JULY 18, 2009 -- MINNESOTA 4, TEXAS 1

Another key win for the Twins against the Rangers, and Scott Baker throws by far his best game of the season. I said it yesterday and I'll say it again: if the Twins plan on doing any contending in the second half of the season, Scott Baker must pick it up. He pretty much sleepwalked through the first half of the year, and part of that may have been due to his arm injury that he had to begin the season, but at many times in the first few months of the season, what was so disappointing about Baker was that his demeanor just wasn't there on the mound. He looked as if he didn't want to be pitching, period, and that killer instinct that he appeared to have last season looked non-existent. But maybe with Saturday's eight-inning performance, Scott Baker can turn the corner, and with that the Twins may be able to mount a rally to win what is a pretty winnable division.


The offense again did just enough to win on Saturday, as Michael Cuddyer got two hits that were as clutch as Cuddyer can get -- a run-scoring double and a solo home run that was reminiscent of a Tom Watson golf shot. Usually Cuddyer's production comes in blowout victories or failed comeback wins, but with half of the team's RBIs on Saturday, that damn near qualifies as clutch in Cuddyer's book. Alexi Casilla went 1 for 4 out of the #2 hole, making him 1 for 8 since his call-up, but that didn't stop certifiable idiot Dick Bremer from beatifying Casilla for that one hit. It was a two-out, nobody on base single in the eighth inning, and Casilla ended up scoring that inning. I was just waiting for Bremer to lay the praise on Casilla for that one hit, and sure enough, there's Bremer putting Casilla into the Hall-of-Fame because of a 1 for 8 weekend. I can somewhat understand now what I think Ron Gardenhire might be thinking when he puts guys like Casilla and Matt Tolbert in the second hole. Take a look at that lineup -- Casilla is protecting Joe Mauer in that lineup. With Mauer, Morneau, and Kubel following Casilla, pitchers are going to give whoever hits second a lot of fastballs, and perhaps Gardenhire is putting Casilla there to make him prove to the on-field staff that at least he can hit hittable pitches. If he doesn't produce in the #2 hole, really where will Casilla get hits? In a way the #2 hole in the lineup is an express lane to finding out who's good on the team. There's a few problems with that philosophy, however -- first off, this isn't spring training or tee ball, this is the majors and you can't cripple your team by putting minor leaguers near the top of the order, and secondly, Casilla has hit in the #2 hole everytime he's been on the club and he's hitting .170. The experiment has failed, Gardenhire, three times in fact, so now you quit the whole experiment and cut ties with Casilla. The guy just can't get the job done. Case in point, the ninth inning on Saturday, when Casilla had the bases loaded, two outs, and had the count full. With Joe Mauer on deck, everybody in the ballpark knows a fastball is coming, and what does Casilla do with that fastball? Pop it up to second base. That's it Gardenhire -- that's the real Alexi Casilla.


I'm going to make a first here at the MTRC -- I'm going to give Ron Gardenhire props. I'm going to give him props about his tantrum he threw in the ninth inning which resulted in his getting ejected from the game. Gardenhire is good at acting like a six year old whose mom has sent him to the corner. It's extremely entertaining, in fact, and I got a good chuckle out of Gardenhire and first base umpire Gary Cedarstrom pointing fingers at each other and bitching back and forth. That's the one trait that Gardenhire has that is from the old school -- too bad that his unwavering 100-pitch count philosophies, coddling of sucky players like Casilla and Nick Punto, and consistent dicking with professional hitters' swings is terribly new school and pathetic. I'm not sure what school he belongs to that adheres so closely to Gardenhire's philosophy of "we can never win in the playoffs" -- that one must be unique to Gardenhire and Gardenhire alone.


Speaking of the umpires, I was getting a little restless watching home plate umpire Brian O'Nora run off the field every fifteen minutes to ice his midsection. He got hit in the cubes by a foul ball early in the game, which is something I don't wish on anybody. But the joke got pretty old by about the fourth time that O'Nora had to run to the clubhouse to fix his jock strap. Of course Dick Bremer was busy heralding O'Nora's "perseverance" and "toughness," but c'mon -- you're an overweight umpire who not only got hit in the nuts but was obviously struggling to survive the Texas heat. It was a three-hour game to begin with, and then because of O'Nora's stubbornness to stay in the game (not perseverance, but stupid insistence) the game drug out another half-hour. It should not take anybody three and a half hours to play a 4-1 game, and thank you Brian O'Nora for "persevering" through it all.