Another embarrassing loss for the Twins, this time twice as embarrassing considering that it was to the hands of the lowly Kansas City Royals at home under the Teflon sky of the Metrodome. Making matters worse, the Twins weren't in this game right from the start. Before Nick Blackburn could blink, the Royals had already put four runs on the board in the first (three of which came home after there were two outs), and a Brendan Harris error in the second inning led to two more runs and Blackburn's departure. Although Blackburn didn't deserve to pitch any longer than he had, his short start meant that the bullpen would have to pitch the final 7 and 1/3 innings of the game, and that just spells runs. Sure enough, Brian Douchebag (who apparently won't be starting in the series), Bobby Keppel, and Jesse Crain all gave up runs in their relief outings, and only Jose Mijares, who pitched a clean eighth, was able to hold off the suddenly barnstorming Royals. This is a team that came into the game with one of the lowest team batting averages in the American League (batting .255 as a team), and they put up 18 hits in the game, making that the sixth game out of their last ten that the Twins pitching has given up at least fifteen hits in a game. Not surprisingly, the Twins have lost all six of those games, and the way things are going (and how the rest of this series is set up), it's going to be a challenge to even win one of these games against the last-place Royals.Games like this must make those foolish fans who are still believing that the team is going to make the playoffs second-guess themselves. Blackburn had been the team's solid #1 starter
throughout the first half of the season, but ever since Ron Gardenhire had the ingenious idea to rest Blackburn for ten days between starts (straddling the All-Star Break), he's pitched really, really poorly -- kind of like Joe Mays bad, or Sean Bergman bad, late-90s Twins bad. I read somewhere that it's possible that Carl Pavano, with one start down in his Twins career, is pert' darn near the ace of this staff, and I'd have to say that's about right. When you have zero starting pitching and even worse bullpen help, it's going to be increasingly difficult to notch wins, and right now the Twins are four games under .500. They're at the nadir of their season, and though they're five games out of first place, it's quite deceiving. Look at what the White Sox did the other day, by picking up Alex Rios from the Blue Jays. Though Rios hasn't proven that his monstrous contract he signed last season has been a good investment, he's a solid upgrade from what the White Sox had in their outfield, and he's still a young player. Rios and Jake Peavy are now going to be South Siders for quite a while, and even if the Sox don't win the division this season, they're going to be bonafide contenders for a good number of years. What have the Twins done to solidify their future, especially considering their move to Target Field next season? Nothing, at least, to signal to Joe Mauer that the Twins are committed to putting a winning club on the field, and if I'm Mauer, I sure as hell don't take one penny as a "hometown discount" to sign with the Twins. Mauer's a born winner, and he's not going to give a team which is so content with mediocrity the benefit of the doubt just because he was born a few minutes away from the stadium.The Mark Grudzielanek experiment officially ended on Monday, when the Twins released the veteran infielder eight games into his comeback attempt with Double-A New Britain. The Twins felt that Grudzielanek's range wasn't what it once was, and his
bat hadn't bowled over the Twins, either. That the Twins felt eight games was enough to prove to them that Grudzielanek wasn't the answer, and that they've given Alexi Casilla nearly 100 games at the major league level to prove to everyone else (other than the Twins' on-field management) that he isn't a major-league player is frankly a slap in the face to this Twins fan. Eight games is enough to gauge a veteran player who hadn't played competitively for a year due to injury? He was hitting .267 with the Rock Cats, which is roughly 100 points higher than what Casilla's hitting at the major league level, and don't talk about "range" when guys like Casilla and Punto are getting the bulk of the playing time at second base for the big-league team. They're average defensively -- sure, they'll put forth a Web Gem once in a while, but then also make plenty of miscues too -- and their defensive talents are further underemphasized when they give back all their defensive assets by consistently going 0 for 4 at the plate. With the Grudzielanek cutting, the Twins have officially said that they are just fine with their second basemen hitting .186 with average defense. Grudzielanek had a classic quote (actually a text message) printed in the Star Tribune that may go down as the quote of the year around here at the MTRC: "They [the Twins] just wasted my time." Thanks, Mark. That makes two of us.
