The Rake Magazine

Author: Brad Zellar

  • Serious Weirdness: Wednesday Night/Thursday Afternoon

    Four runs is the magic number in baseball. If you look at the way things break down year in and year out, the team that scores four runs or more wins the vast majority of its games.

    The Twins have now scored three or fewer runs in four straight games (all losses), and are on their way to their fifth straight as I type. Not counting today, they are now 3-8 when they’ve scored four or fewer runs.

    The pitching hasn’t been great –too many long innings, too much nibbling, too many pitches, too many base runners, too many early deficits– but the offense has squandered opportunity after opportunity in every game. We’ve seen lousy at bats (and a seemingly endless series of broken bats), misfortune (and stupidity) on the base paths, non-existent clutch hitting, and stranded runners galore. It has been very, very painful to watch.

    You can go ahead and write off the offensive frustrations as an early slump, and I do expect the Twins will eventually snap out of it. Still, I do believe it’s not too early to conclude that the team needs to shake things up at the top of the order. Alexi Casilla is an entertaining player, but at present –with the exception of speed– he possesses none of the requisites of a leadoff hitter. He’s a bottom-of-the-order guy. Nick Punto? He’s a bottom-of-the-order guy.

    At the moment, unfortunately, the Twins roster is full of bottom-of-the-order guys, and the middle-of-the-order guys are either scuffling or producing in a vacuum.

    Bottom line: everybody’s pressing, and it sucks.

    What do you think are the priorities for management at this point, other than obviously getting some of the walking wounded back in the lineup? At what point do they give up on Ponson and fly somebody in from Rochester? And given that staff in Rochester, who gets the first call? Is it time for Terry Ryan to start thinking about trading some of that AAA pitching talent (Scott Baker) for some offense? If so, who do they trade (Scott Baker) and what could they get (for Scott Baker)?

    How often do you suppose a guy could put up a pitching line like Boof did today (five IP, three hits, and seven walks) and leave a game without surrendering any runs? I’m just going to guess not very often. Seriously, that was a thing of wretched beauty: seven walks and eight strikeouts in five innings.

  • The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!

    What the hell is up with these ridiculous two-game series?

    And what the hell happened to that team that swept three from Seattle on the road?

    Beats me. After stumbling in Kansas City over the weekend the Twins came home and, facing 23-year-old Cleveland pitchers on back-to-back nights, looked anxious and undisciplined at the plate. And as was so often the case in 2005 and early last season, whenever the club is struggling offensively the pitching staff seems to find a way to pitch just poorly enough to lose.

    Tuesday’s 5-3 loss smarted on a number of levels. The Twins of recent vintage have a history of making guys like Fausto Carmona (another great name) look like Greg Maddux in his prime. Carmona was 1-11 in his short career going into his match-up with Johan Santana, yet the Twins seemed to have no clue against him, and it was a painful thing to watch.

    We’ve also pretty much been able to take Santana for granted, particularly at home, and after being virtually bulletproof in the Dome for several seasons the club’s ace has now lost two straight in the Teflon Dump. It’s too early to get alarmed, and Santana has been a slow starter in the past, but every time he loses it just tightens the bolts in the ears of the rest of the pitching staff and ramps up the anxiety level all around.

    This recent patch of turbulence has definitely raised some questions about the Twins’ depth and their dependence on some guys who, last year’s performances aside, are still largely unproven. And it’s kind of scary to consider how much the club needs the bats of aging veterans Rondell White and Jeff Cirillo in the lineup. When you start to ask questions and guys like White and Cirillo are the best answers you can provide you’re heading into some potentially perilous territory.

    It’s a weird     game. Remember that Yankees team that looked so powerful in taking two-of-three from the Twins earlier in the month? They’re now in last place in the AL East, half a game behind the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. At least half of the Twins’ starting pitchers at Rochester would already be in New York’s rotation.

