Author Archives: Jim Crikket

GameChat – Angels @ Twins #3, 1:10pm, FSN & am1500

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So here we are once again with the Twins having a chance to win a three game series. We’ve been here before and been left disappointed, but I’ve got a good feeling about today.

I’ve got to pack up and get checked out of my hotel so I won’t be around for the chat today, but I expect those of you who are here to help the Twins bring in a W!

In transaction news, we’ve finally got Chuck James aboard the Twins’ train. James has arguably been the best relief pitcher in Rochester this season, but his arrival in Minnesota was delayed because he was not on the Twins’ 40-man roster. To make room for him, Tsuyoshi Nishioka was put on the 60-day DL. That’s no big deal because it’s retroactive to April 7, making him eligible to come off on June 7. He wasn’t likely to be ready before that anyway, since he’s just now starting to play in rehab games in Florida.

Jim Thome’s shoulder is sore, even after his cortisone shot, so he’s likely not available today.

ANGELS @ TWINS
Bourjos, CF Span, CF
Aybar, SS Casilla, A, 2B
Abreu, DH Kubel, DH
Hunter, To, RF Morneau, 1B
Callaspo, 3B Cuddyer, RF
Branyan, 1B Young, D, LF
Trumbo, 1B Valencia, 3B
Amarista, 2B Butera, C
Mathis, C Plouffe, SS
Haren, P Pavano, P

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
LA Angels 0 0 3 0 1 0 0 1 1 6 11 0
Minnesota 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 2 5 13 2

I listened to most of the game on the radio as I drove south of the Twin Cities and then stopped in Albert Lea to eat and watch the final 2-3 innings. It was good to see the guys not go down without a fight in the 9th, but this game should have been won.

Dan Gladden and Jack Morris were pretty tough on Trevor Plouffe for his defensive mistakes, and rightfully so. Plouffe is struggling at the position. But I couldn’t help but note that the broadcasters said virtually nothing about Justin Morneau’s defensive failings. Morneau is starting to find his stroke a bit at the plate and for that I’m thankful, but he is flat out not playing good defense at 1B. His play at 1B was just as responsible for runs being scored that shouldn’t have as Plouffe’s play at SS was… and he should be held accountable by someone. So I guess that will be me.

 

THAT’S How Ya Do It!

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After attending the debacle Friday night and then reading that Francisco Liriano had been scratched from his Saturday start in favor of Anthony Swarzak, who would be facing off with Jared Weaver, I can’t say I was optimistic about the possibility of witnessing a Twins win Saturday night.

Silly me.

OF COURSE this would be the circumstance under which the wins would put things together to pull out a W!

There was a great crowd on hand, reminding me a bit of the enthusiasm I felt during so many games last season. I think we all knew that the Twins were likely to have trouble scoring much off of Weaver, who’s had a pretty strong year, thus far. But Swarzak was every bit Weaver’s equal as the two pitchers matched one another almost pitch for pitch from one inning to the next.

Toward the 7th inning, Swarzak gave up a couple of pretty deep, well hit balls that found the gloves of Michael Cuddyer and Delmon Young. In fact, the defense tonight was very solid all night long. It hasn’t been often that we’ve been able to say that this year.

With one out in the 8th inning Peter Bourjos laced a line drive down the left field line for a double to ruin Swarzak’s no-hitter bid and the crowd immediately rose to give the young pitcher a huge standing ovation. As we sat down, the three 20-something women sitting to my left asked me why everyone had been cheering… they had no idea Swarzak had a no-hitter going. I’m not sure they even knew what a no-hitter was, to be honest. Ah well.

The guy to my right almost flipped out when Matt Capps entered the game to start the 9th inning on the mound for the Twins… but he stood and gave Capps an ovation with the rest of us after his hitless inning. Alex Burnett followed with a clean inning of relief, himself. (Where have THESE versions of those two pitchers been lately… and can we keep them a while?)

And then it was the bottom of the 10th. Lefty reliever Hisanori Takahashi took over for Weaver and struck Jason Kubel out looking before giving up a solid line drive single to Justin Morneau. Jason Repko ran for Morneau and righty Kevin Jepson took the mound for the Angels. Michael Cuddyer grounded a single past the SS in to left field and Delmon Young lined a single to center field. Unfortunately, Repko couldn’t get a jump on that single because there was a real chance it could have been snagged by the shortstop (I thought he was going to catch it from where I sat).

