Right Now, I Will Say Only This: Patience, Pilgrims

The Twins are 1-3. So are the White Sox and the Yankees. The Detroit Tigers are 4-0.

Should we draw any conclusions from this information? We should not. Of course we should not. Surely there is not one among us who is that foolish or that rash.

I have promised myself that I will not bitch until at least late April, and that I will not panic until June.

Based on the very small sample size of the data at hand we can certainly say that the team’s pitching has been…well, it has been mostly shit. I have faith that it will get better, much better.

What choice do I have? It is early April, and this is a month of faith and promise, of potential and resurrection. For a baseball fan, April is delusion’s safe harbor.

I hope that this will not be construed as bitching, but like many other Twins fans I cannot understand the decision to send Jason Bartlett back to Rochester. It doesn’t make a lick of sense to me, but for the time being I will accept that decision, and I will accept Juan Castro at shortstop.

I’m also going to go out on a limb and express my modest support for Tony Batista, who does not look nearly so fat as advertised. I understand the grumbling about the man, and understand that he has a career on base percentage of .298. But I also find it somewhat impressive that Batista had 32 home runs and 110 RBI for the 2004 Montreal Expos, a team that went 67-95. He has hit thirty home runs three times in his Major League career (and forty homers once, in 2000, for Toronto) and driven in 100 in four seasons. His career slugging percentage is .458. He is allegedly only thirty-two years old, and is said to be a first-rate clubhouse character.

Yes, I suppose Batista will make a lot of outs. There are, though, plenty of other current Twins who have a history of making a lot of outs, and not many of them (none of them, in fact) have hit thirty home runs. Ever.

One of my all-time favorite Twins was Gary Gaetti. Gaetti made a lot of outs. He had a career OBP of .308. He also hit a shitload of home runs. Granted, Batista can’t play third base the way Gaetti could, not by a long shot, and that fact probably has a good deal to do with the fact that Juan Castro is now the team’s starting shortstop rather than Jason Bartlett.

Still, it’s early April, and I’m going to reserve judgment on Tony Batista. My earnest hope is that he will not be nearly so bad as so many people seem to hope he will be, and I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would hope such a thing.