Bringing the pain

(You can see Rondell White's enthusiasm for the game in this photo: "Ain't no motherfuckin' way I'm playing 162 of these motherfuckers")

Today I will highlight all that went wrong for the Twins this year. If you're a Circle-me-Bert-sign holding, Lew Ford-loving, Dick Bremer-kool aid-drinking, Piranha T-shirt-wearing weenie who thinks everything written about the Twins should be a bed-time story about how they hustle and play hard and have a small payroll, you might want to avert your eyes. This is gonna get ugly.

Terry Ryan got right to work in fucking this team up.
He picked up the option on Carlos Silva. Seemed questionable at the time, but worked out okay. But then he resigned Lew Ford, Rondell White and Nick Punto. Those three moves alone should probably have called his sanity into question. But it didnt end there.

Ramon Ortiz was signed to a 1 year $3.1 million deal and guaranteed a spot in the rotation.
Sidney Ponson was signed to a 1 year, $1 million deal, and while the public was told he had to earn a spot in the rotation, it was clear he had the team had every intention of making him the 5th starter from the day he signed.

The only move made that wasn't terrible was the signing of 3B Jeff Cirillo, and that turned out to be somewhhat disappointing. There was no real insurance for Punto and White's totally predictable fall.

It's possible the Twins could've survived these moves had they been corrected, or if the rest of the team overachieved, two things that happened in 2006, allowing the team to recover from similar preseason mistakes.

But the Twins are still at this moment running Punto out to 3B every day, even as he threatens some of the most historically bad hitting performances of all time. Meanwhile countless cheap and serviceable hitters changed teams without the Twins getting in on any of it, except for ridding themselves of two infielders (Cirillo and Luis Castillo) who actually had some value.

Again, Ryan comes off as looking woefully inept on this front.

But not all the blame can go to the front office.
Some players didn't live up.
Injuries certainly have played a factor, but Joe Mauer has had a flat-out disappointing year. .294 with 5 homers is good, but with the rest of the lineup what it is, the Twins clearly need more from him.

Yes, he's still one of the top hitting catchers around, but just because he plays a position where less offense is expected doesn't let him off the hook. The Twins didnt draft him No. 1 overall to hit .294 with 5 homers, no matter how pretty his OBP is.

Michael Cuddyer, like Mauer, has been a minor disappointment. His line of .277/.355/.442 is more in line for a 7 hitter, not a cleanup hitter.

I could write for an hour about all the ways Punto has hurt the team offensively, but that's the Twins' fault for expecting a mediocre utility player to be anything more than a terrible everyday player.

I'll admit, I expected Rondell White to be decent this year. Maybe 350-400 at-bats, a .280 average with 12 homers. Never should've brought him back. Fool me once, shame on...well you know.

I also really thought Jason Kubel would have big year, something along the lines of .280-20 homers. He might be closer if Gardy would commit to playing him every day, but regardless of who's at fault, he's been a disappointment.

Juan Rincon's steroids wore off, and now he's terrible.
Dennys Reyes has been effective when healthy, but since he's been hurt a lot, he hasn't been able to recreate last year.

Overuse probably has something to do with it, but Pat Neshek has been getting roughed up of late.

Jason Bartlett and Luis Castillo were maybe a little less effective than last year, but not enough for them to accept any blame for what has happened. Same goes for Johan Santana. Same goes for Justin Morneau. Morneau's average has dropped to .284 from last years .321, and he has hit only 1 homer in the last month, but I dont think you can complain about 29 HRs, 95 RBI and a .527 SLG with another month still to go. Plus his defense has continued to improve. Mike Redmond did a serviceable job of subbing for Mauer when he was hurt.

There are only three players on the entire Twins roster who performed better than I expected they would this year: Torii Hunter, the team's MVP this year, Carlos Silva and Matt Guerrier. I guess you could include Scott Baker and Matt Garza, but I'm honestly not that surprised by the success those two have had.

Last year, with the whole Tony Batista-Juan Castro thing, I just figured Terry Ryan had a bad year. My feeling that he's one of the top GMs in baseball did not change.

But after this year, I'm not so sure. He was in charge of a team with enough talent that competing in the AL Central was a very reasonable expectation. But not only did he fail to improve it, he actually made it worse. He simply failed at his job this year, miserably.

I'm optimistic that he knows this, and has plans in store to make up for it in '08. We'll see.

It was pretty much over, hopefully now it's like, really over

I hope you weren't enough of a sap to fall for the Twins latest "threat" to get back into the AL Central race.
I wasn't.
They won five in a row because the Orioles are the worst team in baseball right now. Once they had to play a real major league baseball team, the Twins once again showed their true colors.
If the Indians were to split their remaining 30 games 15-15, the Twins would have to go 24-5 to win the division.
It's over.

Considering the overall significance of the moment, and all that had happened in the first 132 games and 8 innings, I think Nick Punto's failed bunt in the 9th might be the most significant at-bat for the Twins since AJ Pierzynski's homer off Billy Koch.
It symbolized everything that is wrong with this team, everything that has gone wrong this year.
He's hitting .196, he's terrible, he has no business in the lineup in the first place, but there he is with a chance to contribute by completing a very simple task - get down a bunt. Something your average high school player can do.
And he failed. Again. It's beyond the point of benching Punto for the good of the team, he should be benched for his own good. If Gardy cares about these guys as much as he says he does, he should take Punto out of the lineup to save him from further embarrassing himself. There's a very good chance that this will go down as the worst offensive season by a player in ML history.

*Johan Santana's 4-run, two-homer 1st inning should disqualify him from the Cy Young award. I still think he's the best starter in the game, but he leads the league in homers allowed, and its not like he's just giving up a single, solo homer a game. It's been more than that, and Santana, with an 0-4 record against the 1st place team in the division, hasn't exactly stepped up when the team needed him this year.