    Britt Robson and I have been going back and forth since the season started about the relative merits of Justin Morneau and Cleveland’s Grady Sizemore. Britt insists he would swap Sizemore for Morneau in a heartbeat. I’m still not so sure. I am, though, sure that I wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger on a Travis Hafner/Morneau trade. Who wouldn’t?

  • Ugly And Slouchy

    Ok, that was brutal. And long.

    Jesse Crain may have taken the loss –and he was awful– but you can pin this one on the offense.

    Here’s the ugliest fine print from the boxscore, and the best indication of the difference between the the two teams in terms of hitting approach: Minnesota pitchers threw 236 pitches; Cleveland’s threw 141. Time and again the Indians had long, tough at bats, fouling off pitches and working deep counts. The Twins, meanwhile, were just hacking away, provoking unpleasant flashbacks of 2005.

    Though I still don’t think the Indians have done enough to shore up their bullpen, you sure wouldn’t know it from last night’s game.

  • These Things I Believed

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    Am I too old to see the fairies dance?

    I cannot find them anymore.

    –Langston Hughes, from “After Many Springs”

    That the light would last forever.

    That a silent abracadabra was the appropriate blessing to be conferred on even the grayest new morning.

    That a dog was both a lantern and a life preserver.

    That a man could escape from the belly of a whale, even without the help of a dog, a lantern, or a life preserver.

    That John Wayne wore his pants pulled up too far for my taste.

    That a good baseball mitt was as beautiful an object of pure design as anything ever produced by an Italian.

    That baseball was one of the few things in America that made perfect sense.

    That a dream deferred accrued interest.

    That a goat was a more worthy subject for a tale than a donkey.

    That a starving man could live on laughter and conversation.

    That a green chair was enchanted.

    That Nick Lowe was the most underrated artist in all of rock.

    That Roddy Frame was a close second.

    That there was always a fish at the other end of the line.

    That there was a bobber at the bottom of my throat.

    That a man could be the ringmaster, walk the high wire, and both be and tame the lion.

    That oblivion was a worthwhile destination.

    That hamburgers could be grown in a garden.

    That beetles were among the planet’s most spectacular creations.

    That impostors almost always wear the crown.

    That the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels

    That a year in the attendant’s booth of a parking ramp provided a better and more sensible education than Plato’s Academy.

    That a heart could not live by breaking.

    That desire could cripple a man.

    That soup was the perfect food.

    That a fingerprint doesn’t prove a fucking thing.

    That Wayne Shorter was the most underrated artist in all of jazz.

    That Freddie Hubbard was a close second.

    That questions had answers.

    That one could persist in asking questions, and survive the answers.

    That all the moral blather in the world could be boiled down to two words: be careful.

    That Sweet’s Desolation Boulevard was a more consistently entertaining record than anything released in 2006.

    That a meager body and feeble hands could save a life, could cradle a heart and keep it safe, and could communicate things the mind and mouth could never find the words to say.

    That a heretic could speak the truth.

    That a parrot could –and should– be taught to recite poetry.

    That Funny Bones was one of the top ten movies ever made.

    That a man’s soul could survive the wrecking ball.

    That if you taught a woman to dance you could kiss her goodbye.

    That on a dark night and the right road, Little Willie John could tear out your spleen.

    That George Herriman’s Krazy Kat was as inspired as anything in literature.

    That the Gilligan’s Island musical Hamlet was better than Hamlet.

    That a closet full of suede Pumas was the mark of a stylish man.

    That you should never stop expecting people to surprise you.

    That all the big, ridiculous things were possible, were tangible, were true.

    That there was magic in human hands.

    That some form of magic was always at hand.

    That this was a world without end.

    I was right about some of those things, maybe even most of them.

    Go ahead and tell me I wasn’t and see where it’ll get you.

  • Dome Again, And Facing Yet Another Left Hander

    The Twins thus far vs. right handers: .304 BA, .375 OBP, .451 SLG.

    And vs. southpaws: .240, .274, .343.

    That last number isn’t much helped by the fact that two of the Twins’ right-handed power guys, Michael Cuddyer and Torii Hunter, are hitting .207 and .208, respectively, against lefties.