A lot of people around me were upset that Repko didn’t score, but to be honest, he HAD to make sure that ball got through. The LAST thing you want is to have him get doubled off 2B to end that inning. He still got to 3B and the bases were loaded with just one out and Danny Valencia at the plate.

The Angels used five infielders, all playing in on the grass, and just two outfielders, but it didn’t matter. Valencia lifted a fly ball to RF and right off the bat, everyone knew it was deep enough to score Repko from 3B. Torii Hunter jogged back a bit but he knew it didn’t matter whether he got to it or not and it landed well beyond Hunter. Game over.

The Twins celebrated on the field and you could just tell this was a win that made everyone feel good… players and fans alike.

I didn’t take as many pictures this trip as I usually do at games and many I did take are far from high quality, but I thought I would post a few anyway… hope you enjoy!

– JC

Pregame fraternization between Torii, Denard and Cuddy, as well as Justin and Russell Branyan
TC Bear fires tshirts in to the crowd
Anthony Swarzak was very, very good
Jared Weaver was also very, very good
Torii Hunter went hitless... but looked good doing it
An appreciative crowd gives Swarzak a standing ovation after he gives up the first Angels hit in the 8th inning
The Angels play a 5 man infield when the Twins loaded the bases in the 10th
Danny Valencia strokes a deep fly ball to right field...
... and the Twins celebrate a much-needed win!

Seeing Is (Unfortunately) Believing

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I wish I could say that Friday night’s collapse surprised me. You would think that seeing the Twins enter the 8th inning with a 5-0 lead would give a guy a fair amount of confidence that he was going to witness a rare Twins win.

But no.

As soon as Scott Baker was pulled from the game, somehow you just knew things were going to get… interesting.

And they did.

You can read all about the way the bullpen failed (again) to hold a lead pretty much anywhere else in the online world of Twinsville so I won’t go in to all that. The Twins scored some runs. The Twins’ starting pitcher pitched well. The bullpen coughed up the lead and lost the game. Again. ‘Nuff said about that.

But that’s not even the most disturbing thing I watched Friday night at the first Twins game I’ve attended in person this season. I mean… yeah… the bullpen was awful, but you could figure out the bullpen sucks pretty much just from looking at box scores the past few weeks. No real news there.

Would the Twins win more games if they had someone… anyone… who could get an out or two out of the pen? Absolutely. Would they become a team worth standing up and cheering for? In a word, no.

Here’s what I found disturbing just from watching this game with my own eyes (something I have rarely been able to do this year, thanks to that absurd, idiotic MLB blackout policy):

The Twins are really bad at playing baseball.

If you just look at the boxscore, you won’t see Danny Valencia diving back to first base on a soft line drive… with two outs.

You won’t see Alexi Casilla miss first base, have to retrace about 10 feet to find the base, before advancing to 2B for an RBI “double” in the first inning.

You wont see Jason Kubel getting doubled off the basepaths after apparently losing track of the number of outs (I think it was Kubel… but I’d been drinking pretty heavily by then so it may have been someone else and I really don’t care enough right now to check my facts).

You won’t see any of the atrocious swings that Justin Morneau, Delmon Young and others took with runners on base.

I’ve been a Twins fan ever since there has been a Minnesota Twins team. There have been some pretty bad teams during certain eras. But during many of those years, I could rationalize the poor records simply by acknowledging that the Twins simply did not have very good players during most of those years. They didn’t fail for lack of effort or preparedness or knowing HOW to play the game right. They simply didn’t have players as talented as most of their competition.

But this year is different.

Yes, I’m well aware of the unexpected obstacles the Twins have been faced with. Their newly imported middle infielder broke his leg. Their $23 million/year catcher has… um… weak legs (and by the way… is anyone at all even going to bother looking in to how an elite level professional athlete misses half a season with leg weakness or are we all supposed to simply accept that it’s a perfectly normal occurrence?).

But there simply is no excuse for the product the Twins are putting out on the field this season. Maybe they don’t really work on the “little things” the way they used to in this organization. Maybe the coaching is not up to par. Maybe the manager can’t find the right method for motivating the players to perform better. Maybe the General Manager made some critical mistakes in assembling this roster. Maybe the scouting staff has seriously misjudged both MLB and minor league talent levels in this organization. Maybe the players need to take responsibility for flat out playing bad baseball.

Most likely, it’s a combination of “all of the above”.

Like most Twins fans, I can accept that some years will go better than others. But we are entitled to expect better. This team, even with the injuries, is not without talent.