*Carmen Cali in the 8th, in a one-run game? Seriously?

*Jason Bartlett leads the Twins in slugging percentage since the All-Star break (.518).

*Joe Mauer is hitting .274 with a .364 slugging percentage since the break. And he's out with hamstring problems again.

*Michael Cuddyer has very quietly failed to repeat last years numbers. He hasn't been bad, but he's hit like a No. 7 hitter, not a cleanup hitter.

*Jason Tyner is on fire. This is the high point of his career.

*Rondell, if you're really going to retire, would you please bring Punto with you. And Lew Ford. And Ron Gardenhire.

Rot in Hell...but rot in prison first

Every time I look at my dogs, I think of Ron Mexico, er, Mike Vick, and what a complete piece of shit waste of sperm he is.

Then I think about how he's going to spend the next year to year and a half tossing gangsta salads and giving hummers for cigarettes, and I don't feel so bad.

A year to 18 months doesn't seem long enough to me, because anyone capable of committing such atrocities is, in my opinion, a danger to society, not just a danger to dogs.

But he probably won't ever play in the NFL again, which probably means he'll find his way back to jail again someday after he gets out.

I mean he is related to Marcus Vick, after all.

Their dad, Michael Boddie, a former army vet who sired Mr. Mexico at age 17, must've been one hell of a dad.

(P.S. - If you don't know anything about the 'Ron Mexico' incident, or the exploits of Marcus Vick, look them up for some entertainment)

Forget the offense, how 'bout the pitching

The Twins have scored a major league worst 112 runs in 35 games since the All-Star break, an average of 3.2 runs a game. The Yankees have scored 271 runs since the break.

One more time for those of you who read slow.
NYY - 271 runs since All-Star break.
MIN - 112 runs since All-Star break.

The Twins should probably be something like 10-25 in those 35 games, but they are actually a respectable 17-18. Just this weekend, they took 2 of 3 from Texas while scoring three runs in the whole series.

The reason has been the starting pitching, Boof Bonser notwithstanding.

Johan Santana's near perfect outing Sunday lowered his ERA to 2.88, while he has posted 191 K's and allowed just 138 hits in 175 innings. He's only won 13 games, but if he can get to 17, and keeps his other numbers steady, he can still win another Cy Young award.

Matt Garza has a 2.05 ERA in 7 starts, and I think he's very close to being an elite starter already. He's probably the No. 2 starter, a potential All-Star.
Meanwhile Scott Baker has been better than even I would've thought possible, and I've been one of the only people defending him. Baker is 6-5 with a 4.53 ERA, and has 73 Ks in 99 innings, in which he's allowed 103 hits.
It'll be interesting to see if Baker remains a part of the Twins long-term plans with so many other young pitchers looking to make their mark. The way he's been going, it'd be tough to leave Baker out of the picture.
Even Carlos Silva has been good this year, with a 4.17 ERA in 25 starts.
The weakest link has been the only guy anyone liked besides Johan before the year, Boof Bonser.
0-8 in his last 12 starts, Bonser's ERA is now at 4.93. He's allowed 165 hits and 53 walks in 144 innings, for an alarming WHIP of 1.51.
The Strib reported this weekend that the team has acknowledged talking to Boof about losing some weight. He's currently at about 260, and the fact that he is always good for the first 3 or 4 innings then runs into trouble certainly suggests stamina could be a problem.
Whether or not that works remains to be seen, but I think Bonser will have a good career, possibly as a closer or set-up man, if he doesn't get it together as a starter.
Really, 4.93 isn't terrible for a guy in his first full major league season. He'll be fine.

The problem the Twins are running into is too many starters.
Looking at their minor league system, there are endless possibilities for the rotation.
Santana
Silva
Bonser
Garza
Baker
Kevin Slowey
Glen Perkins
Nick Blackburn
Francisco Liriano
Jeff Manship
Yohan Pino
Oswaldo Sosa
Anthony Swarzak
Brian Duensing

Seriously, all of these guys are going to pitch in the majors, and all of them could be very good.
Someone is going to have to either be traded or moved to the bullpen.

They should be creative here.
It sounds like the Twins are going to try to correct Juan Rincon rather than get rid of him after this year. With a sudden lack of depth in the bullpen, I guess they might as well, but I'm not optimistic he's salvageable.
Jesse Crain's injuries are quite serious, and I'm not optimistic about him either.

So there will likely be openings in the 'pen.
Silva says he wants to come back, so I say bring him back and stick him in the pen.
I'd probably trade Joe Nathan for some offense, make Liriano or Bonser the closer.
It'll be interesting to see what they do, but either way, they're in very good shape, and while they're still lacking offense in their minor league system, it's better to be overloaded with pitching, I think.

*Roadrunners season over
Despite finishing 3-7 in league play during the regular season, the Renner Roadrunners amateur team, boldly, courageously, brilliantly managed by a terrific .264 hitter named Matt Zimmer, played to the second to last day of the season, finishing in the Class A final four.
We faced elimination in district play, and three times in the state tournament, and kept winning to keep playing.
But our luck ran out Saturday, as we were eliminated by eventual runner-up Brookings.
Playing the state tournament at the Birdcage was a lot of fun. It was a great year, the most fun I've had in amateur ball in a long time.
For the first time in my life, I'm sad the season is over. Usually by this time, I'm ready for it to end. As I write this, I already can't wait for next year. We'll be back in the hunt.

No, Jason Tyner isn't a good player (and a trade)

People, you really have to get it out of your head that batting average is a good way to judge a player.
There's nothing wrong with hitting .300, certainly, and even a .279 average, like the one Jason Tyner carries, can, in the proper context, be decent.
The proper context being like, 25 homers or 100 walks or something.

