AUGUST 1, 2009 -- LOS ANGELES 11, MINNESOTA 6

The Angels score eleven runs off the Twins pitching staff for the second straight game, spoiling Orlando Cabrera's debut with the Twins. Anthony Swarzak pitched like sour milk, and then the bullpen pitched in with a five-run, three home run sixth inning that was a tandem effort by R.A. Dickey and Bobby Keppel, who after giving up two moon shots to the first two batters he faced, is quickly falling out of favor with everyone watching the Twins except Ron Gardenhire and Rick Anderson. But, as Dick Bremer would say, it's refreshing to hear someone like Keppel be upfront and "take responsibility" for Friday's pathetic eleventh inning. Refreshing, sure; but what would really be refreshing is if Bobby Keppel could get batters out, or even better, it'd be damn refreshing if the Twins cut their ties with this guy. It would be refreshing to be a fan of an organization that knows talent and tries its best to put the best players on the roster, and to use the best out of those players to place in their everyday lineup. That would be refreshing, yes, but the reality is is that I'm likely going to stay thirsty here for quite a while.


One example of this poor talent assessment is the transaction that the Twins made before the game on Saturday, when Brian Buscher was inexplicably sent down over Alexi Casilla's .171 average to Rochester to make room for Cabrera on the roster. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not here to laud praises on a guy hitting .225, but when the choices are .225 with a little pop who can deliver a pinch hit once in a while and a guy who's hit progressively worse in three seperate stints with the club, can't play consistent defense, is a mentally putrid player and sucks the team dry of offensive production in the bottom of the order, I'll take Busch any day of the week. What had Casilla done to deserve staying on the roster? He was recalled just before the All-Star break when his average was .180; somehow the guy found a way to lower that another ten points. The guy has simply failed at every aspect of the game, and his value as a fifth infielder at this point has to be lower than Buscher's value as a pinch-hitting option. Again, not to say that Buscher absolutely deserved to stay with the club, either, but everyone in the entire league has outperformed Alexi Casilla in 2009, and there's no excuse for leaving him on the roster.


But there is, according to Ron Gardenhire (who said this, according to Dick Bremer). The main reason for Casilla to stay on the ballclub, according to these two clowns, was that the veteran presence of Orlando Cabrera could perhaps help the young Casilla get a better understanding of the game of baseball. Casilla can learn from Cabrera, and it would be more valuable for the Twins long-term if Casilla were directly mentored by Cabrera for the two months that he's going to be in a Twins uniform. This notion is at once pathetic and self-defeating in all its intentions. This is a kind of thing that non-competitive teams do. If you're the Kansas City Royals or the Washington Nationals or the Pittsburgh Pirates, you can afford to do things like this and you probably could benefit from such a move. But according to everyone paid to like the Twins, this is a "competitive" ballclub that has set its sights on winning the division. How can a "competitive" baseball team afford to keep minor-league talent on their roster when they're trying to win a division? A move like this, and the philosophy behind it, should signal to Twins Nation that this team has no intentions of trying to win a Championship (I would consider an A.L. Central Division title a supremely lower-case "championship"), and as a lifelong fan I can't help but be offended at such a philosophy.


Speaking of offensive philosophies, I think my respect of Ron Gardenhire sank even lower after I heard Dick Bremer report to everyone listening that some of the content of last Saturday's "closed-door" meeting following their 11-5 thumping at the hands of the Angels in Anaheim regarded foolish outfield defensive plays "such as missing the cutoff man." According to Bremer, Gardenhire had told his outfielders that if they missed the cutoff man, that they would get benched on the spot. That's something that I agree with 100%; especially when you're dealing with Mensa antitheses like Carlos Gomez, you need a "tough-love" approach to management. But on Friday, when Gomez missed the cutoff man in the first inning (which led to an extra run for the Angels, which by extension was a major reason the Twins lost the game), Gardenhire sat on his hands and did nothing of what he had threatened his players with just a week before. That is not only a terrible way to manage a baseball team, but that's a horrible way to run a company, to raise a family, to be in an interpersonal relationship -- you can add to the list ad infinitum. Do you have any idea what happens when you set clear-cut boundaries and specific penalties and then welsh on those parameters which you yourself set up? The behavior that you had attempted to extinguish in the first place will *undoubtedly* happen again. If you're a parent, it's like telling your sixteen year old not to have a party when you're gone for the weekend, and if he/she did that they would be grounded; and then you return home to find your kid's hosting a party at that minute, and then join in on the festivities. What does that signal to your sixteen-year-old? That he/she can do that again and not take anything you say in terms of "threats" seriously. As a manager of a major-league baseball team, you lose all credibility with your players and those who follow the team closely. In fact, if I were Brian Buscher, I would have had a hard time believing Ron Gardenhire when Gardy told him he was sent down Saturday, for the mere reason that Gardenhire did not follow through on his "promise" that he initiated just a week prior. This much is guaranteed, Gardenhire -- Carlos Gomez will miss the cutoff man again, and probably sooner rather than later. What are you gonna do about it? Remember that all the respect your players had has been transfered to the status of simply a buddy-buddy manager whose words can be taken very lightly. Yeah, we all knew you weren't Knute Rockne, but at the very least, don't be a f***ing Pinocchio, Gardenhire.