I don’t have an explanation for why so many players that have, in the past, played some pretty good baseball now seem incapable of doing anything right… I only know that this team almost seems to go out of its way to do the little things… and a few big things… poorly.

Then again, I’ve had a fair amount to drink today and tonight… so maybe once I’m thinking more clearly, perhaps I’ll have some more lucid thoughts about what could/should be done about this situation.

Then again, I may not.

Anyway… Friday wasn’t a totally worthless day. I slept in. I had a very nice lunch at one of my favorite Minneapolis restaurants (Hell’s Kitchen), I spent some time with friends at a bar for a couple of hours before the game (even though they were ALL “late”) and during the game as well. So if you look at Twins games as purely a social event or another excuse for drinking rather heavily, then it was an enjoyable evening.

I’ll even post a couple of pictures from the game… just to prove I did more than fill up on beer for 5+ hours.

Denard Span dives back to 1B on an errant pickoff.
Justin Morneau holds old friend Torii Hunter close to 1B

 

 

 

Being a Fan: It’s Not Always Easy

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I had a different post in mind today. I’ve got one of those “Who’s To Blame For This Mess?” posts kind of half-baked in my head. But it can wait… I suspect the candidates for “blame” will only increase between now and whenever I get around to putting up that post.

But I’m going a different direction today… and if you really wanted to read another infamous JimCrikket rant about blaming someone for this mess, you have Maija from over at Kirby’s Left Eye to blame. I was browsing through the last couple of days’ worth of blog postings from our Blogroll and Maija’s post about going to (and returning from) Arizona and watching the Twins take on the D-Backs at Chase Field struck a chord with me. It’s a terrific piece. Go read it. Now. You can come back and finish reading this post when you’re done. It will still be here. I promise.

As I read that post, it struck me that the people on that plane and those Twins fans at Chase Field had a terrific time watching the Twins over the weekend. The results weren’t good, but the games were exciting and some of our guys did some good stuff. And those fans were there watching it all right in front of them.

It’s pretty easy to be a fan when your team is a front runner, like the Twins have been for the past decade or so. It’s made even easier when you’ve got a brand new, award-winning ballpark to watch games at, like Twins fans had a year ago.

Fans wearing bags... At least they still show up!

I’m not going to try to tell anyone that winning isn’t important to fans. It is… and it should be. But if you’re only a fan when your favorite team is 10+ games over .500, then there’s a word for you and those like you. It’s easy to be a bandwagon fan. You simply look at the standings and decide whether the team is good or not, then let that determine if you’re going to be a fan that year.

I don’t want to say that’s not being a “real fan”, but… well… yes, I’ll say it… in my opinion, that’s not being a real fan. That’s being a “wow, my friends are all talking about the Twins and I want them to think I’m cool so I’m going to buy a jersey and go to the game tonight” fan. Teams need some of those fans to fill their seats, I know. But just don’t expect me to give two hoots about what they have to say, whether in good times or bad.

Being a “real fan” isn’t easy. It means finding the fun in watching (or listening to, if you’re not allowed to watch due to moronic blackout policies) games with friends and family, even when it seems like everyone associated with your team is trying to find a new way to lose a game every day.

Does being a real fan mean you can’t get frustrated, upset, angry, or even totally friggin pissed off at your team? Of course, it doesn’t.  Every member of your team is being paid very, very well (the “minimum wage” for MLB players is above $400,000 per year… think about that for a moment on your next payday) and when they play the game in a manner that would make Little Leaguers hide in shame, they should be held accountable. You let them know you don’t approve of their effort. You let the manager know you don’t approve of his decisions. You let the GM know he’s done a lousy job of assembling a roster. You let the president know the blackout policy is moronic (~You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant~). Blow off steam. It’s healthy (so I’m told).

But you don’t stop being a fan.

I’ve been a fan of three sports organizations for most all of my life. The Twins, the Vikings, and the Hawkeyes. I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve been able to witness a great deal of success at various times from all three. I’ve also witnessed ineptitude and embarrassment at near-monumental levels. But that’s true of pretty much every team in every sport.

Being a real fan means you live through those periods of futility and keep your fandom intact. It’s not easy. A lot of people simply can’t do it. When their favorite team du jour hits a rough patch, they shift their focus to a new team that’s playing well. That’s fine, if that’s what you need to do to continue having fun watching baseball.

