The Rake Magazine

Category: Sports

  • Make That 'The Meal Deal'

    God almighty, did you see poor J.D. Durbin’s pitching line for the Diamondbacks last night? It was mind boggling: two-thirds of an inning pitched, seven hits, seven earned runs, and a walk (2007 ERA: 94.50).

    This wasn’t a mop-up performance, by the way; Arizona brought Durbin into the game in the eighth, trailing 4-2.

    It’s pretty sad, actually. This was a kid, after all, who gave himself the nickname “The Real Deal,” and he was the rare case of a professional athlete whose cockiness was so dorky it was charming.

    The Diamondbacks designated Durbin for assignment this morning, which means they have ten days to trade him, release him, or put him on waivers.

  • A Laugher, A Mess, A Pleasant Surprise

    Ugly game for Baltimore: six walks, eleven hits, three errors (should have been four); a horrendous start for Jared Wright, and an even more horrendous start for the Orioles, who started a season 0-3 for the first time since 1995. This team looked bad enough in this series to challenge the 1988 O’s, who lost their first 21 games and finished at 54-107.

    Ramon Ortiz was pretty damn good, but I don’t think anybody should get too excited until he faces a better lineup. Still, seven innings pitched, five hits, four strikeouts, and a walk isn’t too shabby, even if his ratio of ground balls (6) to fly balls (11) wasn’t exactly what you’d like to see from him. There were a bunch of pop-ups in there, though, so it wasn’t like Baltimore was hitting rockets all over the Dome.

    A nice series for the Minnesota bullpen: eight innings, four hits, seven strikeouts, three walks, no runs allowed, and a new baby (Joe Nathan’s wife, Lisa, gave birth to a baby girl named Riley Grace at 8:34 pm tonight at Fairview Southdale).

    I listened to this one on the radio, and hearing the Twins on KSTP just doesn’t seem right. Also, the reception over here in South Minneapolis is lousy. This is the first game I’ve heard since the Twins bolted from WCCO, and the whole package seemed sort of cheesy. It reminded me of growing up listening to Twins games on Austin’s KAUS. I don’t know; maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all.

  • The Three-Pointer: Past Time To Call Bullshit

    Regular Season Game #74, Home Game #36, Cleveland 101, Minnesota 88

    1. An Unlikeable Basketball Team

    Unlikeable is putting it mildly. If you still care about this edition of the Minnesota Timberwolves, they are infuriating and aggravating in the extreme. Looked at objectively, it is plain that they lack the integrity to even properly go through the motions in the final weeks of a miserable season. And everyone among the “braintrust” is either stupid or lying.

    Strong words, maybe, so let’s back them up. Kevin McHale fires Dwane Casey for a 20-20 record and a bottom-rung playoff position because the team is “inconsistent.” Randy Wittman flounders to a 11-23 record and every indication is given that he will be rehired next year.

    Tonight, Wittman bemoans the fact that the team gets off to slow starts, especially at home, at beginning of both halves, the first and third quarters. He actually says, “I don’t know why that is.” Well, let me give you a hint, coach: You’ve playing three veterans who don’t respect you, the team, the game, or themselves, at the expense of three kids who you claim are your blueprint for the future. The vets are chronic losers who are playing you and anyone who cares about this franchise for a fool, and you are going along because your personnel guy bartered away a draft pick that you desperately need and the only way to ensure you keep it is by playing this smug, pathetic trio.

    Again, let’s back up these strong words. The Timberwolves were outscored 23-14 during the first 8:28 of the game. Only then did Wittman yank Mike James and Mark Blount in favor of Mark Madsen and Randy Foye. After another 2:11, the team had been outscored 4-2 to trail 27-16 when Wittman pulled the third contemptuous sleepwalker, Ricky Davis, and inserted Rashad McCants. With all three on the bench for the next 6:59, the Wolves outscored LeBron James and the Cavs 18-15, to cut the deficit to 10. With Davis playing the final 6:12 of the half but the other two sitting, they lopped another two points off and trailed by 8, 55-47, at the break.

    Rookie Randy Foye is leading the team in scoring and assists, and rookie Craig Smith is third in scoring and second in rebounds, but Mike James and Mark Blount once again take the floor to start the third quarter. This time Wittman is a whole two seconds faster in giving James and Blount the simultaneous hook after 8:26 and deficit bumped from 8 to 14. When McCants comes in for Davis 1:26 later, the margin is 18 points.

