Turn that frown upside down Twins fans.
I could, and should, just leave it that, because I really didn’t get much of a chance to pay attention to today’s game. I needed to roll a rock up a hill, so I had to take a pass on sneaking away to the Dome. I also felt like I needed a break, quite honestly. It’s been a tough several days in Twins Territory. And in a lot of ways, with Juan Rincon’s suspension, the stadium business, and the mini-skid on the playing field, it felt like the return of the old familiar Good News/Bad News Bears doppleganger Twins.
Still, I seldom miss a game. I pretty much always find a way to either attend in person, listen on the radio, or watch on tv, but today, for only the second time this season, I had to make do with a half-assed attempt to follow the action on my computer at work. That’s not a very satisfying experience, quite honestly, and I never quite have the feeling that I’ve actually watched or listened to a game. It’s sort of like playing pull-tabs; every time the screen refreshes you sort of hold your breath, and as things unfold in maddening slow motion you often get the feeling that nothing ever happens in a baseball game. It certainly felt that way through the early innings today, and I thought, this is what my wife must feel like when I make her sit through a game.
When I saw the line-up Ron Gardenhire was sending out there against C.C. Sabathia I have to admit I didn’t have much in the way of expectations. No Mauer or Morneau, no Jacque Jones. Luis Rivas back out at second. I’m sure they must have done it a few times last year, but I can’t remember the last time the Twins went with an entire line-up of right-handed hitters.
After Radke got out of the first couple innings without giving up a run I got sidetracked and didn’t get a chance to check back until the sixth inning, when the Twins were suddenly up 6-0 and Sabathia was long gone. I pieced together what had happened as best I could, and then sort of forgot about it again. When I finally took another look it was over. A nice, tidy two hour and twenty-six minute baseball game.
Just looking over the boxscore, though, it looks like it was a much more interesting contest in real time. Radke obviously pitched well –complete game, three hits, eight strikeouts and no walks. I don’t feel like figuring out his game score, but that’s certainly the best pitching performance by a Twins starter so far this year, and after the first couple games of the series I thought this Cleveland line-up might whack the ball all over the yard against Radke.
It’s weird to see that the Twins scored nine runs, yet still managed to strand ten runners. That’s a lot of guys on base: thirteen hits, five walks, and two hit batters. It’s also curious that Rivas, batting in the ninth slot, walked twice; and Jason Bartlett, despite going 2-5 with two RBIs and two runs, still managed to strand five runners.
I see as well that Gardenhire got ejected, and Matthew LeCroy demonstrated why he deserves a spot on the roster. The bullpen got a breather. And Terry Tiffee did more at the plate in one game than Corky Miller is likely to ever do in a complete season.
I guess the only bad news on the day is that the White Sox eeked out another one-run game against the Royals. With the ridiculous unbalanced schedule, before it’s all said and done that woebegone team of curs in Kansas City might well end up handing the division to somebody.
ON AN UNRELATED note, John Garry –a scion of one of my hometown’s legendary masculine dynasties– and I have been kicking emails back and forth for the last couple weeks trying to figure out which player in Major League history has managed to hit the most homeruns with the fewest RBIs. John, I’ll confess, has done most of the leg work to date (okay, all of the leg work), although most of his findings so far have confirmed many of my own suspicions.
Specifically, we –or, once again, rather John– were looking for full-time players with a roughly one-to-two ratio of homers to RBIs. I’ve pored through Total Baseball trying with no success to find anybody in the modern era who has managed to slip below that ratio. I also sort of thought that for the sake of integrity the player in question should have hit at least ten homeruns. John figured the likely candidates had to be either power hitters who played on truly lousy teams, or leadoff hitters with some power.
Here were some of John’s early findings:
Harmon Killebrew, 1963: 45 HRs/95 RBIs (and only 18 doubles)
Dave Kingman, 1973: 24 HRS/55 RBIs
Steve Balboni, 1990: 17 HRS/34 RBIS (John: “The key to his success was a .192 batting average. He had 51 hits and 17 of them were homers.”)
Interestingly enough, the only other guy John found with a one-to-two HR/RBI ratio played on the same team –the 1990 Yankees– with Balboni. That year, Kevin Maas had 21 homers and 41 RBIs, and the Yankees lost 95 games. (John: “They were fourth in the league in homeruns and last in runs scored.”)
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