Embarrassing.
That's the only word I can think of for last night's performance by the Twins. Embarrassing. It's one thing to get shut down by the Rays. They have legitimately good pitchers. Last night the Twins managed one hit over seven innings while facing Nobody No-One.
This was the worst loss the Twins have had for a long time. Yes, they've lost by more runs. They've been shut out. But last night they were shut down by a pitcher who doesn't even belong in the big leagues. Yes, I know that this happens once in a while, that anybody can have a great game once. I know all about Bobo Hollimon's no-hitter and all that stuff. But this was still embarrassing. This was reminiscent of the day in 2007 when they were shut down by Jimmy Levale Speigner. It's just as well that nobody bothered to put up a game log, because this game didn't deserve one. The Twins batters ought to be ashamed of themselves.
One batter who doesn't have to be ashamed is Kendrys Morales, who was traded to Seattle just in time to avoid this debacle. in return the Twins got Stephen Pryor, a pitcher who looked really good in 2012, got hurt, missed most of 2013, and hasn't done a lot in 2014. He turned 25 the day before yesterday. It's anyone's guess what he'll do, but getting anything for Morales is really a win for the Twins. Even if he gets things going on offense, he wasn't likely to be a Twin after this season anyway. If Pryor heals and gets good, well, good job Terry Ryan. If not, well, he really didn't cost much of anything.
Pryor was sent to Rochester, so the Twins needed someone on the twenty-five man roster. They called up Jorge Polanco again to do that. I don't really understand why. They don't need a shortstop at the moment, and Polanco really hasn't shown that he's ready to play in the big leagues. Yes, he's on the forty-man roster, and yes, it may just be a temporary thing until Mauer comes back, but even so, why Polanco? Why not bring back Josmil Pinto to DH? Why not give Kennys Vargas a taste of the big leagues for a few days? If it is just a few days, then in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter much, but still, you'd like to think the Twins have reasons for the things they do. This just strikes me as kind of a lazy move made at random. I don't get it.
As you know if you paid attention to the game, Phil Hughes left one batter into the fourth inning after taking an Adam Dunn comebacker off his leg. I'm reading this morning that X-rays were negative and that he hopes to make his next start.
After last night's game, I'm about as down regarding this team as I've been for some time. The good news is, it's baseball. Every day is a new day. We'll start out tonight with a score of 0-0, and anything might happen. The Twins might come out and score twelve runs tonight and make things look totally different. Tonight might start that season-ending sixty-one game winning streak. We'll just have to settle for 107-55!
That's Jeremy No-One, btw
I'm "glad" to see Hughes came out due to injury -- I wasn't listening (like a lot of The Nation) and if Gameday on my phone mentioned that, I didn't see it. If there ever was a game that didn't deserve a game log, it was this one. Or maybe I'm chicken-and-egg'ing this?
I was at work late - following on mlb.com - and contemplated putting up a game log. Eventually, with how things progressed and with only a couple of Citizens, 4 guests and 2 bots on the site, I decided against it.
oh, whoops.
you're not the one who should be apologizing for that game
can't we just Godfather III this one?
*makes whooshing hand motion over head*
"It never happened."
I simply refuse to believe an entire team doesn't show up to play a game. It's much more likely that a pitcher, no matter how bad he is, simply had a good game. And it wasn't like the Twins were flailing away. They only struck out 5 times. They average over 8 per game. The Twins were just 2-for-24 on balls in play. That's a lot of bad luck. Noesi even allowed more fly balls than ground balls.
Even if it wasn't a good effort by the Twins, who can blame them? Morales was traded prior to the game so it was made obvious the team had given up on any chance of the postseason. Fans had given up on that a while ago, but the athletes themselves will take longer to do that, as I hope they would. A baseball season is 162 games. It's hard to imagine any team giving it their very best for all 162. I didn't see anything in the game the team should be "embarrassed" about, especially considering the starter came out early due to injury. The game quickly went from 1-0 to 4-0 because of that.
I never said they didn't show up. And as I acknowledged, anyone can have a good game. I would blame them if I thought they didn't give an effort, because that's their job, but I don't think that.
However, I think they should still be embarrassed at the result. Hector Noesi isn't even a good AAA pitcher. When a big league offense gets completely shut down by a pitcher who hasn't even succeeded at AAA, I think that's embarrassing. It would be different if they had a lot of hard-hit balls right at people, or if they had baserunners all over the place and just couldn't get a key hit at the right time. But neither of those was the case.
In the second paragraph you forgive the team for doing what you said they didn't do in the first paragraph. A fine bit of weaseling, that.
This may come across as harsh, but, your ongoing insistence to stick up for this bumbling franchise has gone from kind of cute in a naive way, to just plain annoying--especially as your defense of the squad becomes more strident. Stand up for these bumblers if you must, but don't be surprised when others disagree.
Sorry, it had to be said. I will now go back to ignoring Twins baseball.
No -come back and ignore Twins baseball with the rest of us!
Dude, you're harshin' my buzz.
Obviously, this blog is suffering from a lack of pork recipes.
The "Hope Floats" graphic featured on the front page is obviously the worst problem.
wait, did I feel a disturbance in the force? Yes, yes I did/