    At the third quarter buzzer, Minnesota is down 20, 80-60. James, Blount, and Davis are a combined 4-20 FG. They collectively have grabbed 2, count ’em, 2 rebounds in a combined 60 minutes and 31 seconds of play. They have doled out 4 assists and committed 5 turnovers. Individually, Bount has 4 points, 1 rebound and 1 assist and is a -15 in 16:54 of play. James has zero points, 1 rebound, 1 assists, and 2 turnovers and is likewise -15 in 16:54 of play. Davis has 7 points, on 2-10 FG, zero rebounds, 2 assists and 3 turnovers and is -21 in 26:43 of play. And none of them played defense worth a damn.

    Meanwhile, Wittman does not play a group I only half-jokingly refer to as the Fab Five, a lineup that statistics reveal to be their best unit: Garnett-Jaric-Foye-McCants-Smith. It includes a superstar who is trying to figure out whether or not he wants to exercise his opt out close at the end of next year, a hungry ‘tweener signed through 2011, and the team’s top three drafts picks from the past two years. Now, truth be told, this unit did not play well together in very limited time during Sunday’s win in Orlando. But that isn’t why Wittman has watched his sorry excuse for a team half-ass its way to a 84-60 deficit with 10:58 left to go in the game–premature garbage time–and *then* decide to play the quintet. No, he’s either purposefully tanking with vets or he’s afraid of standing up to them by appropriately penalizing their lack of effort and absence of pride.

    By the way, the Fab Five immediately went on a 15-4 tear over the next 3: 38 to cut the margin to 13 with 7:20 to play. Cavs coach Mike Brown was nervous enough to reinsert starters Larry Hughes and Z Ilgauskas into the game (and no, he wasn’t totally played scrubs during this stretch–LeBron was in the entire time).

    2. More Verbatim Posturing

    After the game, Wittman said, “They just kicked our rear ends on the boards. There is no other way to put it.” But does anyone expect him to start Madsen, or, god forbid, Smith, instead of the 7-foot Blount next game?

    “Kevin can’t get every rebound. Our guards have to get involved too; instead they stand and watch,” Wittman continued. But does anyone expect him to start Foye, who outrebounded James, or McCants, who outrebounded Davis in five fewer minutes?

    “We had no alertness. That’s what it boiled down to. We didn’t have that sense of urgency we had in Orlando. It is like we were two different teams,” Wittman said. Well, Ricky Davis was the best player on the court in Orlando, going off for 36 points. Is Wittman perplexed or surprised that Davis followed that up with this turd of a game? Does he not know at this late juncture that turning the ballclubs he plays for into “two different teams” is a Ricky Davis specialty?

    When I asked him what he was trying to accomplish and what the meaning of these final games of the season would be, Wittman replied, “I’m trying to lay the foundation of how we’re going to play next year…and it’s not one guy dribbling the ball 11 times, 13 times…We’ve laying the groundwork of how we have to play and they are showing me who wants to play that way and who doesn’t; who can be counted on in tough times when we do get into the playoffs, and who can’t.”

    So if the Boston Bobbsey Twins of Davis and Blount, along with 13-dribbler Mike James are still with the team next year–let alone making any kind of contribution to it–we’ll know this is just more meaningless posturing from the hapless head coach. Meanwhile, the franchise will continue to give you back the stub on your full-priced ticket for the five belly-flops remaining on the Wolves’ home schedule.

    3. And Two More Bronx Cheers

    Although he certainly looked good by comparison and put forth a mostly admirable effort, Kevin Garnett was also frequently abused on backdoor cuts, baseline maneuvers, and muscular tip-ins from Drew Gooden and company as the Cavs outscored Minnesota 40-28 in the paint.

    Last and probably least, Wittman has decided that of all the players on the roster, Trenton Hassell is the most deserving scapegoat for the team’s month-long doldrums. Yes, Hassell has had a pretty lousy stretch of play recently. But why he has played a grand total of 6:50 over the past 11 quarters while the BoTwins and 13 bounces continue to get regular burn probably says more about Wittman and the braintrust than it does about Hassell.

  • Game Two

    I’m using some new-fangled technology to write this swill live from the Dome. I’m pretending to be a real writer, in other words.

    Some sort of big white creature –it appeared to be a dog, with a Target logo on its chest– threw out the first pitch. I guess I wasn’t aware that Target had a mascot, but I’m officially on record as being opposed to the idea of any sort of anthropomorphized creature, no matter how cuddly (or padded with corporate cash), throwing a baseball.

