AUGUST 16, 2009 -- CLEVELAND 7, MINNESOTA 4

I had the (dis)pleasure of watching Sunday's pathetic rubber match with the Cleveland Indians in person at the Metrodome. I have to tell you, it doesn't look any better when you're at the game than it appears on television; any way you can disect Nick Blackburn's imitation of "pitching," it was absolutely horrible. What's worse is that the six run third inning that Blackburn started (and Jesse Crain inexplicably finished) came directly on the heels of a three-run second inning by the Twins that gave them a 3-0 lead over the Indians and their newfound nemesis, Aaron Laffey. Hell, I thought I was fortunate enough to witness a minor miracle when Seldom Young blasted a home run to center field in that three-run frame, and I had a good feeling that Blackburn could get off the schneid and post his first victory since Ron Gardenhire rested him for a week and a half at the All-Star break. Blackburn, who had retired the first six batters with relative ease through the first two innings, faced the bottom of the Cleveland lineup to start the third, and what does he do? He gives up a towering fly ball that lands in the seats to Kelly Shoppach (still can't believe that ball went out), a home run bombed to right field by the light hitting Luis Valbuena, hits 9th-place hitter Andy Marte and gives up a tape-measure fuhgettaboutit blast to Grady Sizemore. Just like that, within a matter of minutes, the Twins lead had vanished, and of course Ron Gardenhire kept the downtrodden Blackburn on the mound in order to give up two more runs before the inning was up. Why Gardenhire went to Jesse Crain in the third inning is beyond me (don't get me wrong -- the only innings he deserves are mop-up duty in a wiffleball game) and not one of their four long relievers -- Jeff Manship being the newbie of that group. But whatever, Ronny Boy -- the game (and the season) was lost long before Sunday's contest.


The goat of the game just may have been Orlando Cabrera, who had one of the worst all around games I've ever had the privilege to watch first hand. Cabrera went 0 for 5 at the plate and found a way to make seven outs in those five at-bats, courtesy of two double plays that Cabrera banged into. To make matters worse, Ron Gardenhire has Cabrera hitting second in the lineup, protecting Joe Mauer, so with Cabrera's pathetic day at the plate, that insured that Mauer would not be hitting with runners on base all game long. His biggest folly was his second GIDP, which came in the seventh while the Twins were mounting a mild rally. With runners on first and second, Cabrera grounded into the Twin killing with Joe Mauer waiting on deck. Cabrera struck out for the final out in the game in the ninth, and Joe Mauer again was the tying run, left in the on-deck circle. To make matters worse, Cabrera's defense again betrayed him. He made a bad error on an easy play in the third inning that would have loomed larger had the Indians taken advantage of the error, and also showed his lack of range by failing to field a grounder that went for a base hit later in the game. He extended his major-league lead of most errors out of anyone playing in the bigs with his 18th boot of the season. Yeah, he's an awesome pickup.


Seldom Young's two-run blast in the second inning was also not without its repercussions, as that meant that he had to play the rest of the game like he's played it the majority of the season, namely like he's the worst player ever to pick up a bat. Those qualities were ever so apparent in the bottom of the fourth, when Young bounced into an inning-ending double play, wasting a bases loaded, one out opportunity for the Twins to get back in the game. Considering what Laffey and the rest of the Indians pitchers were giving them (not much mound presence, very hittable pitches), the Twins seemed to be sleepwalking through this match. It appears as if some players have begun to merely phone in the effort on what has become a lost season -- Michael Cuddyer's someone who has routinely called in sick whenever the game is on the line, and especially now with the chance of the postseason slim to none (the Twins are officially closer to fourth than first with Sunday's loss), expect those players who aren't playing for a contract to give decidedly half-assed efforts. There is one saving grace, and it's probably the only reason (other than the maintenance of this blog, of course) that I'm going to want to watch the Twins the rest of the season -- and that of course is Joe Mauer. If he hits like he did in May (which is a tall order, no doubt) he has a legitimate shot at hitting .400. Reaching such a coveted milestone may come with a downside for the Twins, however. If he does do something historic this season, that just means that the Red Sox and Yankees are going to try that much harder to sign this guy once his contract is up after next season. The big question will remain: Will the Twins try to put a World Series competitor (not just an A.L. Central Division championship competitor) on the field and convince Mauer that they are serious about winning?