Jason Tyner is a .279 hitter with no power who draws few walks. He makes an out about 67 percent of the time, and when he does get on base, it's a single or walk 90 percent of the time. Again, getting on base is getting on base, but a guy who can hit a gap or clear a fence once in awhile, say Jason Kubel, is more valuable even if his average is lower.
I will admit to being something of a stat nerd and subscriber to sabermetrics, so you'll have to bear with me as I drop some nerd-knowledge on you.
Tyner's OPS+ this year is 82. For his career it's 62 (really bad). The best OPS+ he's ever had was 98.

I know what your'e thinking. You have no idea what OPS+ means.
An OPS+ of 100 is average. So a guy with a 119 OPS+ is 19 percent better than average. A guy at 79 is 21 percent below average.
Again, Jason Tyner, 82 this year (18 percent below average) 62 for his career (38 percent below average).

If you still think Jason Tyner should be anything more than a pinch-hitter, this, stolen from AaronGleeman.com, should do it.

"Even with an improved approach at the plate, Tyner's complete lack of secondary skills make him one of the rare hitters who can avoid having significant value even when batting .300. Despite a .271 career batting average (including an even .300 with the Twins), Tyner's OPS is just .624. When compared to the league average, that ranks as the second-worst OPS of any outfielder with at least 1,250 plate appearances in the past 50 years:

                      PLAYER     LEAGUE      DIFF
Peter Bergeron         .612       .786      -.175
JASON TYNER            .624       .765      -.141
Doug Dascenzo          .590       .715      -.125
David Hulse            .644       .763      -.120
Darren Lewis           .645       .764      -.116
Eric Owens             .664       .780      -.116
Brian Hunter           .660       .773      -.113
Adrian Brown           .666       .779      -.113
Chuck Carr             .649       .760      -.112
Milt Cuyler            .631       .739      -.109

What's amazing is that Tyner's .271 batting average is the highest of anyone on the above list and four of the other nine hitters batted .250 or worse (including Peter Bergeron at .226). In other words, not only is he incredibly unproductive, Tyner is the epitome of an "empty batting average." Tyner hasn't lost much speed yet and possesses just enough range defensively to be passable in center field, which makes him at best a "textbook" fifth outfielder."

It's nothing personal. I kinda like the guy, too. He's better than Lew Ford. He's a decent pinch-hitter because he makes contact. But DH'ing him is embarrassing, and giving him regular at-bats is well, lame. He is, the above numbers prove, a historically unproductive offensive player.

*The Twins traded Ramon Oritz to Colorado for IF Matt Macri.
Macri, stunningly, appears to be a decent prospect, someone the Rockies liked. He can play 2b, ss and 3b, and was hitting .298 at Double-A before a callup to Triple-A where he went 6-for-9 before the trade. He's probably already a better player than Nick Punto.
I wouldn't count on him being an all-star or anything, but he appears to be a guy who can help at the major league level.
The fact that the Twins got a better return for a failed 5th starter-turned-mop-up reliever than they did for an all-star and gold glove 2B shows how desperate the Twins were to simply clear space so Alexi Casilla could begin training on the job at 2b.
The signing of Ortiz wouldn't have bothered me had it been cheap, like the Sidney Ponson deal, but for $3.1 million I hated it. I predicted before the year he would go 13-11 with a 4.86 ERA, and was only that optimistic based on his strong spring. It looked like he was on his way after a strong start in April, but he started getting hammered and the Twins gave him a quick hook, banishing him to the mopup role in the pen.
Another failed experiment from Terry Ryan, but the acquisition of Macri allows him to save face somewhat.

You Get What You Deserve

With all the throwing things at the TV, gnashing of teeth and calling for the jobs of Ron Gardenhire and Terry Ryan, one thing is clear.
This team is ill-equipped to compete in any division, so acting surprised at this point doesn't make any sense.

I don't know why exactly, but Ryan clearly made the decision that he didn't think he needed any offensive help before the season, that they could win with what they had.
When that proved to be wrong, he still had plenty of time to make adjustments, as Detroit and Cleveland faltered, but he did nothing. His decision to trade Luis Castillo, waive Jeff Cirillo and add nothing is/was clearly a white flag.

People are shouting about how they don't want to watch this team anymore, and I don't blame them. But folks, this isn't about guys failing to meet standards, it's about a team failing to provide itself with any Plan B options once their tenuous Plan A options predictably failed.

I thought Nick Punto might be bad this year, but by bad I was thinking along the lines of .240, not .200 with an inability to even lay down a sac bunt. He is without a doubt the worst everyday player in the major leagues. And this one is hard to blame on Terry Ryan, since Gardy was in such a hurry to proclaim Punto his 3B at the end of last year.
Most real baseball fans refused to embrace the whole 'piranhas' thing last year even when the players it pertained to were playing well. The reason? We knew it was bullshit. We were right.

Dumping Castillo was the right thing to do, because these last two months of playing time will probably prove invaluable to Alexi Casilla as he prepares to play every day next season.
If he's healthy, Jason Kubel needs to play every single inning the rest of the way.
This team is not going to win, so playing Punto, Rondell White or Jason Tyner is a complete waste of time. If Brian Buscher comes back, play him every day. Call up Matt Tolbert and Denard Span, and get them some PT, too.

At least that might be worth watching. Pretending you're still in the race, and thinking the best way to stay there is by playing Punto, White and Tyner, is a fucking joke, and no one is laughing.

Takin' the weekend off

*Seriously, if someone had shown this picture to Terry Ryan or Ron Gardenhire, maybe they never would've let him open the season as the starting 3B.

*You all knew, like I did, that the Twins 11-run burst on Wednesday was a total fluke, and that was proven when they were shutout by KC's Kyle Davies on Thursday.
At this point, I don't care if the Twins are a half-game out, the way they're playing right now, talking pennant race is a joke.
I just hope they're able to stay above the .500 mark and extend their club record streak of consecutive winning seasons to 7.