    The real problem for Minnesota at the moment is that the guys who are scoring and driving in most of the runs are bunched up in the middle of the order. In almost every respect the piranhas have been a bust, particularly when it comes to getting on base.

    If Joe Mauer is determined to be the sort of hitter that wins batting titles it might be time to move him into the lead-off spot. Seriously. The guy has a .473 OBP, is three for three in stolen base attempts, and is now twenty-five out of twenty-nine for his career. I say move him up, and bat Morneau third, Cuddyer fourth, and Hunter fifth. Morneau is now the only regular on the team with more walks than strikeouts, and if you bat him third you get him a first-inning at-bat every night.

  • Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots…

    …until the bullpen (Version ’06) stepped in and put an end to the mess.

    Torii Hunter, who had 21 doubles in all of 2006, already has eleven.

    The Go-Go Twins: though they’ve been out-homered 23-9, Minnesota now has 46 doubles to opponents’ 25 (and 19 stolen bases to opposing teams’ four).

    Boof is going to have to learn to keep the ball in the yard, but when you look at his numbers from today –seven hits, seven strike outs, and one walk in five innings pitched– it sure seems like he’s close to getting it together. Sidney Ponson he ain’t.

    Kevin Slowey in Rochester: 2-0, with six hits, eleven strike outs, and zero walks in eleven and two-thirds innings pitched.

  • What Is The Sound Of One Hand Clapping?

    One hand, feebly –or perhaps enthusiastically– waving goodbye.

    Have we seen enough of Siddhartha?

    Yes, I believe we have seen enough.

  • Sweep

    Wow. Three straight bunts in the seventh –a couple for base hits, and a sacrifice.

    That’s winning ugly, but I guess it’s still winning. I hate small ball, though. And I hate bunts. I really do. I particularly despise the sacrifice bunt. That sort of stuff is rinky-dink baseball. Or piranha baseball, if you’re buying into that monkey business.

    So much of what constitutes baseball strategy –especially the ingrained, knee-jerk stuff like the sacrifice bunt– chaps my ass.

    I’m not going to argue with 16-for-16 in the stolen base department, however. Quick, though, somebody do the homework and tell me how many of those sixteen guys ended up scoring.

    For the second     straight year the Twins have gotten superb play from their super subs; this season’s cast: Tyner, Rodriguez, and Casilla.

    Speaking of rinky-dink, conventional-wisdom baseball, how about Seattle’s misfortunes with the intentional walk? First Morneau was given an intentional pass to load the bases and set the stage for Hunter’s grand slam on Tuesday night; then, last night Jarrod Washburn intentionally walked Joe Mauer with one out, and the next batter, Michael Cuddyer, doubled off reliever Juan Matteo to give the Twins a 3-2 lead.

    And still Mike Hargrove hadn’t learned his lesson; Morneau was intentionally walked to load the bases for the second time in the inning, and Mike Redmond followed with a two-run single.

    The unexpected    : Carlos Silva (2.00) and Ramon Ortiz (2.05) have lower ERAs than Johan Santana (3.00). Thus far Boof Bonser has been a disappointment (6.89) and Sidney Ponson has pretty much been the disappointment we all expected (8.18).

    The bullpen has had more rocky outings than we’re accustomed to seeing, the team has been out-homered 16-8, and the Twins have already seen a rash of mostly nagging injuries (Rondell White, Jeff Cirillo, Nick Punto, Torii Hunter, Jesse Crain, and Luis Castillo), yet the team is 10-5, coming off its second series sweep of the season, and in first place in the Central.

    All of this is surely good news as the team heads to Kansas City to take on the lowly Royals, and –at least for now– we can all stop worrying about the Twins stumbling out of the blocks the way they did in 2006.