But for those of us who are really Twins fans, we have a tougher challenge facing us. We have to find a way to enjoy Twins baseball until whenever this organization gets things turned around on the field. It’s not easy, but then I don’t think it’s supposed to be easy. There’s a certain amount of pride you take from being able to do something not everyone can do and that extends to being a real fan of a ballclub that’s not very good (ask Cub fans… they know).

So what about that “Who’s To Blame?” post? Oh, it’s going up… don’t kid yourself. I’m taking aim and naming names… and Bill Smith is smack dab in the middle of the crosshairs.

But for right now, my immediate goal is to drive up to Minneapolis on Tuesday (oops… make that Thursday) and attend the memorial Thursday night that the Twins are holding for my boyhood hero. The details can be found here. I hope some of you will join me there.

Then I’m going to try very, very hard to enjoy watching the Twins take on the Angels on Friday and Saturday (Sunday’s a bit up in the air… I may just do brunch at Hell’s Kitchen and head home). I’ve always said, and still believe today, that the worst day at a ballgame is better than the best day just about anywhere else. I intend to put that philosophy to the test this weekend.

I’ll be staying at a downtown hotel and if anyone would like to get together for a beer or four either before or after the Killebrew memorial or the games, leave a comment or drop me an email.

And let’s try to have some fun!

– JC

GameChat – Mariners @ Twins, 7:10pm

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Twins fans attending the game tonight are being encouraged to wear a #3 to honor Twins Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew at this, the first home game since Harmon passed away. The Twins have announced plans for the Killebrew memorial event scheduled for 7:10 Thursday evening.

I plan to attend and if anyone else is planning on being there, let me know. I would certainly welcome the opportunity to share the event with fellow Knuckleballers. It’s general admission with gates opening at 6:00 pm. Details can be found by clicking here.

Our guys haven’t won a home game in what seems like forever, so tonight seems like a good time to do that. Then again, they haven’t exactly played a lot of home games this season.

Jim Thome and Jason Repko are back with the ballclub, while Ben Revere and Luke Hughes have returned to Rochester. Here’s the group that will be taking on the M’s:

MARINERS @ TWINS
Suzuki, I, RF Span, CF
Figgins, 3B Plouffe, SS
Smoak, 1B Kubel, RF
Cust, DH Morneau, 1B
Gutierrez, F, CF Cuddyer, 2B
Peguero, C, LF Thome, DH
Ryan, Br, SS Young, D, LF
Wilson, Ja, 2B Valencia, 3B
Gimenez, C Butera, C
Vargas, J, P Pavano, P

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 R H E
Seattle 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 2 1 1 8 15 0
Minnesota 1 0 0 3 1 0 2 0 0 0 7 10 1

Another disgusting loss in the books.

I really want to celebrate the triumphant return of Jim Thome with his two HRs (which I totally called in the GameChat, by the way), but once again lousy pitching and even lousier defense robbed all of us of a win. I am not generally one for advocating violence, but there at least a couple of guys on this team that I have concluded deserve… nay, NEED… a good old fashioned, take-em-behind-the-woodshed beating.

If you can’t play defense and you can’t hit, then do the rest of us a favor and go get a real job.

Go back to wearing the white or navy uniforms, guys, because the effort you’re putting forth on the field is an insult to the gentleman you’re supposedly honoring by wearing those old school uniforms.

And yes, Bill Smith, same goes for you. If you and your staff can’t do any better at assembling baseball players than the sorry excuse for a team that’s gathered right now, you all should go find honest employment elsewhere, too.

There wasn’t a single “man” on the field tonight in a Twins uniform, other than Jim Thome. The rest of you should be ashamed.

– JC

The Kevin Slowey Dilemma

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I don’t often listen in via the internet to Ron Gardenhire’s Sunday morning appearances on ESPN1500, but I did yesterday. If you’ve been reading or listening to any Twins-related news in the past 24 hours, you’re probably already aware of his comments with regard to Kevin Slowey. If not, let me give it to you in a nutshell:  Gardenhire and Slowey met together to discuss Kevin’s role with the Twins and there appears to be some agreement between them that Slowey has not worked out as a relief pitcher, so they need to get him innings in a starting role… somewhere.

Gardenhire mentioned possibly sending Slowey to Rochester to be used as a starting pitcher. Slowey hinted to reporters that perhaps the Twins are no longer a “fit” for him.