Photos: (1) AP/Paul Battaglia (2) AP/Hannah Foslein (3) AP/Tom Olmscheid

AUGUST 15, 2009 -- CLEVELAND 7, MINNESOTA 3

Yet another example of the Twins horrendous inconsistency this season, as the fall weakly to the Cleveland Indians at the Dome. Michael Cuddyer set the tone for Saturday's patheticness when he popped up with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the first inning, the second such failure to get guys home from third base with less than two outs in this series (it's the umpteenth time that Cuddyer hasn't done his freaking job in those situations -- but hey, he's got "good" numbers, so we won't chastise him). Shin-Soo Choo (bless you) homered to lead off the top of the second and the Indians didn't look back, adding four more runs off beleaguered starter Anthony Swarzak and two more off Brian Douchebag to open up a 7-0 lead. A few meaningless RBI singles by Justin Morneau and Joe Crede in the fifth and a Joe Mauer solo home run in the ninth weren't nearly enough to come back on one of the worst teams in the league. David Huff had been so bad -- Twins-terrible, in fact -- against the Twins this season, but of course Ron Gardenhire's bunch picked Huff to be the one to shut them down on Saturday. It didn't help that Ron Gardenhire did one of the most insane managerial decisions of this season (which is saying something, believe me), by sitting Jason Kubel (who had gone 2 for 3 with a home run the last time he faced Huff) in favor of Seldom Young, whom Gardenhire "wanted in the lineup" over one of his best hitters. That makes a whole lotta sense, Gardy, to replace an elite hitter with perhaps the worst outfielder in the game -- I was going to say worst player in the league, but we have to remember that Seldom's not even the worst player on the team -- that race is a dead heat between Sirs Punto and Casilla.


I have to give new Twin Carl Pavano some mad props for his expletive he slinged on air during an in-game interview with Fox broadcaster Dick Stockton. Usually I'm not a fan of those in-game interviews, because especially if the inning drags on, it can get quite awkward to listen to. But in an attempt to skirt a foul ball that entered the dugout, Pavano let an "Oh, S@$%!" fly on-air, and even Bert Blyleven's snickering and Stockton's comments couldn't make that one easily forgettable. That happened to be one of the funnier moments in a game which was laughable from a fan's standpoint. Orlando Cabrera's seventeenth error of the season (on such a routine play, too) was hilariously pathetic, and Cleveland's four-run fifth inning off the two-headed monster of Swarzak and Duensing (sounds like a bad law firm) was nothing short of gut-busting. At this point of a lost season (with Detroit's sound thumping of a clearly inferior team, the Kansas City Royals (whom the Twins couldn't beat twice in three games at home earlier this week), the Twins are six games behind first -- and six games ahead of fourth-place Cleveland) all you can really do is laugh about it. There's no point in getting frustrated -- I think my frustration with the team left after the mid-May Yankee Massacre, and not only has this blog been the ideal outlet to let off steam regarding this pathetic ballclub, but it has been almost therapeutic to document the foibles of Gardy's sad circus of clowns.


The Twins face Aaron Laffey on Sunday, who's been nothing short of Steve Carlton this season against the Twins. Nick Blackburn unfortunately takes the mound for the Twins.

AUGUST 14, 2009 -- MINNESOTA 11, CLEVELAND 0

Well, the Twins won on Friday, so that must mean two things: one, that they won by six or more runs, and two, that they'll likely lose on Saturday. The Twins haven't won back-to-back games in the month of August, and again there's nothing that can signal to Twins fans that Friday's 11-0 romp is a harbinger of future success. On Friday, they were clicking on all cylinders: Scott Baker pitched an outstanding two-hit shutout (which likely means that his next start will be as frustratingly horrendous as this one was terrific), and the hitting was both timely and came from all parts of the lineup. Hell, even Alexi Casilla had two hits, including a bunt single that Dick Bremer blew all out of proportions, basically saying that it was the hit of the year and it likely will spark the Twins to overtake Detroit and win the division -- in fact, they probably won't lose another game the rest of the way because of Lexi's awesome single that raised his batting average to a still paltry .179. Jason Kubel continued his dominance over Cleveland, driving in five runs and hitting his sixth home run this season against the Tribe. When you win 11-0, most fans will condone such failure as two inning-ending double plays with runners on third and one out (compliments of Justin Morneau, and, not surprisingly, Michael "I Live to Fail in the Clutch" Cuddyer, whose lone contribution to the scoring came when the game was out of reach). People who follow this blog know that I'm not that forgiving. That kind of crap won't be tolerated here at the MTRC, and if they want to go anywhere, their "star players" need to get the job done in those situations. This is a team that hasn't won a close ballgame in over two weeks; if you're going to make a run at the division, at-bats like those are going to be the difference in games and perhaps the season. If I'm Ron Gardenhire, I -- wait, wait, wait. I'm not Ron Gardenhire and I don't even like the thought of being that weasel. Forget it.