    Boof rolled through the first inning in impressive fashion, striking out two and throwing just eleven pitches, but he started to struggle with his control in the second, and gave up a couple runs in the third on a Melvin Mora home run, and an RBI single by Aubrey Huff. He had 81 pitches through four, despite which the Baltimore hitters inexplicably came out hacking in the fifth, and were retired on six pitches. They didn’t fare much better in the sixth, going down 1-2-3.

    That was it for Boof: six innings pitched, three hits, two runs, three walks, six strikouts, a home run, and a 2-2 game to turn over to the bullpen. I think the Twins would take that from any one of their starters every night of the week.

    [This from the scoreboard between innings: “Johnson Brothers: Proud Sponsors of the Foul Pole.”

    Okey dokey.]

    Baltimore starter Daniel Cabrera was 2-0 with a 2.13 in two starts against the Twins last year, and entering tonight’s game was 5-1 with a 3.25 ERA in seven career starts against Minnesota. This is a guy who is 31-31 (4.75) overall. He was pretty damn effective again tonight, but the Twins kept chipping away and finally went up 3-2 on Jason Bartlett’s 7th-inning RBI single, scoring pinch runner Jason Tyner (in the final innings of the game Minnesota’s seven, eight, and nine hitters were all Jasons), who had just nabbed second –one of five Minnesota stolen bases on the night.

    At which point I said to myself: Game over, I’d say.

    Game over. Neshek gets the win, Nathan notches his second save in as many games.

    See you tomorrow night.

  • Imagine That

    This just seems so wrong on so many different levels.

    I mean, seriously, what the hell?

  • One Down

    Well, other than a nine-pitch first inning Johan’s performance wasn’t exactly pretty, but it was more or less in keeping with the way he usually starts the season. Kind of a strange pitch selection in the early innings –Santana just kept pounding away with the fastball, and didn’t go to the change-up until the Orioles started teeing off on the heater. I suspect he recognized in the bullpen that he didn’t have good command of the change, and when he finally started mixing it in he was missing with it much of the time.

    Still, he was just good enough to keep his Dome streak alive: dating back to 8/1/05 Santana hasn’t lost at home, and in the 24 starts since his last home loss he is 17-0, 2.08 (169.0 ip, 39 er) with 182 strikeouts

    The key inning, of course, was the fifth; after the Twins scratched back to tie the game on a Jeff Cirillo single punched through the right side of the infield, Johan came out and worked only his second 1-2-3 inning of the game (thanks in large part to Rondell White’s splendid diving catch of Melvin Mora’s hooking drive down the left field line). The Twins then came back and scored three runs in the bottom half of the inning to put it away.

    Morneau had a very good, and very curious, game: an opposite field home run and two singles against a hard-throwing lefty; both times he had to run rather than trot, he was gunned down on the base paths –at home (in a play that included a collision with catcher Paul Bako) and at second– by Baltimore right fielder Nick Markakis, who trivia junkies should note was a member of the Greek national team at the 2004 Olympics.

    Check out Morneau’s career numbers against Oriole starter Erik Bedard: 8-14 (.871 BA) with two homers and eight RBIs. Fourteen of his last 35 home runs have come against lefties.

    The bullpen was, as usual, splendid: Three scoreless innings (Reyes, Crain, Rincon, and Nathan) with one hit and a couple walks.

    After Michael Cuddyer’s at bat in the fourth (a single), Bedard had thrown 46 pitches, and 17 of them had been to Cuddyer.

    Morneau and Hunter’s back-to-back shots in the second represented the first time in club history the Twins have had back-to-back home runs on opening day.

    Ceremonial first pitch: Brad Radke

    National Anthem: Paris Bennett, some American Idol finalist with Minnesota ties. Better, I say, than another (to me) anonymous warbler in a cowboy hat and tight jeans.

    They always seem to trot out the bald eagle and the giant flag for opening night, and Radke and his family led “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the 7th inning stretch.

    As expected there were also lots of fine video tributes to Herb Carneal, and a pre-game teaser on the anniversary of the 1987 championship team.

    The Cremation Society of Minnesota had a group in attendance, and Sid Hartman read the paper and indulged in his customary ice cream.

    Finally, the game clocked in at two hours and 56 minutes, which is about a half hour too long for a cranky old dog like me. It was a long-ass day, but bear with me; I should be rounding into mid-season form in a few weeks.

    Tomorrow: Boof vs. Oriole right hander Daniel Cabrera (6′ 9″, 269, according to the Baltimore media guide). Advantage: Boof.

