Cuddy Does It

First off, I'm happy for Michael Cuddyer.
He's had more downs than ups through his Twins career, some due to the team jerking him around, some due to his own failures.
But he got a big hit last night (off JC Romero no less) to give the Twins a big win.
The pitching still sucks, and the Twins are still finding ways to win.
Unfortunately, the starting pitching is far from the only thing failing the Twins right now.
I've been overly optimistic with this team since the winter, but right now I see a lot of ominous signs.
*Rondell White. He's been terrible, and I'm less and less confident every day that it's just a slump. Ruben Sierra had some good swings last night, but he can't play every day. White simply has to get it together.
*Tony Batista. Just when I was allowing myself to think he might actually be able to put together a decent season, he's looked horrible for the last two games. His swing is so long, and against pitchers who can bring it in the mid to high 90's he simply doesn't have the bat speed. At least he's shown more patience than has been the norm for his career.
*Matt Guerrier. The guy's throwing batting practice out there. He looks awful. His numbers last year (a 3.39 ERA) were sure nice, but he rarely was asked to pitch in key situations. So far this year he's been unable to take on a larger role. With veteran lefty Dennys Reyes off to a great start in AAA, I wouldn't give him a long leash.
*Jesse Crain. You can't get major league hitters out by just throwing 94-mph fastballs, Jesse. Yeah, that's pretty fast, but not fast enough to live without offspeed stuff. So far Juan Rincon and Francisco Liriano have been the only reliable middle relievers. And even that's tenuous because.....
*Kyle Lohse. He did a nice job against Oakland but his other two starts have been ugly. In his first start against Cleveland he didn't even compete. As much as I want to be careful with Liriano, you've got to look into trading Lohse while he still has value.
The only difference is before I would've said trade him for a bat, now I might consider trading him for a reliever.
*Coaching. There's no denying that the offense has been a million times better so far, continuing to come from behind while finding a variety of ways to score runs from a variety of sources. But their situational hitting is still awful, and amateur baserunning mistakes are still too common.
Twice in the last week they've loaded the bases with no outs against an All-Star closer. And both times each of the first two hitters failed to get the run home. Yes, they got a clutch 2-out at-bat to get the job done in both cases, but that's beside the point. One of the most important aspects of winning baseball is scoring runs with men on 3rd and less than 2 outs. And no team has been worse in recent years than the Twins. I don't expect hitting coaches to be able to miraculously make Nick Punto into Chuck Knoblauch or Torii Hunter into Kirby Puckett. But it's their job to make them smarter and more effective situational hitters. They haven't done it so far.

Some other observations from around the league:
*Curt Schilling appears to be back. He's 4-0. Right now the Red Sox look like a better team than the Yankees.
*Speaking of the Yankees, Jason Giambi sure looks good. Last year at this time the Yanks were trying to talk him into accepting a demotion to AAA. Right now he's one of the best offensive players in the game.
*A-Rod is so much better in the field than Derek Jeter it's not even....well, close.
*Remember Rob Bowen, a minor league catcher who got a couple cups of coffee with the Twins the last couple years? He was claimed off waivers by the Padres this spring and he's on their roster. That's not so hard to believe. The fact that he was batting 4th in the Padres lineup last week, is. The guy has a career average of .108. A career on-base percentage of .190. A career slugging percentage of .189. In 2004, he batted .197 in 249 at-bats at AA! And he bats cleanup for the Dads. Managers these days are too fucking lazy.
*The Royals are soooooooooooooooo bad. It's pathetic, sad, depressing, tragic - how could you possibly be a fan? They're absolutely terrible, and they can't even say they're rebuilding or have a future. They're playing a bunch of washed up vets. Joe Mays is D-U-N done, and he's their No. 2 starter.
And the Royals recently added seats to Kauffman Stadium. Yeah, cuz people are knocking down the doors to see this team. Their best young pitcher, Zack Greinke, is currently on indefinite leave as he gets treatment for clinical depression. He's apparently considering quitting (he's 22). If that doesn't sum up the Royals, I don't know what does. Sad, sad, sad.
*The White Sox look pretty good. Fat-ass (Ozzie Guillen's words) closer Bobby Jenks is getting it done, and Jose Contreras and Javier Vazquez have been nasty. Jon Garland is proving that last year was indeed a fluke, but if the other 4 starters are this good it won't matter. If the Twins pitchers dont get their act together they won't be able to compete with the Sox. Not with....
*Jim Thome hitting like a mad-man. He's scored a run in all 15 Sox games. Let's just be happy Rick Reed is retired.
*At this point its the understatement of the century, but Albert Pujols is the best hitter in the game.
In five seasons before this year, he posted a .332 average, .621 slugging pct, 201 homers, 621 RBIs and 401 walks while striking out only 332 times.
In case you're really bad at math that means he's averaged 200 hits, 40 homers, 125 RBIs and 80 walks per season, in the first five years of his career.
And now this year he's hitting .354 with 10 homers and 22 RBIs through 15 games.
It won't be long before he starts getting the Barry Bonds treatment and draws 200 walks a year.
The difference? Pujols is that good without steroids.
He's 26. We might be talking about the greatest hitter ever by the time he's done.