Thanks to Dick Bremer's delusions, the broadcasters kept us well apprised of the goings-on in Detroit, where the Tigers won a classic pitcher's duel with a walk-off home run in the ninth inning, so the Twins' victory only prevented them from falling further behind the Tigers. The fact that anyone seriously believes that a team that came into Friday's action four games below .500 could actually win a division or even play consistent baseball is proof enough that Bremer belongs in a straitjacket. But I've heard this garbage for more than twenty years with this fool, and it ain't gettin' any better. I'd love to be able to mute the TV and flip on the radio for the play-by-play, but John Gordon and the Wrench, Danny Gladden, continue to yuk it up on the radio waves. One thing I will give the radio guys credit for (and especially Gladden) is that it doesn't appear that they're being paid to wax poetic on the heroic exploits of losers like Casilla and Punto. Gladden will tell you exactly what he thinks, which is a good thing when he's rightfully doing color, but it is a formula for disaster when he's calling the action. My vote is for Jack Morris to do Twins games more often -- anybody with me?

Any time that I have to criticize the broadcasters more than the players must mean that the Twins did well, and that they did. But as I said after Wednesday night's blowout win over the Royals, this team has done nothing to prove to their fans that they can ride these wins and start a winning streak. Most importantly is the fact that Anthony Swarzak gets the ball on Saturday afternoon, and he has lapsed into the scared rookie that most people figured he would be when he was first called up. David Huff, whom the Twins have roughed up twice this season, gets the ball for the Indians.

AUGUST 13, 2009 -- KANSAS CITY 5, MINNESOTA 4

Another humbling loss to the hands of one of the worst teams in the American League, the Kansas City Royals. Carl Pavano lets the bottom of the order beat him in the first four innings, and the Joe Mauer machine couldn't power the Twins to a victory. Mauer drove home all four runs for the Twins off Royals starter Gil Meche, including a three-run home run in the fifth inning that brought the Twins back in the game at 5-4. But the Twins had chances galore, and yet again couldn't get a two-out hit to save their lives. Mauer's home run was the lone hit the Twins had with runners in scoring position, and five innings ended with a runner in scoring position being stranded there. Michael Cuddyer did that twice, again securing his status as a guy who only produces in low-pressure situations, and new acquisition Orlando Cabrera failed big time in the sixth inning when he grounded into an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded. The real goat of that inning was likely Nick Punto, who couldn't even do the easiest thing to do in all of sports -- get a freaking bunt down, and three times he bunted it foul. I'd love to say "see, Gardenhire -- why are you playing this worthless excuse of a ballplayer?" but I feel I've said it before until I was blue in the face. We just have to accept the fact that Ron Gardenhire wants horrible, terrible, pathetic players in the lineup every single game. If he could, he'd pencil himself into the lineup, because I don't know how Gardenhire could do worse than his career .232 batting average. Well, what am I talking about -- of course he could do worse, as evidenced by Nick Punto's embarrassing batting average, which is sitting pretty at a cozy .204.

Not much to add about such a pathetic series as this one, but I do have to give props to Royals manager Trey Hillman for doing something that's so logical and strategic that Ron Gardenhire would never think of doing. Hillman, whose starter Meche had struggled through five innings, was finding that his patchwork bullpen was shaky at best, so he decided to bring in his closer Joakim Soria to start the eighth inning and have a chance for a two-inning save. And guess what happened? The Royals won the game. Soria hadn't pitched at all in the other two games in the series, and so he was fresh enough to go a little bit more than is normally expected of a modern-day closer. Sure, Soria ended up throwing 35 pitches, which may be out of his comfort zone, but more importantly, the Royals won. Trey Hillman -- there's another man in baseball who would do a better job managing the Twins than the sad-sack Ron Gardenhire. I was explaining to a family member who isn't much of a Twins fan why it was a terrible idea to bring in Jesse Crain in the ninth to "hold" a one-run deficit, and they asked (quite logically) "Why not bring in Nathan?" All I could respond with was, "you can't. They have to be in the lead for Nathan to come in the game." This person looked confused and said, "you can't put him in if you're behind?" "Yeah, I know it doesn't make much sense, but them's the breaks when you've got Ron Gardenhire for a manager."