Assuming Gardy is not going to go “Ozzie Guillen” on us and implement a six-man rotation the way the BitchSox have, there really are only three options for dealing with Slowey at this point: Insert him in to the Twins rotation to replace one of the five arms already there, send him to Rochester, or trade him to another team.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

If the Twins would decide to simply move Slowey in to the rotation, say for example in place of Brian Duensing, and have Duensing take Slowey’s bullpen spot, then I suppose it is relatively simple. But the Twins don’t really need a long reliever in the bullpen and that’s pretty much what Duensing would be. They need an arm they can use in critical set up situations. Maybe Duensing could do that, but it’s hardly a sure-thing.  

This swap would also result in the Twins having just one left hander in the rotation and while it’s easy to pick on Duensing because he hasn’t had a lot of success in the past month or so, a glance at his stat line shows us that opponents have a .381 BABIP (batting average on balls in play), which is well above normal, indicating that he may be the victim of a little bit of bad luck. That particular stat, after all, was the one that fans of Francisco Liriano liked to trot out there every time a discussion about Frankie’s abilities took place over the off season (and his BABIP was only .335 last season).

So why not just send Slowey to Rochester and bring up someone else for the bullpen? Makes sense, I guess, but let’s be honest… the Twins haven’t exactly had a lot of good fortune with the bullpen arms they’ve brought up from Rochester already. Yes, Chuck James has performed well in Rochester’s pen and has arguably earned a promotion opportunity. But James is not currently on the Twins’ 40-man roster, so promoting him means someone currently on the roster has to be jettisoned. Would the world come to an end if the Twins lost Eric Hacker, Jim Hoey, or Scott Diamond? No. But I’m not sure the Twins are ready to give those guys up just to find out if James can pitch effectively at the Big League level.

That leaves us with some sort of trade scenario and the internet is abuzz today with “Twins will trade Slowey” stories. Heck, it may even happen before I can post this!

A lot of people thought the Twins should trade Slowey or one of their other starting pitchers before the season started. I disagreed, because it’s not at all unusual for a team to end up needing that sixth starting pitcher at some point during the first couple of months of the season. It turns out, the starting five stayed relatively healthy so the need to insert Slowey in to the rotation has not materialized. Certainly, none of the five guys in the rotation have been consistently effective, but despite the contention of his fans (and those fans who for one reason or another just dislike one of the current rotation members), there’s no solid evidence at all that Slowey would be an improvement over anyone currently with a starting rotation spot.

The assumption all along has been that the Twins would promote top pitching prospect Kyle Gibson from Rochester in June, once the risk of accelerating his eligibility for arbitration passes. Gibson hasn’t exactly set the International League ablaze this season, but he’s held hitters to somewhere around a .250 batting average and has a nice 41/8 strikeout-to-walk ratio, while striking out almost one hitter per inning. The point being, we’re almost at the point in the season where the Twins can afford to trade one of their six pitchers with credentials as a Big League pitcher.

I’m just not sure that should be Slowey.

If it is, so be it. It’s not like he’s demonstrated that he’s irreplaceable. But I’m just not sure that’s the direction I’d go if I were the General Manager.

Slowey is making just $2.7 million this season, so there’s bound to be a market for him. Maybe the Twins could even get a serviceable middle infielder in return. But they aren’t likely to get anyone significantly better than the mediocrity they’ve been sending out to man 2B and SS so far and adding a MLB infielder means they’re still left with the dilemma of how to fit James on to the 40-man roster so they can promote him. In any event, while I’m not ready to give up on the 2011 season yet, if I’m running the Twins, I’m not going to feel inclined to trade one of my cheaper starting pitching options.

For the same reason, you don’t trade Brian Duensing either. He’s still barely making above the MLB minimum salary.

Nick Blackburn and Scott Baker are both roughly in the $5-6 million per year range through 2012. The Twins won’t (and shouldn’t) trade Baker, but if you can get some decent prospects for Blackburn, I suppose you listen to offers. I just doubt that Blackburn’s performance has done much to create significant demand for his services, given his contractual agreement.

Does Francisco Liriano still have significant trade value? He’s making $4.3 million this year but he’s likely to get more expensive next year. Still, I suspect there are teams who would be very tempted to give up something of value for the chance to see if Liriano can grow in to a consistently dominant lefty. If so, I’d be very tempted to make him available because I just don’t see it as being likely to happen in Minnesota. Blame Liriano or blame the coaches/manager, but either way, I don’t see him ever being worth what the Twins would have to shell out to keep him beyond this season.