But I won't be watching this weekend. That's because me and the Roadrunners leave Friday for Yankton to compete in the Class A state amateur baseball tournament.
We are 11-11, but I think most people look at us as a dark horse, as we've underachieved all year. We've got a chance, but the Class A field is loaded this year. And we've got some injuries.
But we made it, so we might as well try to win the thing.
Wish us luck.

Not even this picture can cheer me up

Why do I keep falling for this shit?
A couple 3-2 wins and everyone (including me, I admit) starts going "We're only 4 1/2 games back! We're gonna do it again, just like last year! Here we come!"

Uhh, no.
The Twins pitching is good. Maybe even great.
Their offense blows dog.
This team can't make the playoffs. Not with a Texas-League lineup.

71 runs since the All-Star break, which is 14 fewer than any other team.
Just because the Twins have two elite offensive players (Justin Morneau and Torii Hunter) and two good ones (Michael Cuddyer and Joe Mauer) doesn't mean they can score runs consistently. Especially since those four are all slumping now anyway.

The rest of the lineup is poop. Runny, smelly poop.

One new bat isn't gonna do it. I am actually starting to think not making a deal was the right move. It probably would've been a waste.

It's '05 all over again. They're gonna finish 84-78. If they keep pitching.

A long weekend but a good one

It was quite a weekend.
First there was the bridge collapse. It just didn't seem right to go on a blog and bitch about the Twins in light of that tragedy, so TwinsTown stayed quiet.
Saturday I was at United Bowl III for work. I'm only marginally entertained by Storm games usually, but this was one of the best football games I've ever seen. It was just amazing. I couldn't believe how loud the Arena got. It was an incredible atmosphere. A lot of fun.
And Sunday, the Roadrunners were winning a pair of elimination games to land the final bid to the Class A state amateur baseball tournament.
We had lost seven of eight, and entered the day needing to win two to punch our ticket, which we did. We even beat the regular season league champion on their home field in the clincher. Cool.

So that's why it's been quiet here for a few days, and also why this entry will be short.
I'm just too damn tired. Exhausted. I know that the Twins are miraculously 4 1/2 games out of first. The Twins are still not that good of a team. But at the moment, neither are Cleveland or Detroit, so here we are.

Scott Baker. 3.13 ERA last nine starts. Told ya he'd be good.

Casilla era begins, Garnett era ends

The Twins did the right thing and traded Luis Castillo to the Mets for minor leaguers Drew (Chris?) Butera, son of Big League Sal, and Dustin Martin.
Neither of them are particularly intriguing prospects. Butera, like his dad, is excellent behind the dish but can't hit a lick. Martin has some upside as he's supposedly a great athlete, but expecting him to become more than another Michael Ryan or Josh Rabe would be pushing it.
Will the Twins current lineup suffer without Castillo? Absolutely.
Castillo was exactly what the Twins needed when they got him. They had a black hole at 2B, and Castillo filled it brilliantly, getting on base regularly, working counts, and generally being a well-above average player in his 1 2/3 years on the team.

But, a couple of things.
*While Castillo was a great stop-gap at 2B while the Twins tried to find a young replacement to develop (which they did, more on that later), he was also vastly overrated (if that sounds like I'm contradicting myself, part of Castillo's overratedness is because of how bad his predecessor Luis Rivas was at the end).
For example, while Castillo led the team with a .304 average at the time of the trade, about 95 percent of his hits were singles. Essentially, his .304 average with no extra base power is equivalent to Christian Guzman's .270 with a few doubles, triples and homers. He's also been walking less this year.
Durability was also a problem, and perhaps his bad knees were the reason Castillo didn't always look like he was giving 100 percent.
He had a record-long errorless streak, but his range seems to have lessened in just the short time he's been a Twin.
*Whether it's Kevin Garnett or Luis Castillo, the best time to trade a player is right when he's approaching the decline period of his career. At 31, Castillo isn't 'done' or 'over the hill' or even 'past his prime', but he'll be arriving there soon. Now is the time to move him.
*They weren't going to sign him anyway.
*Alexi Casilla is almost ready. By dealing Castillo, Casilla now has a couple months to get more comfortable in the bigs so he's not starting cold next spring. Casilla won't bat .304 like Castillo, but he might match him in OBP and will surpass him in SLG. He'll also steal more bases and get to more balls in the field.
My guess is that by sometime next year - 2009 at the latest, Casilla will be an impact type top of the order guy.

Terry Ryan says the trade isn't a white flag, or a sign that the Twins are sellers. But they aren't likely to add any significant players tomorrow. If any more moves are made, expect it to be trading Juan Rincon and/or Carlos Silva. It's possible the Twins will take a flier on Morgan Ensberg, mentioned in yesterday's post, after the 10-day designation period expires.

*Are the Twins out of it? No. With so many games left against Cleveland there's time. I just don't think they have a good enough of a team to win 70 percent of their games the rest of the way. But they've won three in a row just when it looked like their season was screwed. We'll see what happens.

*How about Matt Garza (1.37 ERA), and Scott Baker. Baker is now 5-4 with a 4.88 ERA.
When Baker went through a rough stretch in June the voices to dump him got very loud. I continued to defend him. I tried to tell you people he was a good pitcher and would turn out fine. You should really listen to me.
He's pitched five innings or more in 8 straight starts, and allowed fewer than four runs in six of them. His ERA in that time is 3.65.
As for Garza, it looks like he's the stud we hoped for. He was nasty on Sunday.

