Sure, the Twins scored two runs against a lousy Royals team, but look on the bright side: Last year they would have given up three.
Good news: The Twins are now 4-1 in one-run games.
Bad news: They’ve now scored three or fewer runs ten times, and are 1-9 in those games.
There, I’ve posted. Now get off my back; the 800-pound gorilla’s starting to feel a little bit crowded.
I was walking around New York this past weekend and I kept seeing cabs with these snazzy ESPN sports tickers scrolling across their roofs. I saw the Twins-White Sox score on one of the things late Friday night, and then saw what I thought was the same score Saturday night. I just assumed the information didn’t get updated very often. I had no idea until I got back here this morning that the Twins essentially played the same shitty game three days in a row.
I refuse to believe this is ‘here we go again’ until it’s so obviously ‘here we go again’ that I can no longer deny that it is, in fact, ‘here we go again.’
Or something like that.
In the meantime, I’ll have nothing further to say until this team atones for its sins by winning another series.
Or at least another game.
I don’t know if there’s a manager in the Major Leagues that gets a blanket pass from his team’s fans.
Maybe, you’d think, Joe Torre would, but anybody who’s ever spent any time in New York listening to sports talk radio (don’t ask) knows that every move Torre makes –and doesn’t make– is as scrutinized and subject to fanatic screeds as the decisions Ron Gardenhire makes here in Minnesota.
I’ve thought about it for years, and I still can’t make up my mind about what sorts of qualities, characteristics, and personality traits I’d want were I hiring a manager for my imaginary baseball team.
There have been plenty of instances where obvious boneheads have managed excellent teams, and even managed clubs that won world championships (Bob Brenley being the example that comes immediately to mind).
Once upon a time –not all that long ago, really– I used to be able to rattle off the names of every manager in the Major Leagues. Right off the top of my head, no problem. A lot of those once-upon-a-time managers were as famous as the players on their teams, and recognized primarily for their fiery and colorful personalities and combativeness with umpires. I’m thinking of guys like Leo Durocher, Earl Weaver, Billy Martin, Dick Williams, and Tommy Lasorda. Or old warriors like Gene Mauch.
I still haven’t made up my mind whether any of those guys were great managers or not. Among that group there were certainly a lot of different philosophies, many of them tailored to the sorts of teams they managed. Looking over their career records makes it hard to draw any definite conclusions, other than that when they had good players to trot out there every night they tended to win.
I think the same thing is probably just as true today, but I also suppose it’s possible that a truly lousy manager (Butch Hobson, for instance) can actually sabotage a decent team’s chances to win.
I also know that today there an awful lot of pretty anonymous characters out there wearing manager’s uniforms in Major League dugouts.
What really are the fundamental qualities of a good manager?
One of them, I’d think, would be the ability to recognize talent in his organization and to make the best use of the talent he does have. That seems pretty obvious, but it’s always surprising to me how many guys who get these jobs fail even that most basic of tests.
With all the money in today’s game, and the big egos that come with it, more and more it seems like the job really does boil down to the job title –an awful lot of time and attention has to be paid to managing disparate personalities in the clubhouse and on the field. People always talk about leadership and chemistry with regard to big league clubhouses, and it’s struck me in recent years that with almost every team those intangibles flow first and foremost from the manager’s office.
Other than personnel decisions, it’s a manager’s strategic approach –or lack thereof– that leads to the most debate among fans: making out the batting order, calling for sacrifice bunts or hit-and-run plays, stealing bases, and the handling of the pitching staff. All of these decisions are a constant source of debate, and tend to look brilliant when they work out and counter-productive when they don’t.
The bottom line, of course, is the bottom line: Whether a team wins or loses. When there seems to be a consistent pattern to the way a club wins or loses I suppose you can draw some conclusions about how much of the credit for that goes to the manager and how much to the players.
I watch a lot of baseball games, though, and have watched a lot of baseball games over the last several decades, and I pretty routinely see managers –even supposedly good managers– make decisions that have me scratching my head.
So, you tell me: what is that makes a manager good? Who are the great ones in the Major Leagues today, and why? What do you have against Ron Gardenhire, or what might you say in his favor? And, finally, if you ran the zoo and could pick anyone, who would you hire to manage the Twins?
I’m headed to New York for a few days, and, weather permitting, might take in a Yankee game.