And then there’s ‘Stache. Carl Pavano is getting $8 million this season and is guaranteed $8.5 million in 2012. Has anyone who’s been watching the Twins seen anything in Pavano’s performance to make them feel like he’s worth that deal? He certainly has not been the “innings eater” he was last year, having averaged just about 6 innings per start. I don’t know what he’s worth on the market, but I would imagine someone would give up something for him, even if the Twins do have to eat a little of that contract.

Trading one of these guys for decent prospects would clear a roster spot for James  (or for Gibson or possibly RP prospect Carlos Gutierrez next month) without leaving the Twins significantly short-handed in the starting pitching department.  If I could get something of real value in prospects for either Pavano or Liriano, I’d make that move right now.

That said, it will probably be Kevin Slowey sent packing. If and when it happens, I suspect most of us will be underwhelmed with talent received in return.

– JC

GameChat – Twins @ D-Backs #2, 9:10pm, FSN & am1500

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I missed last night’s game in Arizona in favor of going to the latest “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie with various members of my family. From what I’ve read, it’s probably for the best. I don’t particularly enjoy watching Twins pitchers cough up five-run innings. So let’s see if we can avoid doing that tonight.

I remember back in the old days when the Twins ate NL teams for breakfast, lunch and dinner. What was that… 1 or 2 years ago? I want to see THAT start happening again! – JC

TWINS @ DIAMONDBACKS
Span, CF Roberts, R, 3B
Plouffe, SS Johnson, K, 2B
Kubel, RF Upton, J, RF
Morneau, 1B Drew, S, SS
Cuddyer, 2B Young, C, CF
Valencia, 3B Montero, M, C
Young, D, LF Miranda, 1B
Butera, C Parra, G, LF
Baker, S, P Owings, M, P
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Minnesota 0 1 0 0 1 2 0 2 0 6 9 0
Arizona 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 6 x 9 11 5

As I mentioned in the pregame post, I didn’t see the game Friday night, but from what I read and heard, it sounds like it was kind of the same story as the Saturday night game. Build a lead and then watch helplessly as the bullpen implodes and coughs up the game. It’s great to see the bats warming up. It’s great to see starting pitchers being effective (though we really do need to get more than five innings out of a starting pitcher). But at some point, you need a few guys in the bullpen who can hold a lead. Hope that last piece to the puzzle falls in to place… and soon.

– JC

The End Is Near

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I tend not to treat matters of religion and faith lightly. I’ve been fortunate in my life to  meet people of so many faiths and I’m blessed with real friendships from across a wide religious spectrum. Those of you who grew up in the “big city” are probably thinking, “so what?” (in fact many of the rest of you probably are thinking that, too). You probably grew up and went to school with friends of all sorts of faiths (as well, of course, as agnostics, atheists, etc.)

But if you’re like me and grew up in relatively small towns in Minnesota and Iowa, perhaps you can appreciate how fortunate I feel to have been given the opportunity to live, work, play and sometimes just hang out with a much more religiously diverse circle of friends than those I grew up with. (True story: As a part of my Lutheran religious education, my class attended church services at a different church every Sunday for several weeks. As I recall, we attended services at our local Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Church of Christ, and Baptist churches. That really was the extent of our options for exploring religious “diversity”.)

I remain a member of a Lutheran church today, though I admit I’m not as active as I was when my kids were younger and I can’t say I agree with some of the more… shall we say… conservative doctrines of my particular Synod. But this post isn’t about my religious beliefs or really even about religion itself. I’ve rambled on so far just to get to the point of saying, I know just enough about religion and various faiths to feel it’s just a really bad idea to poke fun at anyone’s beliefs.

That’s not to say that I don’t crack an occasional religious joke (usually about me and my fellow Lutherans), but people take their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) very seriously and there’s something admirable about that… as long as they don’t take it so seriously that they feel compelled to infringe on my rights to believe as I choose and, even more important, the rights we all have to live our lives out in a peaceful manner.

So why have I devoted over 400 words (so far… I’m not done yet) to religion on a baseball blog?

Well you may have heard… the world is coming to an end tonight. At 6 pm apparently. Though, I’m not sure what time zone we’re talking about so maybe it has already started ending in Europe and I just haven’t turned on the news to see it happen live on CNN.

I hope this is all just a miscalculation on Harold Camping’s part, if for no other reason than it would suck to have had last night’s loss to the D-Backs be the last ever game for the Twins. What a way to go out. I suppose, though, if I spent a lot of time thinking about it, I could come up with a couple more important reasons to hope the deadline passes tonight with all of us still here.