*As for the Garnett trade, I'm too depressed to break it down, but suffice it to say that, even though it's probably the right thing for the player and the franchise, it's a sad, sad deal for the entire region.
I remember last winter, sitting at Wild Wings watching a horrible, meaningless Wolves game only because there was nothing else on. They were getting killed by Memphis, the worst team in the NBA, and Garnett was all over the place. Offense, defense, transition, knocking balls down, grabbing boards, diving into the crowd, chasing loose balls - in a game where no one would've blamed him for mailing it in, he gave a virtuoso performance, just like he did every single night he wore a T-Wolves uniform.
I remember thinking as I watched it that night, through a haze of Jack Daniels and Coke, that I should hurry up and have a son, so that he would be able to watch Garnett play before he retired.
That's why, even if the trade propels the Wolves to the NBA Finals, it makes me sad.
He was (warning, potentially controversial statement coming) easily the greatest athlete the Twins Cities have ever had.
When it comes to the total package of ability, loyalty, personality, effort and intangibles, Garnett absolutely blows away Kirby Puckett, Fran Tarkenton, Cris Carter, Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, Randy Moss, whoever (no Dad and Greg, Chuck Foreman doesn't even make the conversation).
It's a sad, sad day, no matter what happens in the aftermath.

A Pulse...perhaps

As if the Twins' 13-1 loss to complete a sweep at the hands of the Blue Jays wasn't enough, they followed that up with a 10-4 stinker to open a crucial series in Cleveland.
At the conclusion of that game, even the Twins players sounded less than optimistic about the chances of a turnaround, and the task for the next two games became less about actually winning and more about simply ending a run of "embarrassing" play, as Ron Gardenhire accurately described things.

They accomplished that thanks to a pair of dominant pitching performances by Johan Santana and Matt Garza, and won both games to boot (though the continued offensive struggles meant that neither Santana, who flirted with a no-hitter and fanned 12 in 7 innings, or Garza, who K'd 11 in 6, earned a W).

It's a credit to Gardy that the Twins were able to do that, even if a lot of luck was involved.
I rip on Gardy a lot, and don't apologize for it, because he flat out does dumb stuff...alot.
But managing in the big leagues is a lot different than coaching in the NFL or NBA. The most important part of the job is keeping the players "loose" or whatever other kind of cliche you want to use to describe it. Finding a way to get the team playing well in the worst of circumstances.
Gardy, somehow, is really good at that. In my mind he deserves the credit for these last two wins.

Him and Jason Tyner, of course.
There was absolutely no reason for anyone in the Twins clubhouse to smile on Saturday, until Tyner ended his homerless streak of 1,220 at-bats. It was like the one thing that could've happened in which the players could let loose a little without feeling guilty about it.
Congrats to Tyner on the homer, by the way.
He's a likable, scrappy player, but hitting .270 with no power, little speed and average-at-best defense, this might be his last stint in the big leagues, so his time was running out.

The tough thing is, winning the series probably just complicates things for the Twins. I still think it's too late for them to make a run, if for no other reason than that if even if they do, the teams ahead of them don't look ready to give up ground. Remember last year when the Twins won like 17 of 18 in June and gained 1 game?
For the Twins to get in the race, they need to play .700 ball or thereabouts, and get help in the form of losing from Cleveland, Seattle and the Yankees (Tigers, too, if you still think the AL Central is a possibility, which I don't).

So now the Twins might be inclined to hold on to Luis Castillo, Carlos Silva, Jeff Cirillo and Juan Rincon, player's I think they should be shopping.
The Mets are supposed to be hard after Castillo, while Silva could actually be one of the best starters available at the deadline.
It would be silly to hold onto those guys only to finish 10 games out of the race, and then let them walk for nothing after the season.

Speaking of trades, Ty Wigginton, hitting .275 with 16 homers after hitting .275 with 24 homers last year, was sent to Houston for Dan Wheeler.
Dan Wheeler. 1-4, 5.07 ERA.

Wigginton, a 3B/2B who makes all of $2.7 million, would of course be a tremendous upgrade over Nick Punto, and all it took to get him was a mediocre reliever.
There were reports that the Twins weren't likely to land him because Tampa was asking too much. Garza's name was mentioned as a possible asking price.
It's now clear that that was bullshit, and the Twins are left with their dick in their hand (Punto, that is).

To make room for Wigginton, the Astros designated Morgan Ensberg for assignment. Ensberg was one the best 3B in the game two years ago - hitting 36 homers, but hurt himself diving for a ball last year and he hasn't been the same since.
That pretty much means he's right up the Twins alley. He'd be an upgrade over Punto I suppose, but that isn't saying much.

Fatal Wound

"The great thing about the game of baseball is that you don't have to wait long to play again. You can look at it two ways. You can come in depressed, or you can come back in as a professional. I choose to come back in like a professional and try to figure out how to win a baseball game. I hope the rest of the guys in the clubhouse do the same thing."

Not so much.

Those were Ron Gardenhire's words after Tuesday's 7-0 loss, ensuring that the Twins would lose the series to Toronto. There was still a chance to salvage one game of the set.

Apparently the Twins decided to take the former of Gardy's two options.
The 13-1 loss to Toronto is the kind of game that can kill a season. It was ugly and demoralizing, and it's hard for any team to convince itself that it's in contention when they respond to losing the first two games of a series by getting pounded like that.
13 runs in a game is bad enough, but 11 in one inning is bush league.

This has been a strange year, and while the Twins still have strong pitching, and still could add a bat or two next week, a serious run just doesn't look likely.

Did they really believe they had what it took to compete this year? I suppose if you assumed that Nick Punto and Rondell White would both be solid contributors all year, then yeah, it might've seemed possible back in April.

But the fact that Terry Ryan chose to stand pat all through June and July, when it was obvious that Punto and White weren't going to get it done and there was still time to do something about it, will ultimately be, in my opinion, what killed their chances.

