Glen Perkins will buy you beer during a rain delay - MLB

I wasn’t going to write about this, but since Phil Ervin of FOXSportsNorth.com just “reported” on it … why not?

The rain delay at Target Field on Saturday night lasted exactly two hours and four minutes. Plenty of time for the Twins’ closer to express his gratitude toward a group of fans for riding it out.

At some point during a respite that drove many fans away from an already-thin contingent–Minnesota trailed the Tampa Bay Rays 4-0 after 3 ½ innings when the tarps first came out–Glen Perkins bought a round of drinks for some folks on a pub crawl.

I went on/co-organized an all-day light rail pub crawl Saturday in which 100 of us ended up at the Twins-Rays game at Target Field, except it rained for basically the entire night. I assessed the situation and chose not to go into the ballpark right away, staying a couple blocks away to continue bar-hopping, but about half of the pub crawl crew was already in Target Field and killed time at Kent Hrbek’s bar.

At some point during the delay Twins reliever Glen Perkins, who in addition to being one of the league’s best closers is also a native Minnesotan and very active on Twitter, sent his credit card over to Hrbek’s and bought a round of beers for everyone in the group. I finally made my way into Target Field a couple hours later and a bunch of us were going to thank him by yelling stuff at Perkins while he warmed up in the bullpen, but then everyone got creeped out by the whole “distracting someone while they’re technically working” vibe.

So, yeah: Thanks for beers, Glen.

Follow @AaronGleeman

CINCINNATI — The Los Angeles Dodgers placed pitcher Noah Syndergaard on the 15-day injured list Thursday with a blister on the index finger of his right throwing hand.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the timetable for Syndergaard’s return is unknown despite the 15-day designation.

“The physical, the mental, the emotional part, as he’s talked about, has taken a toll on him,” Roberts said. “So, the ability to get him away from this. He left today to go back to Los Angeles to kind of get back to normalcy.”

Syndergaard allowed six runs and seven hits in three innings against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night, raising his ERA to 7.16.

Syndergaard (1-4) has surrendered at least five runs in three straight starts.

Syndergaard has been trying to return to the player he was before Tommy John surgery sidelined him for the better part of the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

Roberts said Syndergaard will need at least “a few weeks” to both heal and get away from baseball and “reset.”

“I think searching and not being comfortable with where he was at in the moment is certainly evident in performance,” Roberts said. “So hopefully this time away will provide more clarity on who he is right now as a pitcher.

“Trying to perform when you’re searching at this level is extremely difficult. I applaud him from not running from it, but it’s still very difficult. Hopefully it can be a tale of two stories, two halves when he does come back.”