On the other hand, I just took out a loan on a new SUV for a wife I no longer live with and it might be kinda nice not to have to make good on that commitment. Hope she enjoys driving the new vehicle for the one day she’ll have that opportunity!

If the world does end tonight, the Twins would be the team with the worst record in Major League Baseball when the curtain comes down, having fallen a game behind the Astros with last night’s loss. Being a fan of the worst team in baseball for… well… forever… would sure suck. Though I guess it’s not something I’d have much time to reflect about.

But it would be unfortunate to go down in history on that note because, to me, this team is NOT the worst team in baseball. Don’t ask me to identify a team that’s worse, because I can’t… I just haven’t watched many of the other teams with bad records.

So I will say that I agree with Mr. Camping and his followers… the end IS near. No… not THE end… but I believe the end of misery for the Twins and their fans is near.

I know it may be totally irrational to believe this, but I believe the Twins WILL get in to the AL Central race yet this season. It’s not that I have “faith” in them. I don’t really “trust in” the Twins players or management to perform better. I simply believe, based on what I’ve seen of these players in the past and currently, that they are better at baseball than they’ve shown us so far. There are good players on this team and some of them have really played unbelievably poorly. And some of those guys are starting to show a few signs of returning to levels of productivity that I expected from them.

I won’t recite the names of injured players, but it sounds like almost all of them are working their way toward or through rehab assignments with one Twins minor league affiliate or another (a couple of those teams could post some pretty impressive looking line ups if several rehabbing players find themselves in the same uniform for a week or so). That’s a sign to me that things could return to a status closer to normal pretty soon.

I’m not confident that the Twins will manage to dig completely out of the hole they’re currently in, but I do not believe for a moment that they will finish at the bottom of the AL Central standings. I don’t believe they’ll finish fourth either.

But I’ll go on record right now predicting the Twins will be a “buyer” toward the end of July as the trade deadline nears. There are plenty of people who disagree with me, I know. There are already all sorts of articles, columns and posts out there projecting which Twins players might be available on the market for contending teams at the deadline. I won’t be joining those discussions for a while yet, anyway, because I think it’s a waste of time. By the deadline, the Twins will be looking for help to close the gap, not looking to dump players.

If Harold Camping and his followers are right, they won’t have a whole lot of time to tell the rest of us, “I told you so.” But if I’m right about the Twins… make that WHEN the Twins are working their way up the standings and looking for ways to move up faster in July… I’m going to take some pleasure in linking back to this post to remind everyone just how smart I am!

On the other hand, if the world DOES end tonight, I guess we’ll never know if I was right or wrong… and we probably won’t really care.

Either way… fear not, fellow Twins fans, the end is near!

– JC

GameChat – Twins @ A’s #1, 9:05pm, FSN & am1500

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The Twins continue their road trip down the left coast as they open another two-game series against an AL West foe tonight. Oakland hasn’t been great… they have won two more games than they’ve lost… but they’ve managed to turn that mediocrity in to a first place tie at the top of the AL West standings. Then again, right now I wouldn’t mind seeing some mediocrity out of the Twins. It would definitely be a step in the right direction.

Let’s see if ‘Stache can hold the Athletics in check and then maybe hope a few hits start dropping in. Here’s tonight’s lineup.

TWINS @ ATHLETICS
Span, CF DeJesus, D, RF
Plouffe, SS Barton, D, 1B
Kubel, DH Willingham, LF
Morneau, 1B Matsui, H, DH
Cuddyer, RF Suzuki, K, C
Valencia, 3B Sweeney, R, CF
Revere, LF Ellis, M, 2B
Butera, C Kouzmanoff, 3B
Casilla, A, 2B Pennington, SS
Pavano, P McCarthy, P
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 R H E
Minnesota 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 4 10 1
Oakland 0 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 3 8 1

Hey hey! That’s two in a row, boys and girls! This one took 10 innings to accomplish, but it’s a win… on the road even!

We saw the Carl Pavano we have been hoping to see all season… not overpowering, by any means, but effective. He gave up just 1 earned run over seven innings of work. He certainly deserves kudos and perhaps even a nice basket of baked goods for his work.