Even if the Twins continue losing, I don't think trading Torii Hunter is necessarily a good idea, because,
A - there's still a chance they could sign him
B - since he's in a walk year, other teams will certainly low-ball the Twins with their offers, meaning the Twins likely wouldn't get a great return
C - Hunter will qualify as a Class A free-agent, meaning any team that does sign him would have to give the Twins two draft picks in compensation, which could prove to be as valuable, or more, than whatever prospects/players the Twins might get in a trade

However, Luis Castillo, Carlos Silva, Jeff Cirillo, and Rondell White should be offered for whatever they can get. I'd certainly add Juan Rincon's name to that list, but he's been so bad this year, he can't have much value right now anyway.
The Twins should also at least listen to offers for Joe Nathan, because someone could always overpay for a closer (and Rincon should be exhibit A that Nathan could go into decline sooner than expected).

*3B Brian Buscher has been called up. He's been hitting well between Double-A and Triple-A this year, and hopefully will be given a chance to play fairly regularly at third, since poor Punto has degenerated into arguably baseball's worst player.

RonDL is back, and other thoughts from a 6-4 homestand

Somewhat surprisingly, Rondell White was activated after Sunday's 7-2 loss to Anahiem, with Garrett Jones sent to Triple-A.
I would've preferred that Jones stayed and Darnell McDonald went down, but because Jones is still learning to play the OF, they sent him down. McDonald will go down when Michael Cuddyer comes off the DL.

I was doubtful that White would ever be back. He's pretty much proven to be as brittle as it gets, and Terry Ryan didn't seem to be in hurry to bring him back. But I got the impression from quotes in the papers that Gardy was ready to bring him up and hold his feet to the fire, find out if he's got a pair or not.
As long as he's being paid, make him suit up. It's disappointing that two veteran hitters who have potential to be good hitters (White and Jeff Cirillo) are both pussies (Cirillo refuses to play every day, even as Nick Punto's average falls near .200).

But as long as White is coming back, it has to be viewed as sort of a good thing.
I doubt he'll hit .321, as he did last year in the 2nd half, but if he hits even .270 with a homer here or there, the Twins lineup will be improved. Which says alot about how bad it can be right now.

*Darnell McDonald, the OF called up when Cuddy went down, is worthless, by the way. Probably even more so than Lew Ford and Jason Tyner. Just think if Josh Rabe was here. We'd be talking about four of the worst OF in baseball on the same roster.
It's funny, Ford has been hitting a little better lately, yet the Twins seem to finally be distancing themselves from him. I wouldn't be surprised if he's released before the season ends.
Garrett Jones, who fans want to see because he has a lot of minor league homers, is pretty worthless, too. So is Rabe. And Tyner. And Ford. And Denard Span.

Sign Torii.

*Juan Rincon's best days are behind him. He just doesn't have the stuff or command he used to. That's too bad, because with Jesse Crain questionable to ever return, the Twins once-mighty bullpen depth is suddenly a little thinner.
It's only fair to point out, as KSTP radio's Dave Thompson did, that Rincon's numbers have steadily declined since he was busted for steroids a couple years ago.
When Thompson said as much on the air it set off a minor scandal within the Twins brass, with Gardy complaining to the team president, saying, "He's supposed to be with us."
Umm, actually dumbass, he's supposed to be a journalist, not a cheerleading PR shill.
How about instead of worrying about what some nobody says on the radio you worry more about your team being unable to beat quality teams in its own division. Shithead.

*Hopefully the signing of RonDL doesn't mean Ryan won't still consider a trade. Because the pitching has been really good lately. Good enough to compete, I think.

*Having said that, the homestand was a disappointment. Their longest home stretch of the year to open the 2nd half, and they go 6-4. Not bad, certainly, but a missed opportunity. They're going to have to figure out how to beat Cleveland and Detroit to have a prayer.

This is bullcrap

I'm not saying it's over, because the Twins were never going to catch Detroit anyway, even if they had swept this goddamn series.
The Tigers are the best team in baseball.

But goddamnit. Seriously, god-fucking-dammit. Three losses, all by one run.

There are bright spots - most notably that the Twins have gotten six consecutive quality starts to open the 2nd half - Scott Baker is all of a sudden looking like a pretty good pitcher.

But they can't fucking hit, and Terry Ryan, who has my vote for worst GM of the year, won't do anything. This is a team that has enough pitching to compete, but is being shortchanged by a stubborn GM who refuses to improve the offense.

Just flat out wont' do it. Yeah, RonDL White is coming back. Awesome. Jason Tyner. Lew Ford.

Fuck you Terry Ryan. Thanks for wasting our precious time.

I am 8-for-26 at the plate, which is like, over .300

So we're playing Brookings, and in the 6th inning, I notice the leftfielder is playing way in on me.
Way in.
I'm not suggesting that I deserve a lot of respect at the plate but seriously, dude was like 20 feet behind the dirt.
Pissed me off.
So I doubled over his head. Would've been a routine fly-out to left probably, but since he was way in, it burned him for a deuce.

Fast forward to the top of the 10th. It's 4-4 we're tied, two outs, man on second, Zim at the dish. Outfielders are now playing straight up, and Zim responds with a base knock to right-center, scoring the go-ahead run. Two hits later, Zim scores the insurance run (referring to myself in the 3rd person rules, by the way).
Game winning hit, right?
Well, no.

Three in the bottom of the 10th by the Cubbies, and we lose.
That sucks.

I tell you this story for two reasons: One, to brag about what an awesomely mediocre hitter I am, and two, as an excuse for why I don't have much to say about the Twins 1-0 loss to Detroit.

This is what I'll say, having read the recap.
When you're in a race, and a rookie 5th starter holds Detroit to 1 run, and you lose, that hurts. And the Twins have done it twice now, blowing great starts by Matt Garza and Scott Baker. Goddammit.

And Nate Robertson isn't even that good. You're at home. Score a fucking run.
That hurts. Not so much because it was against Detroit, because I don't think the Twins will catch Detroit anyway, but because it was a missed opportunity - an opportunity to keep making up ground and to keep their winning streak going.