Before I go, though, I’d also like to discuss what the hell seems to be wrong with Jesse Crain. I did think it was strange when his strikeout rates –which were always pretty impressive in the minor leagues– declined so drastically last year, even as he was inarguably effective.
I’ll tell you one think I noticed the last couple years that seems to be missing from his approach so far this season: Last year in particular he was one Minnesota pitcher who was never afraid of pitching inside, and his above-average fastball was a great weapon for keeping opposing hitters from crowding the plate. I remember remarking that I couldn’t remember the last Twin pitcher who brushed back so many batters, usually early in the count.
I haven’t seen much, if any, of that so far in 2006, and Crain looks to me like he’s consistently finding too much of the plate with his pitches. I think it might be time for him to get back in touch with his inner Don Drysdale.
That bottom of the tenth inning had to be one of great examples of karmic retribution in the history of professional baseball, and it sure as hell had to be exactly the sort of scenario Ron Gardenhire started dreaming about the moment he heard the news that J.C. Romero was no longer a Minnesota Twin.
And wherever this odyssey leads, and whatever else this team serves up in the way of entertainment and disappointment, it’s going to be mighty hard for the Twins to deliver a stretch of highs and lows to rival the first two weeks of the season. In five days they’ve already played two of the best games –and staged two of the greatest comebacks– in recent memory.
Honest to God, Saturday’s 6-5 win over the Yankees and tonight’s game of Rock Em Sock Em Robots againsts the Angels were spectacular examples of why baseball is the greatest game ever invented, and why anybody who bails on a game in the middle innings deserves to be banished from the ballpark forever.
We can save the discussion of just how the hell Kyle Lohse manages to hoodwink Major League arbitrators year in and year out for another day. For now, though, let’s just try to be grateful that J.C. Romero is wearing an Angels uniform, and that Mike Scioscia was fool enough to send him out to the mound in the tenth inning of a tie game.
Maybe Rondell White is going to snap out of his slump in spectacular fashion any day now and reward the confidence Ron Gardenhire has shown in him by writing his name in the clean-up spot night after night.
This is a guy, after all, with a career .289 batting average, who’s never hit lower than .270 in a season. In his abbreviated season last year with Detroit, White hit .313 in 374 at bats.
Maybe he really has been discombobulated by the designated hitter role, even though he’s done a bit of DH duty over the last few years and knew coming into the season that that was going to be his primary responsibility with the Twins.
Still, holy shit, White’s 2006 start has been absolutely brutal on so many levels, and truly painful to watch. It’s been even worse, of course, precisely because he has been the DH, and isn’t contributing in any other way.
The numbers are really something to behold: Four hits in 47 at bats. One extra base hit (a double). Sixteen strikouts and zero walks. An .085 batting average, and .100 on base percentage.
And, sorry, but you can’t avoid this number, either: $2,500,000.
I know that 47 at bats aren’t a fair barometer, but they sure seem to be enough to have messed with Rondell’s head in a big way. What do you think the chances are at this point that White will end up making a significant contribution to this team? And can the Twins still have a competitive season if they get nothing from him?
So, okay, after a woeful start on the road the Twins have come home and swept Oakland and shutdown a New York club that has been alleged by some to be one of the greatest offensive teams ever assembled.
That’s been impressive. And that’s been entertaining. The Twins have won two one-run games, battled back in four straight, and have been consistently driving in runs with two outs (three two-out RBIs in last night’s win over the Yankees). Tony Batista has a .364 on base percentage. Torii Hunter has eleven RBI and ten runs in ten games.
The bullpen’s also been mostly outstanding, and the defense has been terrific.
For the time being, at least, the decision to keep Juan Castro over Jason Bartlett looks like pure genius.
The most amazing thing about this blip of inspired baseball, however, is that Minnesota has managed to claw its way back to .500 without a single win from Johan Santana or any contribution whatsoever from key offseason acquisition and clean-up hitter Rondell White. The team leader in strikeouts is a 22-year-old middle reliever who hasn’t even logged seven full innings yet.
This is a team, of course, that never quite managed to run on all cylinders last year, and I suppose you have to figure that just when guys like Santana and White start heating up, there’ll be a couple of guys whose production will start falling off. Still, it is sort of comforting that the players we’re still waiting to get going weren’t exactly huge question marks coming into the season.
