I Came To Hear The Music

My season ticket partner and I have been trying to come up with theme songs for each member of the Twins. I don't mean songs that would be inspiring or fitting for each player or their style of play; rather they should be songs that the players' name can be substituted in to. Here's what we got so far:

Nick Blackburn - The Beatles "Blackbird". Blackburn pitching in the dead of night.

Livan Hernandez - Bon Jovi "Livin' On A Prayer". Whooah, we're half way there. Livan on a prayer!

Joe Mauer - Hank Williams, Sr. "Jambalaya". Midway Joe he gotta go, me oh my oh.

Mike "The Hammer" Lamb - MC Hammer "U Can't Touch This". Break It Down. Stop. Hammer time!

Matt Tolbert - The Cranberries "Zombie". He's in your head. In your head. Tolbert, Tolbert, Tolbert!!!

Carlos Gomez - Andrew Lloyd Webber - "Go, Go, Go Joseph". Go, go, go Gomez you know what they say. Go, go, go Gomez you'll make it some day.

Justin Morneau - ACDC "Thunderstruck". This is a play off of his nickname that only four or five people know.

Delmon Young - Harry Belafonte "Banana Boat". Delmon come and he want a home run.

We still have to come up with songs for Brian Bass, Jesse Crain, Matt Guerrier and the rest of the Twins so anything that Bear of Juice can do to help would be great. This plea goes to our readers as well. Suggestions can be made in the comment section.

I Knew It!!!

I have been an avid reader of Aaron Gleeman for about a year now. He is, more or less, what I would like to be. A blogger that has achieved notoriety by intelligently discussing the Minnesota Twins and baseball, amongst other topics. He has even used his blogging credibility to get jobs at RotoAuthority.com and MSNBC.com. I usually turn to him to get some insight on the Twins, that I otherwise wouldn't get from espn, the star tribune, Dick & Bert or Dietz. This was the case again tonight when I came across this little nugget:

After collecting multiple hits in each of the past three games, Joe Mauer now leads the AL with a .336 batting average. He also ranks fourth in the league with a .406 on-base percentage and only Kurt Suzuki has logged more innings behind the plate. For all the silly, Dan Barreiro-style talk about Mauer not coming through in the clutch or not making a huge impact because of a lack of power, Mauer ranks third among AL hitters in Win Probability Added, trailing only Manny Ramirez and Josh Hamilton.

Once you adjust for catcher being the worst-hitting position in baseball and throw in his considerable defensive value, a WPA-based analysis likely shows Mauer as the league's most valuable position player thus far. Some homers would certainly be nice, but anyone complaining about a player hitting .330 and getting on base at a .400 clip while playing the most physically demanding, least-offensive position is merely doing a fine job showing how little they really know about baseball.

I knew Butt Stink was having a great season and I knew he was being vastly undervalued. It's time for people to quit worrying about Mauer's home run total and start appreciating his unique (for the Twins) ability to get on base. Too many people (and too many major leaguers) don't seem to realize that the most important aspect of hitting is not getting out. It doesn't matter if this happens by home run or by walk, although home runs are obviously better. Butt Stink seems to get this, I just wish that the fine people at KFAN, and the like, would calm down and realize the caliber of player the Twins have at catcher.

State of the Twins

Amazingly, Juice stole my idea. I won't let that stop me from recapping what has been a pleasant start to the season for the Minnesota Twins. I will preface this by saying that if I had written this five days ago, I would have been a lot more negative. I'm glad I waited. Here goes.

The Twins currently stand in first place in the AL Central. This is a tremendous surprise. The beginning of the season has been filled with a lot of disappointments, mixed with a lot of intrigue, with little to be excited about. That is until recently. The Twins now stand at 16-14 and are coming off homestand in which they swept all five games from the White Sox and Tigers. All this has happened with only three starting pitchers and an offense that would finish fourth in the River Falls Lower Division Men's Softball League.* Color me pickled tink.

*League play for Emma's Bar begins on Tuesday, May 6 at Hoffman Park in River Falls, WI. Bring your tubas!!!

The Lineup: It has been pretty bad so far as the Twins are 13th in the American League in runs scored, T-13th in home runs, 14th in on-base percentage and 10th in slugging percentage. On the plus side we are 3rd in batting average (.266, sooooooooo good!!!) and 3rd in steals. Carlos Gomez has been fun to watch, but needs to get a clue at the plate and quit swinging at sliders in the dirt. He seems to be getting a little better of late, as he has only 2 strike outs in his last 6 games after wearing the golden sombrero in Oakland. Joe Mauer (from here on, Butt Stink) has been very good, especially during the Twins recent surge. He would be even better if Abner Doubleday hadn't invented the second basemen. Justin Morneau is third in the A.L. in home runs and 13th in slugging, which pleases me. In fact, when I recently cast my all star vote, I chose him on merit and not on my usual Twins bias. The rest of the lineup has been more or less horrendous with a few glimmers of hope (Brendan Harris, Jason Kubel, Matt Tolbert) and a few flops (Delmon Young hits like Chuck Knoblauch).