Shit.

A's fold, Cubs are all in

The first significant trade went down Monday, as the A's sent Jason Kendall to the Cubs for a minor league pitcher and backup catcher, former Twin, Rob Bowen.
Apparently losing four straight to a so-far mediocre Twins team was enough for Billy Beane to decide that his A's don't have another big second half run in them, and the fire sale is on.
Well, maybe fire sale is a strong choice of words, but there a few other players the A's could be looking to move, and the Twins could be in play for them.

*Shannon Stewart
Yes, we all thought Stewie was set to retire after spending another season wasting away on the DL, but he has, somewhat miraculously, been one of the A's best offensive players this year, hitting over .300 with 7 homers and 8 steals. He's stayed healthy all year.
That might make it seem like Stewie would be a great, no-risk addition, and it could work.
But my guess is that a big reason Stewart has been healthy this year is that he hasn't had to play any games (except the few at the Metrodome and Tropicana) on turf. His injury problems have always been foot and leg related, and playing on grass for most of his games is probably a big reason he's been able to stay healthy.
If the A's were willing to give him away for virtually nothing, he could still be a good fit at DH, but I'd be surprised.

*Mike Piazza
A rather serious shoulder injury has sidelined Piazza for most of the year (he's now ready to go), and while that makes him a big question mark at catcher, where the Twins wouldn't need him anyway, reports are that his bat should be OK.
The Twins flirted with Piazza a year ago, settling for RonDL White while Piazza signed with San Diego, so they might be interested. Reports are that the A's would be willing to eat some of his salary, of which $3.8 million remains this year.

*Dan Johnson
I only mention him because so many fans keep bringing him up. Won't happen. He's under contract, he's not arbitration eligible, and he's a lefthand hitting first basemen. We have one of those.
Yeah, he could DH, but both Piazza and Stewart are more likely, and make more sense.

Don't know that the odds are great on any of these, but the Kendall deal at least shows that the A's are a willing seller.
I just hope the Twins are buyers, or at least window shoppers.

A perfect start

The Twins set a new high-water mark with Sunday's win over Oakland, as they are now six games over .500, at 49-43.
They are 5.5 games back of the wildcard, and 6 games back of 1st-place Detroit.

Could there possibly have been a better way to kick off the second half? The Twins are an emotional team, prone to momentum swings in either direction. That makes this 4-0 start more significant than it might be on other teams.
They often play better than they should because they don't know any better, they just needed something to get them in that mindset, and this could be it.

The calls for a firesale will hopefully be quieted at least for awhile, because the Twins are clearly in the wild card race.
Johan Santana is going to win the Cy Young again, and Boof Bonser and Scott Baker have put together a decent run lately.

The upcoming series against Detroit is pretty big. If they lose 2 of 3 it's not the end of the world, but if they win 2 or 3, they're going to be in serious business.

Get to work time

Last year's unlikely run to the AL Central title made optimists out of everyone, and that's understandable. The Twins have less games to make up than they did at their lowest point last year, and have more time to do it.
So that's a good thing.

But it still looks to be a daunting task - mostly because the Detroit Tigers are quite clearly the best team in baseball. The Twins best hope was that the Tigers would struggle while Kenny Rogers, Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney were on the DL and Gary Sheffield struggled.
It didn't hurt them a bit. If anything, the Tigers should be better in the second half than they were in the first.

But I emphasize should.

Plus, there's the wild card, and I'm not as sold on the Indians, Mariners, Yankees or A's as I am the Tigers.

Bottom line, a playoff spot is still a fairly realistic possibility for the 2007 Twins.

As for the first half, in which the Twins posted a non-disastrous but uninspiring 45-43 record, well, there were ups and downs.
Justin Morneau and Torii Hunter are having MVP seasons. Jason Kubel and Jason Bartlett are improving after slow starts. They survived a month-long injury to Joe Mauer. Michael Cuddyer is on pace for 100 RBI (Hunter and Morneau are on pace for about 140).
Johan Santana, when you consider his lifetime pre and post allstar game splits, is having his best season, and if he has the kind of second half he usually does, he'll win another Cy Young award.
The bullpen has seen a major injury to Jesse Crain, a minor injury to Dennys Reyes, and a noticeable decline in Juan Rincon, but is still one of the best in the league thanks to the continued emergence of Pat Neshek and Matt Guerrier. Reyes has also pitched closer to last year's form since coming off the DL. Carlos Silva has been pretty decent despite a 6-10 record.

That's the good stuff. There was, in my opinion, more bad stuff.
Ramon Ortiz and Sidney Ponson didn't work out. What a shocker.
Nick Punto, while gold glove caliber at 3B, is a less productive hitter than your typical NL pitcher.
Rondell White should be ashamed to accept his salary, playing only 3 games and turning the DH spot, or LF spot (whichever one Kubel isn't occupying on a particular night) into a black hole.
Luis Castillo is hitting .305, but with fewer walks and no power, that makes him appear more valuable than he really is.
Jason Tyner has started 14 games at DH - and Terry Ryan should be very embarrassed by that.
In Punto, Bartlett and Castillo the Twins have three of the bottom seven hitters in the AL in slugging percentage. If Tyner had enough at-bats to qualify they'd have four of the bottom eight.

How the hell can the Twins compete with the two highest scoring teams in the AL (Detroit and Cleveland) with four .300 slugging percentages in the lineup?
Answer: They can't.

Luckily, Bartlett looks likely for a much better second half, as does Kubel, who has slugged at a near .500 clip after going his first 108 at-bats without a dinger.
Interesting to note is that Kubel is hitting .300 against lefties, yet Gardy still benches him for Lew Ford vs. lefty pitchers. The same Gardy that kept insisting Jacque Jones was 'doing fine' against lefties and refused to platoon him when he was hitting around .200.
That's just poor, blind managing. They keep these stats for a reason, Ron. Open up a book.