The Twins will now face the fourth-place Cleveland Indians at the dome, and nothing is taken for granted anymore with this ballclub. They haven't won a series in seemingly forever (only two weeks, surprisingly) and the Twins are roughly about the same amount of games ahead of Cleveland (6) than they are behind Detroit (5). And they have to face Aaron Laffey in this series, who the Twins have selected as their arch nemesis for the month. We'll see if the Twins can win one of three here in this upcoming series.

AUGUST 12, 2009 -- MINNESOTA 7, KANSAS CITY 1

It would be nice to think that the Twins could build on Wednesday's easy 7-1 win against the Royals and that perhaps they could start a winning streak and become a serious threat to win the Central Division. But there just hasn't been enough of this to believe that the Twins can start winning a lot of games in a row. The Twins have won exactly three times in their last eleven games, and the scores of those wins has been 10-1, 11-0, and 7-1. They have responded to those blowout victories with blowout losses, terrible pitching, untimely hitting, poor defense and always pathetic managing. It just goes to show how inconsistent this team has been, that they can play near flawless baseball one night and come back the very next game and don't even put forth a semi-effort. For what it's worth, Francisco Liriano responded to the imminent danger of being sent to the bullpen by what was perhaps his best outing of the season. He gave up a home run to the second batter he faced on Wednesday (to the power-challenged Willie Bloomquist, no less), but after that gave up only two more hits for the rest of his seven innings. He struck out eight and more importantly walked only one. His command was sharp and he actually looked like wanted to be on the mound. In a season that has been marked with frustrating inconsistency, Liriano has perhaps been the shining example of that inconsistency. If the Twins can get some solid pitching from Liriano down the stretch, that will be certainly encouraging; but as long as the other spots in the rotation continue to be a sore spot, Liriano can pitch like it's 2006 and it won't make much of a difference.

Joe Crede came back from (take a guess) another injury and promptly belted a three-run home run in his first at-bat in the first inning, capping a five-run inning off Royals starter Brian Bannister that the Twins used to coast to the victory. Crede's been just about what the Twins asked for when they signed him in the offseason. He'll provide a little pop in the order while hitting for a low average and getting on base sparingly. And we all kind of knew about his fragility and thought that the idea of Crede playing on turf would spell doom for his back, and it's been pretty much an assortment of injuries that's sharply limited his playing time. For the kind of numbers Crede is putting up (sub-.300 on-base percentage), it's not like the Twins should really be missing them. The guy pops up to the infield more than anybody else I've ever seen (even Nick Punto and Michael Cuddyer), but that being said, he's a lot better than the alternatives that the Twins have. Brendan Harris has limited range at third base, Brian Buscher is toiling in Triple-A, and Nick Punto couldn't crack the St. Paul Saints roster if the Twins weren't insane enough to give him $4 million a season, so when Crede's out of the lineup, it's not a good thing.


The Twins are so desperate for pitching that Ron Gardenhire is forced to do something pretty much unheard of from Ronny Boy: skip a starter and move up his ace, Carl Pavano, to pitch the Thursday afternoon matinee. Pavano's on his normal rest and such a move (especially considering what the Twins' back end of the rotation consists of) would be obvious to most people. But we're talking about Ron Gardenhire here, and if there's ever a guy who would want guys like Anthony Swarzak and Nick Blackburn and Glen Perkins to take a turn in the rotation just because it won't "screw things up," it's Ron Gardenhire. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Jeff Manship, who was called up to replace the disabled Perkins on Wednesday, gets a crack at a few starts. Anything is better than what they have. Put it this way -- Armando Galarraga has had a bad season for the Tigers and his status as Detroit's #5 starter has been in limbo for much of the season. If he were on the Twins, he might damn well be their top starter. That's depressing.

AUGUST 11, 2009 -- KANSAS CITY 14, MINNESOTA 6

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.

