St. Paul Saints pitchers walked 20 batters in a 19-3 loss to the Worcester WooSox on Tuesday night, which had to be frustrating for an organization dedicated to emphasizing the fun that can be had at the Ol\u2019 Ballpark.<\/p>\n
One day before April 1?<\/p>\n
![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/shipley.jpg\")
The Saints set a franchise record with the 20 walks, which, while not that impressive historically \u2014 the Saints\u2019 rebirth as the Twins\u2019 Triple-A club dates only to 2021 \u2014 will be difficult to beat. As the kids said 10 years ago, it\u2019s pretty epic.<\/p>\n
Speaking of 10, that\u2019s how many runs the Saints allowed in the sixth inning, another franchise record that will almost certainly have a shorter shelf life than the 20 walks. The free passes are more remarkable and easier to make jokes about.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the official distance between Target Field and CHS Field? Twenty walks.<\/p>\n
Rim shot.<\/p>\n
But we come here to praise Baseball with a capital B, not bury the way the Saints played it Tuesday or the current state of Twins baseball writ large. Baseball is a difficult game; failure is inevitable. Sometimes it comes down like a hard rain and stays for a bit. And like getting caught in a downpour, at some point you give in and it becomes fun.<\/p>\n
And as Mike Veeck probably still says, fun is good. You\u2019ll be dry tomorrow, and so will the players. That\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
After a while, it becomes fun, or at least funny \u2014 like watching Tsuyoshi Nishioka give up on a pop fly. Or watching Jody Davis hit a grand slam against the Mets to pull the Cubs within 25-10. It\u2019s remarkable how many competitive disasters, whether it\u2019s one mistake in the field or one lousy game, remain in the memory banks.<\/p>\n
After a solid 50 years of attending baseball games, some excellent play stands out.<\/p>\n
\u2014Cubs catcher Rick Wrona faking a throw to second and catching a Mets runner at third in an extra-inning win at Wrigley.<\/p>\n
\u2014Kirby Puckett\u2019s homer off of Charlie Liebrandt in Game 6.<\/p>\n
\u2014Nick Punto throwing home from short for the second out of the ninth inning of Game 163 at the Dome.<\/p>\n
\u2014Joe Mauer ending a 10-pitch, ninth-inning at-bat against Aroldis Chapman with a double to help the Twins rally past Cincinnati comes immediately to mind.<\/p>\n
But the most fun anyone ever had at a ballpark was at a Cedar Rapids Reds game in around 1988. It\u2019s doubtful anyone at this particular contest even remembers the opponent of Cincinnati\u2019s Class A team, let alone who won. But at some point, one of the teams\u2019 catchers threw to second in an attempt to pick off a base-stealer \u2014 and hit the pitcher square in the back.<\/p>\n
One quick-witted fan immediately yelled, \u201cCharge the plate!\u201d<\/p>\n
After the dust settled, the next batter singled to left to send the guy on second racing for home. The left fielder was determined to throw this man out, but his throw was so high that the catcher just watched it sail over his head, like an outfielder watching a no-doubter clear the wall.<\/p>\n
After that, we might as well have been zapped by one of those \u201cMen in Black\u201d pens.<\/p>\n
This is baseball.<\/p>\n
Some of us have watched dozens of crisp, well-played 2-1 games and afterward said, \u201cWell, that was a nice crisp, well-played game,\u201d and almost immediately forgot what happened. Baseball is always enjoyable \u2014 I\u2019m being told it\u2019s America\u2019s Pastime \u2014 but in the majors, they play (at least) 162 games every year, and the standard games ultimately get lost.<\/p>\n
The axiom is you can always see something new at the ballpark; when you do, you tend to remember it, good or bad.<\/p>\n
Those who were at CHS Field on Tuesday, and especially the few diehards who stayed for nine innings, will never forget those 20 walks in that 19-3 loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, I was once at a game \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Baseball forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Paul Saints pitchers walked 20 batters in a 19-3 loss to the Worcester WooSox on Tuesday night,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2388],"tags":[5,822,60,3190,4,185,5855,148],"class_list":{"0":"post-657164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-twins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-minnesota","10":"tag-minnesota-twins","11":"tag-minnesotatwins","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-st-paul-saints","15":"tag-twins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116330854261378344","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}