Will the Twins add a bat? Depends. I think Ryan was going to use Rondell White's return as an excuse not to make a move, but it should be obvious by now that White isn't going to contribute significantly, and I question whether or not he even wants to.
So that might force Ryan's stubborn hand.
Dmitri Young, Shea Hillenbrand, Ty Wigginton and Kevin Mench are among the mid-level bats the Twins could probably get.
I think unless the Twins open the second half with a 3-10 run, something will happen. Just because Ryan hasn't acknowledged anything in the paper doesn't mean he's not going to make a trade. He never tips his hand, and usually works in secret, so to speak.

Another wild card is the starting rotation. Matt Garza's strong debut suggests an outside chance he could provide at least the kind of boost Boof Bonser did last year, and maybe the kind Francisco Liriano did.
Bonser himself has been inconsistent, but clearly has the ability to be a No. 2. Scott Baker also had some nice moments mixed in with some horrible ones. If those three can get some consistency, the Twins have a shot.

It's going to be tough. And it doesn't look good. But as someone once said, "That's why they play the games."
He also said, "You're with me, leather."

Suck it, Sox

White Sox, I mean. In this case.

While my wife and I were on our honeymoon back in May, we had so much fun going to all these different ballparks that we looked at the schedule and said, 'Hey, the Twins have a doubleheader in Chicago the weekend after the 4th - maybe we should go.'

But we didn't. And that's too bad.
All we missed was the Twins scoring 32 runs in a two-game pistol-whipping of the sinking Sox.
Would've been a good day to be at the park.

A few thoughts on the twin-bill sweep.
* While the retards on FSN tried to spin the 20-14 win as some kind of great moment in team history on the Game 2 pregame show, it was actually anything but.

When the final score of a major league baseball game is 20-14, that is an embarrassment to baseball. Neither team should be particularly proud of it.
It reminded me of a game in 1996 when the Twins beat the Tigers 24-11 at Tiger stadium, powered by a 5-hit, 5-RBI day from catcher Greg Myers.
Twins manager Tom Kelly apologized to the fans after that game, and his team won by 13 runs.

Scott Baker allowed seven runs in five innings and got the win. Last week he gave up one run in a complete game and took the loss. It's a funny game.

*Carmen Cali was called up to give the team an extra arm in the bullpen, and he stunk up the joint in his first outing. With Dennys Reyes pitching well again, I wonder how long the Twins will decide they need him.

*Jason Kubel could be poised for a big second-half. He's up to .255 with 7 homers and 37 RBI. If he keeps hitting in the second half, he could end up around .280 with 15-20 homers and 80 RBI, which is what a lot of people were hoping for to begin with.
My only concern is that a certain boneheaded manager will start taking at-bats away from him when Rondell White comes back from the DL.
Hopefully Joe Mauer's 4-hit day is a sign he's about to warm up, too.

*What the hell happened to Jermaine Dye? Nobody expected him to repeat last year's numbers, but .215?

*Three bombs for Justin Morneau. He continues to take care of all those embarrassing streaks (19 years without a 30-homer guy, 34 years without a 3-homer game). Would've been awesome if he'd hit No. 4 late in the game.
The fact that he hit one to right, one to center and one to left suggests he's really seeing the ball well.

*Nice debut for Matt Garza. It's just one start, but my guess is he's here to stay. With his stuff he has a chance to make a big impact, bigger than Kevin Slowey or Baker for sure.
Garza showed his fastball has enough late jump that he can use it to put hitters away, and his curve looked pretty good, too.

*I did a double-take when I looked at the screen and saw .273 under Michael Cuddyer's name. He's on pace for over 100 RBIs, and batting average isn't much of a way to grade cleanup hitters, but still, that surprised me. And his slugging percentage, which is a good way to grade cleanup hitters, is only .439.
Of course, he homered to right on the next pitch.

*Lastly, the fact that the Twins won the game 12-0 while essentially playing 8-on-9 should end Ron Gardenhire's inexcusably stupid insistence that he carry three catchers on the roster.
Gardy's worst nightmare has always been that if he puts Mauer and Mike Redmond in the lineup at the same time one would get hurt and (GOD FORBID, OH NO), they'd lose the DH for a game.
That happened, in the 1st inning even, and Garza had to bat. He struck out, grounded out, and laid down a nice sac bunt. The Twins scored 12 runs.
The nightmare scenario that Gardy has dreaded more than a death in the family turned out to be - get this - a total non-issue. It didn't matter.

Every roster spot is precious. There are only 25. That 25th spot can be a mop-up long reliever, or an extra lefty setup man, a pinch-hitter, an extra left-handed bat, a utility guy, a 5th outfielder....pretty much anything would be better than a 3rd catcher who will get at most 1 start every two weeks.
And yet Gardy wants to do that, just because he's terrified that the non-catastrophic scenario that played out last night might happen. It usually doesn't.
And when it did, nothing happened.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Goddamit Neshek

So he's probably not going to the All-Star game now. The guy's entitled to a bad outing now and then, but this time the timing was pretty bad.
The Twins are trying to avoid losing 3 of 4 to an average Yankee team in Yankee stadium, and they'd not only fought back from a 5-2 deficit but also used excellent relief pitching to survive another bad outing from Kevin Slowey (the youngsters are going through some growing pains here, people).

To be honest, as much as it would suck to have some photo-taking, sushi-eating, math whiz take the last All-Star spot, Hideki Okajima had a 0.88 ERA last time I checked.
Neshek, after Thursday's two-rum Matsui bomb, is about twice that (I'm too lazy to look up stats for either guy right now. Lazy and pissed off).

At least the Twins are now going to play a very shitty White Sox team. If they can get to the All-Star break a couple games over .500 they'll be fine.

But still, goddamit, Neshek.