The Rotation: We have three starters!!!. There names are Livan Hernandez, Boof Bonser and Nick Blackburn. I'm not sure why, but this seems ominous. These guys have been doing fine so far, but I am extremely skeptical that they will keep up this level of success. Combine this with the disaster that is Francisco Liriano and the fact that Scott Baker has the face and body of an eight-year-old boy and there isn't that much hope for the Twins pitching to get much better. The good news is that Twins' starters do have been generally effective and Kevin Slowey is about to return from the disabled list on Thursday; not to mention the plethora of options there are in the minor leagues. Basically, so far so good, but we need some help.

The Bullpen: This has always been the trademark of all recent Twins' teams. It is a major reason for the success of the starting rotation and their record in close games. This year, however, there have been a few meltdowns (the whole series at Detroit). This is a little disconcerting, especially considering the current status of the rotation. I think that these meltdowns are merely aberrations based on the bullpens performance in the rest of the games. Joe Nathan continues to prove that he is the best closer in baseball (11/11 saves, 1 ER) and I bet he is reminding Brewers fans that they maybe should have tried to trade for him during the offseason before he got his new deal. Oh well, they all can' be Eric Gagne.

Coaching: I think that Ron Gardenhire is one of the best game managers in baseball. He knows how to use a pitching staff and he isn't afraid to be aggressive on offense. I just have one bone to pick. QUIT PLAYING NICK PUNTO!!! He isn't good. I don't quite understand the infatuation. I know he tries hard and makes nice defensive plays, but he hits like he's batting from the wrong side of the plate and he's a switch hitter. Let's just relegate him to pinch runner and defensive replacement for Mike Lamb and leave the hitting to the less experienced Matt Tolbert. On a side note, Gardy might be looking over his shoulder a little bit due to the phenomenal job Scott Ulger did while managing in his absence.

Overall, I am super excited just because the Twins are in first place. I bought season tickets this year with the realization that I was going to watch a young team struggle and learn while losing a lot of games. Every day that they are in first place makes every game I attend way more riviting just because of the allure of a potential pennant race. I just hope the mathemeticians have it right and we stick to our, as of now, projected record of 87-75 and the rest of the division continues plays under .500 baseball. But as someone once said, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

Home is where the catcher is

***This post originally was to appear on the blog at around 10:00 pm CST, but due to some technical difficulties on our server (i.e. too many girls with too many laptops) it has been delayed until the wee hours of the morning. Sorry for the inconvenience, I hope that in the future we can keep this sort of thing to a minimum (girls love wine more than the internet). Now onto the post.

Rule 7.06 of Major League Baseball's Official Rule Book states:

The catcher, without the ball in his possession, has no right to block the pathway of the runner attempting to score. The base line belongs to the runner and the catcher should be there only when he is fielding a ball or when he already has the ball in his hand.

I bring this up because I recently attended a Minnesota Twins game in which this very rule was ignored or at least misinterpreted. In the bottom of the fourth inning during Wednesday's game against the Chicago White Sox, Joe Mauer was batting and Carlos Gomez was on second base. There were two outs and Mauer had a 3-1 count. Of course Gomez, not realizing that Mauer had worked the count in his favor, broke for third. He was safe as the ball trickled away from Joe Crede. Gomez jumped to his feet and scampered home. He easily beat the throw, but was called out to the dismay of the 15,000 seniors, elementary school children and businessmen who decided to take the afternoon off (nooner!). Gomez was called out because the White Sox catcher, Toby Hall, blocked the plate and then caught the ball and tagged him out.

Almost everyone would see this play and commend the catcher for doing a perfect job of one of the basic fundamentals of baseball and they would be right. I just see it a different way. Why the hell is the catcher allowed to stand in the base path and set up in front of the plate. This puts the runner at a tremendous disadvantage because their choices are either to slide and be called out or attempt to run the catcher over, while risking injury and probably being out anyways. That's just not fair. How in the fuck is the 120 pound Gomez supposed to run over the 255 pound Toby Hall, plus equipment. I would argue that Hall should have been called for obstruction and Gomez should have been awarded home because his pathway was clearly blocked as he was attempting to score.

It can be argued that Hall is allowed to do this because he is in the act of fielding the throw from Joe Crede. However, he wasn't fielding the ball when he saw it roll towards the Twins' dugout. He was positioning himself in front of the plate so that Gomez could not score and while waiting for the ball to be retrieved. That is obstruction. A counter to this is that Hall was not in Gomez's pathway when Crede was picking up the ball, as Gomez had not reached that point of the baseline yet. I call this bull shit, because the pathway has to be considered the point from where the runner currently is, to the base he is trying to get to. That is his path!!!

I have seen this happen in many games, and just don't understand the reasoning behind this rule. Aren't the point of rules to create an even playing field for all participants? This clearly gives the advantage to the catcher while presenting the runner with an unenviable choice. Lets pray that Bud Selig reads this blog and he changes this stupid rule once and for all.


End Rant