I still believe this is going to be a pretty good team, and like to think that its performance in the last four games is much more in line with my expectations than the squad that stumbled so badly out of the starting gate.
I also still wish like hell Jim Thome wasn’t wearing a Chicago White Sox uniform.
And, finally, I cannot begin to understand why any National League team would sign Matthew LeCroy. I wish somebody out there would try to explain that to me.
This seems modestly interesting to me:
Last night’s starting lineup included five players (Castillo, White, Morneau, Batista, and Castro) that were not in the lineup for last year’s home opener against Chicago. The 2004 lineup on opening day had six guys who are no longer even with the team (Rivas, Mientkiewicz, Koskie, Jones, LeCroy, and Guzman).
In 2003 that number was seven, in 2002 it was eight (with Torii Hunter the lone carryover), and all nine of the 2001 opening day starters are no longer with the team.
Patrick Reusse’s column today pretty much nails the feeling in the clubhouse and around the batting cage. So far, at any rate, this is the quietest Twins team in years.
Still, it was a good ballgame, and demonstrated the sort of team this version of the Twins could be, or at least the sort of ball it needs to play to succeed: A hitting and baserunning clinic from Joe Mauer (who really does have a chance to be even better than advertised, which is, of course, saying something), stellar defense (most notably from new second baseman Luis Castillo), a shaky, then solid, workmanlike start from veteran inning-eater Brad Radke, and power when it came in most handy.
That last business is certainly the thing that’s been missing the last couple years, and the thing you’d most like to be able to depend on from the Twins this season. As Earl Weaver always understood, a three-run homer can work wonders for a baseball team, particularly a baseball team trying to dig its way out of a 4-0 hole.
I also thought this bit of information from the Twins media relations folks was interesting: Who do you think has thrown out the first pitch on opening day more times than any other person?
Think hard, and I’ll give you a little hint: Nobody else is even close.
I’ll also tell you that Rudy Perpich threw out the first pitch of the season three times. Rod Carew and Harmon Killebrew have each done it twice, as has Clem Haskins. Hal Greenwood shared the duties in 1973.
Give up?
Former Governor Wendell Anderson tossed out the first pitch for six straight seasons, from 1971 through 1976.
Finally, I didn’t even notice: Did they trot out Lee Greenwood for the seventh-inning stretch last night?
All right, the Twins are now 1-5.
That’s not good. That changes things considerably on the attitude front around here. So I say –pledge or no pledge– let the bitching begin.
And it’s not just that the Twins are 1-5 that so offends, of course; it’s how they’ve played in going 1-5. Which is terrible, frankly: brutal, uninspired, lackluster, punchless (and punchdrunk), feckless…what the hell, you get the idea. You’ve probably been paying attention. You probably own a thesaurus.
Still, how about these apples: A team batting average of .225 and an on base percentage of .270. The whole freaking team has been playing like Luis Rivas, in other words –like Luis Rivas having a particularly bad week. Opponents, meanwhile, have been hammering Minnesota’s pitching to the tune of a .333 BA, .369 OBP, and .529 slugging percentage.
A team would be mighty damn happy to have one player with those sorts of stats, and the Twins have made the entire Toronto and Cleveland line-ups look like one mighty damn good player.
That won’t continue, certainly. That can’t continue. I’m still pretty confident the pitching will get much, much better. The offense, though, good lord, we can only hope that’s not another story, or rather the same old story we suffered through all last season.
I can’t listen to that story much longer. It’s a lousy story. It makes me jittery, then it makes me belligerent, and eventually it just makes me very, very sleepy.
SILVER LINING:
Two words: Francisco Liriano.
If you look at Liriano’s line from last year (23-and-two-thirds IP, 19 hits, 33 strikeouts, and seven walks), it’s hard to fathom how he ended up with a 5.70 ERA. Somehow the kid managed to give up four homers and fifteen runs, that’s how.
Looking at him now, you get the feeling that with a bit more time Liriano would have straightened out that ERA in a hurry. And unless you were just feeling contrary you’d also have to strongly suspect he’s going to end up in the Minnesota rotation, sooner rather than later.
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.
Sixteen hits, thirteen runs, three home runs, a grand slam, a nice recovery by Brad Radke, and a swell 2006 debut for Francisco Liriano.
Very encouraging, I’d say.
But this is what I really want to know: Rogers Centre? What the hell kind of name for a baseball park is that?
Seriously, that is just so wrong.