I ran my finger down the schedule –I was pissed off, and in a hurry– and if I’m not mistaken the Twins have now been shutout eight times this season. Three of those have been 1-0 games, two were 2-0, two 3-0. and one 8-0.
So, basically if the Twins could have managed any sort of borderline Major League production in those games they very well could have won at least six, and maybe seven, of them. In seven of the eight the starting pitching certainly did its job, at any rate, and gave the team every opportunity to get a win.
That’s all hindsight, of course, which is worthless, but the ugly truth hurts all the more in the harsh light of day. This team has been so close all year to being a very good team, but time and again they’ve pulled disappearing acts that too closely resembled last night’s performance.
I hate the sacrifice bunt, particularly when you’re looking at a 1-0 deficit, but last night, with Lew Ford on first, nobody out, and Nick Punto and his .209 average at the plate in the eighth, it made a certain kind of sense. It also would have made a certain kind of sense to send Johan Santana up there as a pinch hitter, because Punto could not get the bunt down. He couldn’t even come close, and managed foul squibs at the first two pitches he offered at.
Punto’s a fine defensive player, and a guy who’s very much in the mold of the kind of players the organization loves, but if he, with his increasingly limited ability to help the team offensively, can’t lay down a freaking sacrifice bunt he doesn’t belong in the lineup.
He flew out to right and left Ford standing at first, which allowed Luis Castillo to ground into a double play in the next at bat.
When a team loses 1-0 there’s obviously plenty of blame to go around, but that inning was a microcosm for Punto’s season to date, and was a perfect symbol of the team’s maddening inability to manufacture runs when they most need them.
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