  • Elsewhere

    I spent part of the weekend kicking around thoughts on the coming season with Britt Robson and David Brauer over at On the Ball, Britt’s new home on the world wide web (or whatever the hell you want to call this impossibly dense and increasingly confusing constellation of monkey business).

    Go check it out    .

    I’ll be back here Monday after the game, or perhaps even during the game.

  • Sad News On The Eve Of Opening Day

    I just got word that Herb Carneal has died.

    I’m sure the basic information is up at the Star Tribune by now.

    I honestly don’t know what to say. Going back to my childhood the man’s voice has been a permanent fixture in my life, and he was always a model of modesty, decency, and dignity.

  • The Three-Pointer: T-Minus Ten Games to Go

    Regular Season Game #72, Home Game #35: Miami 92, Minnesota 77

    1. The Fab Five Strike Again

    The Timberwolves were being blown off the court by the supposedly aged Miami Heat. In the space of 67 whirlwind seconds, the Heat had stolen passes, leaked out on Minnesota’s missed shots, and just generally hustled themselves into four layups, turning a three-point deficit into double digits in a blink, running the score to 10-21 with 3:26 to go in the first quarter. It was the latest shoulda-been embarrassment for the club that knows no shame.

    Trenton Hassell was the designated scapegoat, banished to the bench after that flurry, never to return. Never mind that point guard Jason Williams assisted on three of the hoops (not counting the two he dimed before the run) and scored the fourth, while Minnesota point guard Mike James was…where? Never mind that Ricky Davis was guarding either James Posey, who had four points (two of those leak-out layups were his) and one assist, or Eddie Jones, who had six points at the time (Hassell had the other one in non-zone situations). This isn’t to defend Hassell, who played like crap, but did manage to have two points (and a pair of missed FTs) and an assist, plus a rebound and a turnover. James? He went scoreless–not just in the first quarter, but in the entire 19:22 *he* was allowed to play–but had two assists and zero turnovers at the time Hassell was benched. And Davis had zero points, zero assists and a turnover at that 3:26 mark when Trenton was banished.

    Asked after the game if the flurry was why Hassell didn’t return, coach Randy Wittman, without mentioning Hassell, said, “Those four guys I just mentioned came in and gave me effort. Those are the guys who were going to play.”

    Ah, those aforementioned four guys Wittman called out by name–Jaric, Foye, Smith, and McCants–who teamed with KG. *That* lineup: the one that won the game against Indiana in the 4th period and has been used only in high-substitution situations or garbage time, at best, ever since. The lineup that is so obviously meshes best in the present while building for the future, to the point that Wittman’s aversion to it has led to the suspicion that this squad is tanking games to ensure they keep their draft pick. That Fab Five did eventually play together–with 9:31 to play in the second period, a good six minutes after Hassell was given the hook.

    Here’s the way Wittman got to that five: Jaric for Hassell with 3:26 to go in the first. Foye for James, and Smith for KG, with 1:33 to go. End of first period with Minnesota down 11, 14-25. Then, after Antoine Walker hit a six-foot bunny, Posey glided in for another layup, repeated it for a reverse layup, followed by a Udonis Haslem slam, all within the first 2:22 of the second period, Randy Wittman decided to use his most effective lineup down 16-33 with 9:31 to play in the half. He subbed in McCants for Davis, and KG for Mark Blount.

    Boom. McCants drove for a layup. Garnett fouled Mourning, who hit both free throws, but then KG nailed a 17-footer, stole a pass from Walker and fed Foye for a layup as he was fouled (Randy completed the three point play), and McCants blocked Mourning’s shot. A slightly nervous Pat Riley subbed Shaq back for Zo and Eddie Jones in for Posey, which didn’t prevent KG from nailing a 21-footer off a feed from Smith; Garnett making another steal off a Haslem pass and eventually hitting another long J on an assist from Foye, and then, to top it off, Garnett barreling down the floor and just before he was about to go up dumping it back to a roaring Smith, who tomahawked home a slam dunk. That’s a 13-2 run, folks, cutting the lead to six, and although the Heat quickly doubled it on successive treys by Williams and Jones, the tenor of the game had changed from the absurd blowout that was brewing before the Fab Five were allowed to reunite.