As a matter of fact, every pitcher who toed the rubber for the Twins tonight earned our respect and praise. Glen Perkins not only worked a clean 8th inning, giving up just one hit and striking out two hitters, but he also returned in the 9th inning to retire Hideki Matsui before stepping aside in favor of Joe Nathan. Twitchy gave up a hit and a walk, but he managed to escape the 9th inning without being touched for a run, sending the game to extra innings, which was good enough to earn Joe the win. Matt Capps pitched a perfect 10th inning for his 7th save.

But while the pitching staff certainly had some support in the GameChat for BOD consideration, that honor went to shortstop Trevor Plouffe in a split decision. Plouffe’s throwing error in the second inning resulted in two unearned runs for Oakland, but Trevor wasted no time making up for his mistake by driving in two runs in the top of the 3rd to allow the Twins to regain the lead. Then, for an encore, Plouffe drove in the game winning run for the Twins in the top of the 10th inning with a sacrifice fly. Those three ribbies were enough to earn Plouffe the Knuckleballs Boyfriend of the Day award!

– JC

Trevor Plouffe

True Heroes Never Die

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Yes, this is a second Harmon Killebrew memorial post at Knuckleballs, but I just feel compelled to share my own thoughts about Harmon.

I was three years old in the summer of 1959 when my dad got a coaching job in southern Minnesota. Two years later, the Washington Senators relocated to the Twin Cities and, with them, came Harmon Killebrew. To a young boy like me at the time, Killebrew was larger than life. My family might only make one or two trips a year up to see games at Metropolitan Stadium, but we watched Killebrew and his team mates on television every summer, all summer long.

It’s not surprising that he became my hero… my sports idol. He was the player I wanted to be “like”. But then, he was the guy we all wanted to be like. While we kids didn’t probably notice it so much at the time, his gentle and gracious demeanor towards media, fans and pretty much everyone he encountered probably resulted in him being the guy our parents hoped we would all grow up to be “like”.

Through the subsequent decades, we’ve seen one superstar after another capture our attention (and the attention of our kids) with their remarkable talents, only to turn out to be the kind of person off the field that we would never want our children to idolize. Charles Barkley even made a lot of money from his “I am not a role model” mantra.

As parents,  we’ve had to constantly remind our children that their sports heroes are “human” and they may not always be the nicest guys off the field. Spend even a single day at any Major League spring training camp (yes, including the Twins’) and you’re going to see examples of what I’m talking about. We all have had to remind our kids that their sports heroes are not “real” heroes. It’s OK to love the way they play a game, but “real” heroes are people who live their lives up to certain ethical standards and just because a person can hit a baseball 450 feet, we can’t assume he lives his life in a manner worthy of being considered a hero.

I’ve always felt a bit sad for all the kids who have grown up worshiping this home run hitter or that quarterback or this other power forward, only to realize as they get older that their hero actually was more than a little bit of a jerk. It’s just sad when a kid eventually even feels embarrassed for having admired a particular superstar. Maybe he used drugs. Maybe he abused his wife or kids, or maybe he was just a really crappy human being. I suppose there’s a lesson to be learned by kids in that situation that helps them understand the nature of human frailties. If so, it’s a lesson I’m glad I never had to learn… at least in that manner.

My hero understood and embraced his place as a role model. I’m sure Harmon Killebrew made mistakes in his life. We all do. But I’m not aware of any sports figure of his stature who has had a reputation for class and graciousness the way Killebrew has. Listen to his team mates. Listen to current players who were privileged to spend time around him as they came up in the Twins organization. Listen to people in the Twins organization that he worked with. Listen to members of the media.

I’m midway through my sixth decade on this earth and I’m still as proud as I’ve ever been to say Harmon Killebrew was my hero.

Harmon lost his battle with cancer this week and that means we won’t see him at Target Field any more, other than in a bronzed likeness. It means those of us who make the trip to spring training won’t see him around the batting cage talking with today’s players. It’s sad and our thoughts and prayers are with his family as they mourn his passing.

But Harmon will live on. When you get a legible autograph from Michael Cuddyer or one of the other Twins players that Killebrew taught to sign their names properly, Harmon will be there. When you come away from a night at a Twins Caravan impressed with how “fan friendly” the Twins players were, Harmon was there. Whenever you see an athlete conduct him or her self with class and willingly and openly embrace his or her place as a role model for young fans, Harmon will be there.

Harmon Killebrew was my hero. He was a real hero. Real heroes live on in the hearts and lives of the millions of people they touched during their time among us.

Real heroes never die.

-JC

(Photo: @MinnesotaTwins)