A Pathetic Effort

Friday's home opener made it all the more clear how important Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau are going to be to this Twins lineup.
There are just too many night's when the Twins hitters, veteran hitters I might add, look lost against a mediocre pitcher.
As for Lohse, he was good for 5 innings, then a bad sixth. Didn't really learn anything from that start, in fact, it was vintage Lohse. Flashes of ability, ultimately dissapointing result. If Scott Baker, Dave Gassner or JD Durbin gets off to a good start in Rochester the Twins might consider Lohse for the bullpen, where his lack of good off-speed stuff would be less of an issue. He's got waaayy too good of stuff for the team to cut him loose.
But back to that crappy 5-1 loss.
The atmosphere surrounding the game was purely electric. Hell, Huberts was full by 2:30.
(Saw Fox Tv's Clay Matvick there. A former Sioux Falls dude, had some nice things to say about some SF peeps (Ovenden, Whitney). Nice guy, he seemed to appreciate being able to drink a beer before the game for once, as Fox didn't televise the game so he was off.)
And they respond by laying an egg against the Sox. It was a boring ass game as they took poor swings and dribbled wimpy grounders and pop ups inning after inning.
I'm certainly not going to start calling for a coach's head a week into the season, but I think there should be some pressure this year on Scott Ulger to get the lineup in gear. That statment isn't based on four games, it's based on Ulger's entire tenure as batting coach.
The pitching continues to get better under Rick Anderson. Question marks like Silva, Nathan, Rincon, Hawkins, Balfour, Mays, and a few others became quality, in some cases All-Star caliber pitchers under Anderson. But the offense continues to be in the bottom half of the league. Torii Hunter, Jacque JOnes, Cuddyer, LeCroy, Rivas, all these guys, have been status quo for a half-decade. Look at what Ortiz did when he left! They're not bad, they're just not getting better, and they keep making the same mistakes. Jones still waives at any breaking ball from a lefty. Hunter still tries to pull pitches a foot outside. And so on. You get the feeling it's up to Mauer and Morneau to get by on their ability alone, because you never hear anyone say, 'Just think how good those two will be when Ulger gets ahold of 'em.'
With the pitching and defense this team has, it is up to Ulger to carry his weight, especially when he only got the job because the Twins were too lazy to hire a batting coach from outside the organization.
You may remember he was hired as the 1st base coach, moved to 3rd when Gardy tore his ACL, and just kind of wound up with the hitting coach job when Gardy brought in his staff.
On another note, Twins fans booed lustily when AJ batted, and that's bush.
WIthouth AJ, the Twins do not win any of their division titles. (Yes I know he wasn't on the team last year, but where do you think Joe Nathan came from?)
He was one of the team's most clutch hitters, was a pretty good catcher, and one of the few guys the Twins have EVER had who actually approached the game with some swagger.
Plus its not like he left to take more money or demanded a trade to the Yankees.
THERE IS NOT ONE GOOD REASON TO BOO AJ PIEZYNSKI. IF YOU BOO AJ YOU ARE EITHER A JACKASS OR A RETARD. Or both.