    Miami’s lead was 10 when Mark Madsen replaced Smith with 3:47 to go in the half, followed a minute and a second later by Davis replacing McCants, and 59 second after that by Blount subbing in for KG. We wouldn’t see that lineup again. Oh well: Wittman said those guys who gave effort were going to play–he didn’t say they were going to play together. Because you can’t have *too* much effort in one place when your personnel guy has fumbled away a draft pick if you play too well. Miami won going away, 77-92, making Minnesota a net -195 versus their opponents over the course of 17,388 minutes thus far this season. Because the Fab Five got to play a whole 5:44 together tonight and were a +7, that makes them a +46 in 64 total minutes of play this season. That works out to a 34 and a half point win per 48 minutes of play. And, not incidentally, it unites and energizes the team’s superstar by playing him alongside the team’s top three draft picks from the past two years, and a complementary player already signed through 2011.

    When it was noted after the game that this Fab Five seems to have a nice rhythm and flow going whenever they do get the chance to play together, Garnett replied, “They do have a nice flow but if it ain’t on the floor, I have to flow with what’s out there. It is more of an energy group. They are agressive, they play with a lot of energy and a lot of confidence.” And KG, who had 22 points and 20 rebounds in the 15-point loss, mostly had to “flow” with the likes of Blount (33:02, 4 rebounds, -18), Davis (35:14, 5 turnovers, -22).

    2. Tick Tock

    Coupled with the Clippers win, the loss to Miami puts the Wolves five games behind the 8th and final playoff spot with 10 games left to play. Minutes for Foye: 28:38. For McCants: 15:14. For Smith: 14:31.

    3. Talk Amongst Yourselves, or Chime In On the Diamond Diablog

    There will not be a trey following the Wolves-Orlando game on Sunday. Instead, I will post a “diablog” between myself, David Brauer (former sports columnist for the Twin Cities Reader among many other things), and Brad Zellar (the author of the baseball blog Warning Track Power at this rakemag.com site) about the upcoming Twins season on Monday morning. Use the comments section vent and wax eloquent about tonight’s game and the Orlando tilt. Rest assured I’ll be posting Three-Pointers on most of the rest of the Wolves games this season, and into the NBA Playoffs. But this blog has a sort-of generic name for a reason: I’ll be posting about the Twins as well during their season, and if the response is good, may just keep it going until the suddenly coveted NBA draft and beyond.

  • A Pointless Exercise, Uncompleted

    To me, one of the great mysteries of 2006 was how Joe Mauer, a guy who had an on base percentage of .429, somehow managed to avoid scoring or driving in 100 runs. Three guys who hit behind him combined for 337 RBI (Morneau: 130; Cuddyer: 109; and Hunter: 98). Mauer had 86 runs scored and 84 RBI. You’d have to assume that he was on base a good deal of the time when Morneau, Cuddyer, and Hunter were at the plate, and also that some of their RBIs were available to him when he was at bat.

    The stats say that Mauer hit .367 with runners on, .360 with runners in scoring position, and .408 with runners in scoring position and two out. Those are some pretty astonishing numbers, and make it even more difficult to explain his run production.

    Over the winter I was determined to go through every 2006 game to see if I could figure out who exactly crossed the plate on every run-producing play. In other words, who scored those 130 runs that Morneau drove in?

    I kept getting sidetracked on this project –it was an extremely slow process– and didn’t end up getting very far. In the early going, at least, it was all very random, and the runs were pretty evenly distributed up and down the line-up, but that was when I was working with April’s games and the Twins weren’t scoring a whole lot of runs.

    I’m still curious. Maybe somebody else has done this, or does it every year. Maybe this information is available somewhere. Anybody know?

    Here’s some other     random stuff that helps to put last year’s remarkable production in context:

    In 2005 the Twins didn’t have a single player with 100 runs batted in or scored. It was even worse than that: the Twins finished that season 13th in the AL in runs, and didn’t even have a single player with eighty runs or RBI.

    In 2004 it was pretty much the same story –not a single player with 100 runs or RBI. Lew Ford, of all people, led the team with 89 runs, and Torii Hunter was the club leader with 81 RBI.

    Before 2006 the last Twin to drive in 100 runs was Hunter, who finished with 102 in 2003.

    The last time Minnesota had a player score and drive in 100 runs was in 2001, when Corey Koskie pulled it off (100 runs, 103 RBI). Koskie’s 2001 season, in fact, was almost a mirror of Michael Cuddyer’s 2006. Koskie finished with a .276 BA, 37 doubles, and 26 home runs (and 118 strike outs and 68 walks). Here are Cuddyer’s numbers from last year: 102 R, 109 RBI, .284 BA, 41 doubles, 24 HR, 130 Ks, and 62 walks.