The Party Is Over ! After a 1 game suspension, Ron Gardenhire returned to the Twins and immediately put his stamp back on our team by reminding us that he still believes Matthew LeCroy and Terry Mulholland should have prominent roles on this team by once again inserting Lecroy into the middle of our batting order and allowing Mulholland to pitch in key situations. Let me quickly sum up Gardenhire's pitching logic....Joe Mays is taken out on friday night at Detroit down 8 - 3 and in comes Mulholland to mop up....1 inning later the Twins rally to make it a 8 - 6....Game On right ?...Here comes Crain or Romero right ? Wrong ! Gardenhire lets Mulholland throw another inning of batting practice until its 12 - 6 then decides to bring Jesse Crain into the game that is now out of reach. Am I missing something here? Is Gardy missing something ? (like a chromosome).......Meanwhile, Lecroy's at-bats come at the expense of a slumping Lew Ford. Gardy lets Hunter and Jones dig themselves out of protracted slumps but wont allow Lew the same consideration....Uh Oh !....another flashback coming!....2004 post season playoffs...Twins are up 1 game to zero at Yankee Stadium...Lew Ford our 2004 catalyst...our ignitor...our spark plug...has some bad at-bats in our game 1 victory so what does Gardy do ? He has one of his infamous "hunches" and benches Lew Ford for game 2 and inserts Jason Kubel who to this date has 60 career major league at-bats. Gardenhire rolls snake eyes and Kubel is o-for as he walks to the plate in the 8th inning of a tie game to face Mariano Rivera with what would have been the winning run (the yankees wont score again til the 12th inning) on 3rd base and only 1 out. Everyone, and i mean everyone in Twins Territory waited for Kubel to be called back to the dugout ! we have a chance to go up 2 games to zero in a 5 game series....its yankee stadium...Rivera is on the mound...batting is a kid with 60 major league at-bats (yes i had to bring that up again!)....The rest is history, Kubel strikes out on 3 pitches, the second out is made and that winning run stays at 3rd base allowing the yankees to go on to win in extra innings and steal the series back from the Twins. Once again the playoff tide had turned courtesy of the Gardenworm.