From Hardball Talk: 

“Phil Hughes has had a fantastic season for the Twins, potentially setting the all-time strikeout-to-walk ratio record, and entered his final start today needing to throw 8.1 innings to reach 210 for the year and trigger a $500,000 bonus in his contract.”

“Hughes has cruised through eight innings against the Diamondbacks, allowing just one run, but now it’s raining heavy in Minnesota and the tarp is on at Target Field.

Hughes needs one more out to get an extra $500,000.”

“UPDATE: After an hour-plus rain delay Hughes did not come back into the game, which means he’s officially one out short of reaching 210 innings for his $500,000 bonus.”

What a kick in the dick that is. The Twins took their fair share of flak this winter for throwing $24 million over three years at a pitcher coming off a 4-14 walk year. Yankees fans practically pushed him out the door that Ruth built. He comes to the AL Central, goes 15-10 with a 3.61 ERA and has the best singe-season strikeout-to-walk ratio of all time. Then today he’s absolutely dealing through eight innings, the smell of that fat stack of cash getting more and more pungent with every out. Just cruising. One more out to pay dirt.

You would hope the Twins would either let him throw an inning out of the bullpen at the end of this week, or just give him the damn bonus because of the year he’s had, but you never know with these professional sports teams. And I’ve seen Fargo, I don’t trust anything from the state of Minnesota.