AUGUST 9, 2009 -- DETROIT 8, MINNESOTA 7

The Twins make a valiant comeback after they let the Tigers take control of the game in which they had an early 3-0 lead, but it's all for naught once Matt Guerrier serves it up in the eighth, providing Twins fans of a glimpse of the 2008 Matty Guerrier that we know and love. The classic Matt Guerrier Special came back to haunt the Twins in the eighth, where Guerrier not only gave up the lead to the Tigers, but like all classic MGSes, he gave up the critical insurance run as well that ended up to be the deciding run in the game. In all the Twins pitching staff gave up fifteen hits, which is simply incredible -- it was the fifth time in nine games that the staff had surrendered that many hits in a game. Not surprisingly, the Twins have lost all five of those games. Tom Kelly used to say that the three most important facets of the game of baseball were pitching, pitching, and pitching, and never is that more true than with the 2009 Twins. They're hitting the cover off the ball right now, smacking three long home runs in Sunday's game and collecting fourteen hits of their own. If only they could get some consistent pitching, they'd be running away with the division and be in a position to actually compete with the elite of the American League. But alas, Sunday's loss drops them 5 1/2 games behind the front-running Tigers, and more importantly the Twins remain three games below the .500 mark.


Mike Redmond surprisingly got three hits for the Twins today. Perhaps Jarrod Washburn wasn't as "tough" an assignment for a backup player, which is a reference to Redmond's curious statements following Thursday's loss to Cleveland, where Redmond basically hinted that he shouldn't have been in the lineup facing Fausto Carmona. It's so bad that even the talent-free Redmond knows he's got nothing left in the tank, but he doinked three hits on Sunday and helped produce some runs. But his actual value for the Twins has continuously diminished, and that was emphasized on Sunday, when Ron Gardenhire was forced to remove Redmond from the game in the eighth inning for a pinch runner. Of course, when Gardenhire does that, that means that Joe Mauer must move from the DH spot to the catcher's position, which means that the pitcher must now assume the vacant DH spot in the batting order. By needing to pinch-hit for the .176-hitting Alexi Casilla in the same inning, Gardenhire effectively exhausted his bench in that one inning, and it nearly made for an embarrassing situation in the ninth inning. The pitcher's spot was sixth in the batting order for the Twins in the ninth, and that meant that if they were to mount a rally against Fernando Rodney, the Twins would have had no recourse but to send a pitcher to the plate with the game on the line (and no, I'm not using that as a euphemism for Nick Punto -- an actual pitcher (which, by the way, probably would be a better opportunity to score than if Punto had been at the plate)). It goes to show how having guys like Redmond and Casilla (who you're going to replace late in close ballgames anyway because they suck in more than one way) on the team absolutely cripples your roster. Again, there's a guy down in Triple-A who has a major-league batting average this season residing in Joe Mauer-land who's young, energetic, and isn't any more of a defensive liability than the elder statesman Redmond is. Why the Twins refuse to make the obvious talent upgrade is beyond me and I'm sure it continues to confuse Twins fans elsewhere. I would have loved to see Joe Nathan taking hacks at Fernando Rodney with the tying run on base with two out in the ninth inning -- actually I would have more enjoyed the look that Ron Gardenhire would have had on his face at that point. But, the patheticness of Seldom Young made that an impossibility when he took a brutal quasi-swing at Rodney's first pitch and tapped weakly to third base to end the ballgame.


The Twins have an offday Monday and then travel home to open a six-game homestand against the AL Central's two bottom feeders, the Kansas City Royals and the Cleveland Indians. Once again the Twins will luck out and not have to face Zach Greinke in that Royals series, but the real story will be that the Twins will have to have good starting pitching down the stretch if they want a sniff at the divisional title. It doesn't matter who you're playing -- the Yankees or the Royals -- if you can't pitch, like the Twins haven't lately, you simply won't win ballgames. The Twins aren't even sure who's going to make the Thursday afternoon game at this point, and Francisco Liriano is tentatively penciled in to make Tuesday's start. My bet is that Brian Douchebag makes one of those starts, and something tells me that Ron Gardenhire will go ahead and let Liriano make another start. It sure as hell doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence when you are unclear who's going to be pitching the majority of the innings in an upcoming series. Especially when you consider yourself a playoff "contender."