Hitting the Foul Pole

Great post.

I feel as you do, there are not many, if any reasons for optimism.

In addition to the bad fielding (which we predicted, in the outfield), and the terrible starting pitching recently, the lineup instills no confidence.

If the DPs are still happening because we are leading the AL in on base, then fine, that’s going to happen with a terribly slow lineup. But they are continuing, as you pointed out, with our squad tanking it, when it comes to on base%.

I feel like Gardy has lost touch a bit, on the feel of a lineup, or how to ride someone who is hot. As Gleeman points out in today’s post, the fact Cuddy is batting 5th and 6th is silly. He cannot hit RHP. So Gardy puts him at 3b to keep his favorite, overpaid player on the roster, every day without a break. Heck, I would argue, that Punto’s value as a 3b fielder, and his decent on base% over the last month +, means he provides more value than Cuddy.

Young may soon come back to earth with his crazy swinging tendencies back, but the fact he is not farther up in the lineup to break up the lefty log jam is shameful. Kubel has never hit lefties well, but yet Gardy bats 3 in a row if there is a rhp starting, just cuz.

Hardy, although a significant upgrade at SS over Punto, has a .235 on base %, since he has come back from injury. His problems from last year have not been fixed. He is slow and a black hole in every sense, as it pertains to the lineup.

If Span and Mauer can’t get it together, this team has no hope, regardless of what our pitching does (we’ve got lots of AL central games, so they should get better).

Plus we all hope Morneau is ok and back in the lineup….we need that.

Finally, I am not a big Gardy fan. I think with the high expectations, and this team under achieving, we will see more meltdowns from him, ridiculous emotional statements, and him sticking with certain players while refusing to mix things up to put a jolt into a team, that seems to be dieing a slow death.

I know, I know, this is really negative. But the post asked if there were legitimate reasons for optimism?

Well, in terms of our chances in the division, I don’t believe the Tigers and Sox are anything special. Detroit worries me the most, but I still like the Twins to win the division. Beyond that, though, little hope for this year to be any different than the rest under Gardy.

So Gardy. I’ve never considered him a particularly great manager, mostly because his in-game decisions can be baffling sometimes (as well as his love affair with Nick Punto). But, you know, up until recently he hasn’t had much to work with. The Twins were a small market team. The organization was trying to stay afloat, not win the World Series. He seemed like a good manager for the “underdog” role.

Now, though, the Twins aren’t a small market team. They are loaded with talent. They should win the division. He can’t play the underdog card anymore. And you’re right, Sean, he doesn’t know how to manage this sort of club. I tend to think when managers get fired the blame is unfairly distributed to them, but in this instance I think Gardy has been a large part of the problem in the first half. His Sunday lineups have been widely criticized, as has his stubbornness with Blacky, but it’s some of the intangibles that really bother me. They seem to lack passion, energy, a real desire to win. A killer instinct. They can’t put teams away (both within games and within series). They do not play well from behind – how many comeback wins to they have? Last at-bat wins? They still seem to play with that meek little-engine-that-could attitude, and I think it all stems from Gardy. We’re getting unlucky, it’s okay…we’re banged up, it’s okay…well, can’t win every series, at least we tried…

I just don’t think the Twins can win a Series under Gardy. I know they’ll never can him, no matter what happens (in this way the front office mirrors Gardy, or vice versa). I do think he’s becoming a bigger problem though, and I’m left to wonder how this team would be doing with a Leyland or LaRussa behind the bench.

This was a great post, by the way, thanks.

