Twins: Gift tax

The baseball gods always make you pay for the kind of mistake the Twins made to cost themselves a run in the fourth inning. It looked like they might get away with it when they entered the ninth inning with a two-run lead and brought on Joe Nathan to nail down the win, but they hadn't paid the gift tax yet. Nathan, who came into the game with 47 saves and a 2.10 ERA, grooved a fastball to Mark Teixeira for a leadoff single, then fell behind 3-0 on the count to Alex Rodriguez. That was the moment when the TBS broadcast crew came up with the statistic that Nathan had not allowed a home run with a runner or runners on base all year, and anyone who has heard Gary Thorne throw out a "never" stat like that knows what happened next. Nathan got the first strike, but served up another straight fastball to ARod and he launched it over the center field fence to tie the game. If that wasn't bad enough, Nathan came back in the 10th to wing a pickoff throw into center fiel...