  • These Fragments I Have Shored Against My Ruin

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    The King deputized for the Queen at many sacred functions, dressed in her robes, wore false breasts, borrowed her lunar axe as a symbol of power, and even took over from her the magical act of rain-making. His ritual death varied greatly in circumstance; he might be torn in pieces by wild women, transfixed with a sting-ray spear, felled with an axe, pricked in the heel by a poisoned arrow, flung over a cliff, burned to death on a pyre, drowned in a pool, or killed in a pre-arranged chariot crash. But die he must. A new stage was reached when animals came to be substituted for boys at the sacrificial altar…


    –Robert Graves, The Greek Myths: 1

    In man, unlike the apes, the impulse to use some sort of language is overwhelming.

    –Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings

    This vision of someone, sitting alone in a room somewhere two hundred years ago, something of me moving in his blood, something maybe in the way he squints and puzzles, in the way his mind changes directions, the way words fall from his lips almost unbidden, the way they fly from his fingers like shavings he is whittling from the truth.

    A relative, some pause on the long, crooked road leading to this moment, this old aching confusion and these persistent, nagging questions, this huge desire.

    You, world, I imagine you sleeping and wish you sweet dreams, wish you love, wish you every wish of your darling heart. May you never find yourself leaning on a windowsill at four a.m., somewhere in the bleary midst of a stretch of sleepless nights you’ve completely lost track of, staring out into the dark streets of your neighborhood and trying to will something to move, if only to prove to yourself that you’re not dreaming.

    Can I just tell you how much I hate it when someone says, “On the one hand”? It just means the other hand is coming, and I cannot balance the contents of two hands in my head at one time. How much better when someone –even some old pervert trying to ingratiate himself by offering sweets– offers me the choice of one hand or the other.

    This guy in the elevator today, he’s talking into his cell phone, and his face suddenly gets bright red and he erupts in a spasm of almost alarming laughter. “God damn!” he says to the person he’s talking to. “What did I tell you? Show me a man’s weakness and I’ll break him down like a goddamn card table!”

    At a dusty roadside stop somewhere in Montana, where there was a statue of the Virgin Mary and vases full of bleached, plastic flowers, an old man, who was leaning against the front of a pickup truck and having a smoke, pointed with his cigarette towards the range that ran all the way down the valley and addressed one sentence to me: “A choir’s rumored to be lost in them mountains.”

    Remove one thing, let one thing go missing, and life can become a mighty painful and confusing business in a hurry. We aren’t simple, but we’re full of holes, and this world is full of things that do nothing but make those holes bigger and bigger by the day.

    “It makes me feel like messin’ up.” (Lowman Pauling)

    Books take me away and break my heart in a way different from the rest of the world. It’s the most beautiful, most wrenching sort of heartache: longing.

    Those sad dishes have been sitting there in the sink for months now. Maybe I’ll never get around to washing them.

    Anonymous: wanting a name, or so Samuel Johnson decided. And is that ever beautiful.

    I did receive my telegram, in fact, and it was a lovely thing. I’ll remember it to the end of my days.

    I intend something, dammit.

    Why the hell did I put that calculator in the refrigerator?

    What happened to that old woman who lived in my basement and made me such elegant and astonishing shoes? Gone, like so much else, without a trace.

    The middle of the night, and morning still a long ways off.

    It’s later than I think, I think.

    Shit, it hurts. It still hurts. It hurts all over.

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  • Bummer, But Sort Of A Good One

    I guess this is one of those occasions where you could label a victory a bit of a disappointment. The whole game after the first inning certainly qualified as anti-climactic, but given the match-up going in, the win qualifies as a gift.

    You could already tell that Felix Hernandez was off as he was throwing his last warm-up pitches, and it’s a shame we didn’t get to see even a glimmer of the guy who was so dominating in his first two starts.

    What the hell     do you suppose is up with Joe Nathan? Yesterday marked his third straight shaky outing –he escaped that first Tampa Bay game with a win thanks entirely to the Devil Rays’ baserunning blunders, then got beat around and blew the save in the series finale.

    I guess if you say anything with enough conviction it can almost sound like you’re making sense. This from Seattle manager Mike Hargrove after last night’s game: “A good third base coach is not doing his job unless he is getting guys thrown out at home plate.”

    Okey-dokey.