I agree that it appears to be more of an attitude thing than a “talent” thing. (outside of Blackburn, dude flat out can’t pitch). The lineup is talented, and I don’t think there is a major roster move I would make regarding the starting 9, they just need to get their act together. Whose job is that? As far as I know, its the manager’s. I think the bullpen can be fixed with pieces in the minors and a little bit of addition by subtraction. The rotation can be improved (not necessarily fixed) by more of the same. Getting Blackburn the hell out of there. I think it bothers me that Gardy isn’t, to the best of my knowledge, breaking down Bill Smith’s door screaming for help in the starting rotation. I feel that most good managers (Monty Burns included) will tell their GM “Hey, we need some outside help in the rotation”. and the GM will do his best to make that happen. I don’t see Gardy doing that. Does anyone else?

also, if you are looking for someone to make you angrier than Gardy, look no further

http://deadspin.com/5586984/when-gary-carter-gets-into-it-with-a-child-you-know-securitys-going-to-get-involved

what kind of douche acts like that in front of his children?

I am still optimistic. Detroit and the Chisox are flawed. And the Twins have plenty of games left against Chicago. We need our pitchers to start getting out of the first inning and the batter to quit hitting into double plays — the bad luck streak the team has been on since the end of May cannot continue, can it?

I just read that Placido Polanco is outslugging Mauer. Ouch.

Thanks for a great post. On the other hand, isn’t this just another Minnesota Twins season? I mean, pretty much every season over the past five years or so, we’ve reached a point midsummer where things looked hopeless, and then they somehow managed to crawl back into it (and then a few weeks later it looks hopeless again and we start the whole cycle over again, repeatedly, until we sneak up to steal the division title–and get stomped by the Yankees in the play offs). Welcome to hopelessness version 1.0, 2010 Twins. I wonder if we’ll take a single game from the Damn Yankees in the postseason this time around?

The only difference is we were one of the best teams in the AL in april and may. So we have seen what this team can do, they just aren’t doing it. Whether its lack of motivation, flash in the pan success (think Nick Blackburn in May), or a combination of a million differen things.

The only difference is we were one of the best teams in the AL in april and may. So we have seen what this team can do, they just aren’t doing it. Whether its lack of motivation, flash in the pan success (think Nick Blackburn in May), or a combination of a million different things.

Is Hardy the new Crede?

I’m not really sure what that means. Considering Hardy is younger, plays a different position, and doesn’t have chronic back problems. They are both white, left side infielders? So are Troy Tulowitzki and Evan Longora.

I suppose Hardy is another injured disappointment, at least thus far.

But his skills haven’t eroded, and he’s not old. And like FunBobby said, he doesn’t have back problems, which are a whole different thing.

I don’t think it’s totally unreasonable to think Hardy might have a better second half than first half; if he doesn’t, though, the Twins are going to need to get lucky with an amazing few months out of at least one other guy to make up for it.

I don’t think Crede was ever a disappointment. Was anyone shocked when he went on the DL with a back problem? I certainly hope not. It was a near certainty that Crede was going to have trouble staying on the field, most likely due to his ailing back. And shocker, that is iexactly what happened.

Well, I was kind of hoping Crede would be able to fill in and produce reasonably well; but he posted an 83 OPS+ in just 90 games, while posting a .289 OBP … maybe my expectations were unreasonable, but I was pretty disappointed.

I think it’s fair to be disappointed when your free agent signing spends half the year on the DL, and the other half posts the second-worst season of his career and then turns out to be so bad that nobody is willing to entertain signing him that offseason.

Optimism…….gone.

Can someone please tell me why Slowey started this game? I guess it doesn’t really matter which game of the series he’s terrible in, and even left this terrible outing with the club in the lead. But we’re going to come out of the break in a big series with…Kevin F&#@ing Slowey? More importantly, though, why for the love of all things holy is Nick Blackburn pitching Sunday? He shouldn’t be pitching for this club period, but if the powers that be insists on keeping him around because he’s a nice guy, why pitch him ahead of Baker?

Not that Baker isn’t capable of Blacky-esque “pitching” as well, but jeez. Speaks volumes for what the Twins think of Baker right now I guess. He must not be as nice or try as hard as Blacky.

He complained of elbow sorness about a week ago, so they are giving him extra days. It has nothing to do with what they think of his pitching ability.

Did his complaint happen to immediately follow a crappy start?

Of course it has noting to do with his ability, very little the Twins do depends on things like ability.