toiling at Ft. Meyers - the Twins "High A" ball affiliate. He is 2-1 with a 4.61 ERA in 6 games - 5 starts. In 25 innings, Guerra has allowed 14 earned runs and 12 base-on-balls while striking out 20. Opponents are hitting .261 off the Venezuelan and he's posted a WHIP of 1.50. While his stats are mediocre, Guerra is at a fairly high level considering his age and, like Mulvey, he has shown the ability to strike batters out.

ETA: 2010

I thought David might have been getting a little carried away with his last post, but I think I've caught the fever after yesterday's win. I mean, who knows if they can keep this up, but wins like that have a way of igniting a team.

I also wonder if this could be turning point performance for Bonser. He's really pitched pretty well all season, but yesterday's performance showed a lot more than the numbers will indicate. Boof will probably never be a #1 or #2 type pitcher, but his effort against the Tigers shows he can be the type of pitcher that every staff needs: a battler. Even after getting hammered in that first inning he still kept throwing first-pitch strikes. Every starter on the team should watch a tape of that game.

The Twins did David one better, sweeping the Tigers to jump into first place in A.L. Central with a 16-14 record. For all practical — and statistical — purposes, the Twins shouldn't be there.

Minnesota at or near the bottom in more than a handful of offensive categories in the American League: dead last in on-base percentage and walks; second-to-last in runs scored, home runs and at-bats, only one step up from there in the strikeouts category, and 10th in slugging. By the numbers, the only offensive bright spots are batting average — third in the A.L. at .266 — and stolen bases — second, thanks to Carlos Gomez's league-leading 13 thefts.

One thing struck me while perusing the Twins on Baseball Reference: according to some fancy statistimatics, the Twins should be 14-16, according to the Pythagorean W-L calculation, which calculates a winning percentage based on runs scored and runs against.

You may recall that the Twins hitters occasionally like to explode for double-digit runs. Three times this year they've scored more than 11 runs. Take those games out of the aforementioned calculation, and the father of numbers, er.. the father of numbers predicts the Twins should be 10-17, probably good enough for the bottom spot in all big league baseball.

Yesterday's delightful 7-6 comeback victory sort of exemplifies the confusing A.L. Central. The Tigers' well-paid, high-powered offense isn't translating into wins, while the Twins — 7-4 in one-run games — are scrapping along, picking up valuable wins against their division opponents.

Does this mean a wild ride into playoff time?

Perhaps. At least I can take great joy in these statistics in the meantime.

(Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

The Twins enter this weekend at 13-14, while the visiting Tigers stand at 14-15 following a 0-7 start. After the nightmarish two-game set the Twins endured in MoTown two weeks ago, I think this is about as big as an early season series can get.

The Twins need to prove to themselves that they can beat Detroit. They need to win at least 2 of out 3 in this series and get back to .500 before heading to Chicago next week.

What's up with Delmon Young?
Young was supposed to be the team's key off-season addition, but so far that title probably goes to Brendan Harris. The former #1 overall pick says "it's early", but he's hitting .265/.306/.314 with 0 homers and just 8 RBI after one month of play. I've been as high on Young as anyone, but he needs to get going ASAP.

He's No Lion
After watching Nick Punto put up utility-type numbers at third base last year, Mike Lamb was brought in to be a real third baseman. But so far, he's hitting a Punto-like .203/.224/.278 with 0 homers (see a theme here). Nobody expects the 32-year-old to be an All Star, but if he doesn't get it going soon, the Twins should start exploring other options.

Nick Blackburn has been one of the most pleasant surprises of this young Twins season. The 26-year-old rookie floated below the radar most during spring training, but earned a place in the rotation and has arguably been the team's most consistent starter so far.

I caught up with Blackburn on Tuesday, less than 24 hours before he would pick up his second big league win.

DZ: Coming into the season, we didn't know much about you, but you've pitched pretty well and picked up your first win. Talk about how the season's gone for you so far.

BLACKBURN: So far it's been good other than a couple of rough innings, but that's gonna happen. I've been pleased with the way I've been throwing for the most part.

DZ: Early in the year you pitched well enough to win, but didn't get the runs...there's a lot of luck involved in (getting) wins...it took you a while, but some guys seem to rack them up pretty easily. How do you deal with that?

BLACKBURN: I am not too concerned with the win-loss column. Obviously, you want to go out there and win, but I just want to give the team a chance to win. That's what a starting pitcher does. To me the win-loss column is a little overrated for a pitcher because it depends on the whole team. The game I got the win, there were plays made (on defense) left and right.

DZ: Which stats do you look at?

BLACKBURN: I would say WHIP (Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched) and ERA are probably more important than win-loss (record). You can go out there and there can be a guy with 10 wins, but if he has a 5.50 ERA, his team is putting up a lot of runs for him. ERA probably tells you a lot more about how you are throwing that year.

DZ: You came into spring training and weren't guaranteed anything, but you fought hard and got a roster spot. When did you find out you made the team?

BLACKBURN: Basically just the day before we came (north). They weren't real sure what they were going to do with (Francisco) Liriano the whole time, so nobody actually came up to me and told me I'd made the team. Nobody told me to go anywhere else, so that's how I found out.

DZ: When you got on the plane, basically.

BLACKBURN: (Laughs) Yeah, I wasn't sure where I was going until I got on the plane.

DZ: How did that feel?

BLACKBURN: That was something I really wanted to do - a big goal for me - to make the team out of spring training. I was very happy with the way that turned out.

DZ: You've got the dark hair and sideburns and - especially with your hat on - you look like Joe Mauer out there. Do you ever get teased about that?

BLACKBURN: (Laughs) Constantly. I've got fans all of the time calling me "Mauer", trying to get autographs and that stuff. I am starting to get used to it and it's starting to slow down a little bit. It's getting to the point where it doesn't happen too much anymore.

DZ: Do you ever get his cards to sign?

BLACKBURN: A lot of people want me to sign stuff, but I don't go over there because they are usually calling Mauer's name.