THIS IS VERY EXCITING.

In my writeup about BlogsWithBalls 4.0 and the future of blogging, there was some discussion of the role of access in a blogger’s life. It’s complicated.

Access to players can harm a writer’s ability to be coldly analytical. How does one dismiss a hot start as a BABIP-driven streak and then hang out with the player in the dugout later? Or knock a contract as too generous and then congratulate the player on signing it? Or point out that a trade brought too little back and then meet the new players in the clubhouse? Access can create a bit of a pickle, especially for the snarky blogger.

But access, combined with analytics, can also be very exciting.

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Two Saturdays ago, I was at the new Buffalo Wild Wings in Madison. They have all these new big screen TVs, and on one of them, the Milwaukee Brewers were playing. Ryan Braun comes up to the plate in the sixth inning with two runners on. I tapped one of my friends at the shoulder, pointed at the TV, and said “Hey, he’s gonna hit a homer.”

Ryan Braun proceeded to a hit a homer.

Am I a genius? Yes. But not because of that. My claim was completely full of shit. But the overzealous home run prediction is a large part of my personal baseball watching experience. Prince Fielder up in an important situation? Home run. George Kottaras up in any situation? Home run. More often than not, I’m wrong, but I am rewarded with just enough confirmation bias and hindsight bias to keep on going.

In the bottom of the eighth inning of Wednesday’s thriller at The Trop, Evan Longoria stepped up to the plate in an utterly crucial situation. The comeback was beginning, as the thinnest part of the Yankee bullpen started to give way. After the Yanks basically handed the Rays three runs, Tampa was just a swing away from making it a one-run game with Longoria coming up.

I predicted a home run.

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Super Pavario 1UPs the Royals on the strength of the Elusive Mustache.

Something was different when Carl Pavano entered the Twins clubhouse yesterday. You guessed it. The bodacious fork duster that garnered Pavano notoriety during the 2010 season had returned for a one night tour in the Twins’ season finale. That mustache, along with Pavano, was tasked with keeping the Twins from the dreaded “100-loss” stigma that goes with, well, losing about 61.7 percent of the games you play in a given season.*

Pavano did just that — out-dueling Klaasen-crush Sweet Chen Music — in tossing a complete-game shutout which provided a great send-off for retiring radio broadcaster John Gordon, who had the thrill of calling a walk-off win his final game as a simulcast for the last few innings.

Pavano mustache-waxed poetic after the game, offering the following gems:

“It was actually an accident. I meant to go with handlebars. On this side, I had a ski accident five or six years ago where I hit a tree. So, it really doesn’t grow good over here. Like, really terrible. So, I ended up growing a mustache because I didn’t want to go totally bare. It’s kind of funny how it worked out right there. It was the first mustache I had all year. I tried everything else. I don’t even know what to say. Everyone wants to point to the ‘stache. I’m not that superstitious, but I was trying to have a little fun. We definitely had a some fun tonight winning the ballgame. So, whatever you gotta do. Maybe it will be back in spring training, I don’t know. The elusive mustache…”

-and-

“‎Not that I’m happy about losing 99, but it’s a lot better than a fuckin’ hundred, to be honest with you.”

Clearly, if the Twins want to contend in 2012, they may want to add a facial hair incentive in Pavano’s contract.

*Only applies to modern-day, 162 game scheduling.

No, you were not the only one stripped of everything but the most primitive urges by last night’s impossible events. In point of fact, even two seasoned MLB Network hosts, accustomed to Live Action Television and its treacherous proclivities, were left in mute awe, unable to do anything more than scamper and flop about like addled sand crabs. Click and witness:

The final absurdity — the Evan Longoria scream-off homer — proved too much for the fraying social contracts that weakened into gossamer over the course of the evening. But once Mr. Longoria ferried us from the realm of the “merely” unthinkable into a state of affairs nameless in all but the most atavistic of hunter-gatherer grunts (it is known as “oook tob noot blargh Kurt Stillwell blomph!”), the constructs and assumptions about us were reduced to embers. Messrs. Reynolds and Plesac did what any of us would do when faced with such an everything nothingness: they scurried. And then they murdered.

And now, thanks to regeneration through violence, they are ready for postseason. Are you?

Chalk up the video below as another reason why the Internet is awesome:

Dan Shaughnessy — unfortunately for him, in this case — will live forever.

H/Ts: Learned scholar Kevin A., and the fine folks at Awful Announcing.

Brayan Pena expresses the gratitude of millions.

I don’t know what the coverage of baseball was like last night for those of you in the U.S. of A., but up here in the Great White North sports coverage needs a bit of help with priorities. They were talking about games in Florida, Maryland, and other sordid little burgs, but hardly mentioned the story they should have led with: Bruce Chen’s eight innings of shutout ball (somehow matched by Carl Pavano’s nine) in Minnesota on an emotional night that might have been Chen’s last game in a Royals uniform.

We are all reeling from the emotional night at Target Field, but those who may have happened upon one of my FanGraphs chats know that this is particularly difficult for me. While I celebrate the greatness that is Chen, it is time to bid the meme him farewell.

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It has been said by no one, so far as I know, that a man who knows his strengths will do great things, but a man who knows his limitations is probably way less of a douche.

In any case, having read zero of the other words he’s ever written in his life, I can say with some authority that, despite the other (likely many) flaws he possesses, the Daily News’s David Murphy — author of the tweet you see above — knows his place in this world.

And, when you think about it, it’s not the worst place to have. Imagine asking merely affluent or (gasp) middle-class people about their groins! “The horror! The horror!” indeed, Mr. Kurtz.

After the operatic goings-on of baseball’s Night of Long Knives, I have the feeling that all of us could use a piping-hot plate of whimsy. Fortunately, funnyman Rod Barajas is here to help.

It has long been said that nothing soothes the fussy infant quite like a Rod Barajas. This is why Rod Barajas is available at boutique toy stores and corner pharmacies everywhere. And that’s to say nothing of the 15-pack of shrink-wrapped Rod Barajases on endcap display at every Costco the world over. Why is the Rod Barajas so popular among sleep-deprived parents? We already told you: nothing soothes a fussy infant quite like a Rod Barajas. Click and be amazed:

Next time the Rod Barajas will change Dee Gordon’s poopy.

3 am breastfeeding: Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness)

Portrait of the artists as a middle-aged Jewish woman.

After the events of September 28th, we at NotGraphs are a little verklempt.

Please, talk amongst yourselves.

I’ll give you a topic: the parfait should change its name after yesternight in baseball.

Discuss.

If there’s one thing the good, round folks of the Upper Midwest love more than consonants and slowly dying, it’s encased meats, dontchaknow. It should come as no surprise, then, that the Twins of Minnesota have lent their corporate imprimatur to at least one package — and probably many more — of lovingly prepared offal. And this brings us to your Daguerreotype of the Evening:

Luminous food critic Gael Greene has written of the Twins Big Dog’s “mellow notes of animal pecker and delightful sodium-nitrate finish.” Nom, nom, nom!