Rosters matter.

Well, there were some positives.  Ricky Nolasco had a "quality start", and while that's not a particularly good statistic he did keep the Twins in the game.  Josmil Pinto got a couple of hits, so maybe he's coming out of his slump.  Gardy prevented Pedro Florimon from dropping his average to double digits by using Danny Santana as a reserve, and he went 2-for-2.  The bullpen pitched pretty well.

Infielder Eduardo Escobar was in left field last night.  That apparently worked out all right until it didn't.

My confession to you--I saw none of the game.  I was taking my junior high youth group to a movie.  I have not seen the Big Play on the highlights.  I don't know whether a real outfielder would have caught the ball.  The Twins have used some "real outfielders" who don't field very well.  I don't know whether, say, Kubel or Willingham or Arcia would have caught the ball.

I do know that the Twins have a poorly constructed roster right now, and there are consequences for that.  A look at their roster shows thirteen pitchers, three catchers (Herrmann is listed as a catcher), three shortstops. and two outfielders (Colabello is listed as a first baseman).  That's not something that just happened.  That's something that's a result of choices that have been made by Twins management.

Yes, it would be different if Hicks hadn't gotten hurt.  But injuries are a part of baseball, and part of running a team is being prepared for injuries to happen.  Now, if a superstar like Joe Mauer goes down, you're obviously not likely to have another superstar ready to replace him.  But Hicks, while fine defensively, was hitting .178 with an OPS of .575.  That should not  be all that hard to replace.  Speedy defensive players who can't hit are pretty much always available.  The Twins chose not to replace it.  That choice has consequences.

Again, I didn't see the game, so if you say that the Twins would've lost anyway I can't argue with you.  If you say that, well, it's only one game and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter that much, I won't argue with that, either.

The point, though, is that all season, the Twins have been acting like you can just stick anybody in the outfield--a shortstop, a catcher, a first baseman--and it doesn't matter.  Bill James wrote, many years ago, that whenever a team acts like some aspect of the game doesn't matter, you're seeing a team throw ball games out the window.  Outfield defense matters.  Playing shortstops and catchers and first basemen in the outfield matters.  And it will cost you games.

The good news, though, is that it's still early in the season.  After we win the next one hundred thirty games, we'll forget all about this little blip.  We'll just have to settle for 145-17!