Fire Gardy

It’s time to continue grumbling about Delmon Young. He played all 162 games last year, and has played every game so far this year. That’s admirable … but at the same time, he’s not producing. Despite getting two hits last night, he came up short in perhaps his most important at bat — bases loaded, nobody out. An RBI Fielder’s Choice is not what we want out of our prized young slugger in that situation.

But is the Young Delmon in danger of riding the pine?

“He told me the other day, he doesn’t like to miss an inning,” Gardenhire said. “And I told him to get some hits, and he won’t.”

It sure sounds like Gardy’s noticed that Delmon isn’t living up to his hyped hitting ability. He has only 4 XBH so far this season (including 0 HR), for a IsoP of just .036 — which is shockingly Tyner-esque. (Last year, Tyner’s IsoP was .069.)

So while Gardy wants him to “get some hits,” I don’t think that’s the message that needs to be sent. Delmon answered by getting some singles, and raising his average to .271 … but the real problem is that he needs to put a charge into the ball. Delmon needs to be crushing line drives and putting the ball over the fence.

Would benching be a viable option? Would it do what we want, and light a fire under his ass? Would it have the same effect it had on Gomez? Or would it anger Delmon, starting a player-manager fight in the same vein as Young v. Maddon a year ago?

It’s impossible to say. But something needs to change, and I’m an advocate of sitting him down and telling him that if you want to be in the lineup, you have to produce. Just take it easy for a day, and when you come back start swinging harder — we don’t need our young players taking bat-speed lessons from Mauer (while ignoring the strike zone lessons, apparently).

Not a bad weekend, win two of three (with one to go) against the stupid red sox (that is the official firegardy.com name for the baseball team from Boston). Friday was great. Nothing like taking papplebon (also, none of their players names deserve capitalization) down a peg or two.  Very exciting, too bad we couldn’t carry that momentum over into Saturday.  Perkins looked ok for a while, but our pitchers just couldn’t seem to keep the ball in the park.  Granted the stupid red sox have a very powerful lineup, we just can’t allow them to do that.  On sunday Craig Monroe had one of his best games as a Twins, does anyone hear rumblings of benching the punchless Young and playing Monroe and Kubel at LF and DH?  They aren’t too loud, but such rumblings have to start somewhere. And that somewhere is here. And probably lots of other places too.

I really thing Gomez has turned a corner in his development as a hitter. Since that game a few weeks back when he was benched, he has been tearing the cover off the ball. He still strikes out too much, but he is young and is progessing MUCH faster than I thought. He takes some questionable routes to the ball in the outfield, and until last night he was able to use his speed to make up for his inability to read balls off the bat (his speed can’t make up for his inability to read books, but that is neither here nor there). Isn’t the first thing you learn in little league taking a few steps back when a ball is hit in the air because it is easier to move in on a ball at the last second than to have to move back? I don’t get why his first steps are forward everytime. Ullger isn’t our outfield coach, is he?

In other news, no Nick Punto for about two weeks. That is awesome. I hope Casilla gets some playing time, but not sure where they would put him. I think Gardy likes him as a SS, so will he play on days that Everett rests? Harris is supposed to be ready to go for tonights game, and since he has been out for a while I get the feeling he will be starting several games in a row there, just to get back into the swing of things. 

Did anyone else notice last night that Tolbert is a terrible secondbaseman? He made two bad throws while turning potential DPs. On a ball hit down the left field line he ran over to third to cut the ball off. Was there a reason for this? He was about 10 miles out of position , and if the ball got away from the 18 guys we had on the left side of the infield, only Morneau was on the right side to back anything up. I hope that was just Tolbert being dumb, not the coaching staff telling him to take cutoff throws from the left fielder as a secondbaseman.

We have Livan tossing tonight. On ESPN, can’t wait to hear what Joe Morgan has to say.

This week, I wrote about how a small strike zone always seems to hurt the Twins. My explanation was fairly simplistic:

“The strike zone may have been consistent for both teams, but the Twins react terribly to it, and have for years. First, it hurts the pitcher because the corners aren’t called for strikes — meaning he’s giving up more walks and more hard hit balls than he’s used to. That isn’t consistent for both teams, however, because of the Outside Swing Percentage problems the Twins have: namely, they swing at everything that moves and won’t draw any walks regardless of how friendly the strike zone is.”

I wanted to think about this some more. Especially in the context of a conversation we had yesterday: “The way I see it, there are two basic philosophies for building an offense: walks + power, or consecutive hits + speed.”

I’m not about to debate whether these are the only two basic philosophies of building an offense. But what I am going to do is walk through a (rather longwinded) thought about which of these two philosophies produces the better offense — and how that affects the enjoyment of the game.

When you watch an old baseball game, one of the striking things about it is how large the strike zone is. When you’re taught to play baseball, you’re told that the strike zone is “from your armpits to your knees,” and the umpires actually used to call it that way. As a result of the large strike zone, batters had to protect the plate a lot more, and swing at anything that was near the corners, otherwise they’d just strike out.

When you’re swinging like that, it’s supremely difficult to put any power into your swing. (I know this from personal experience — when I played, I never hit a home run, but I also rarely struck out … or walked. Classic Old School Twins Player.)

As a result, old games tended to take less time, and a player’s value was tied directly to his batting average, as opposed to his OBP. (Because it was so much more difficult to walk, a player’s ability to make contact WAS his ability to get on base.) In order to score runs, a team had to sustain a rally. You had to get three or four hits in an inning in order to score a couple of runs. The suspense in these games is palpable (which is funny, considering the fact that they happened decades ago), and the players were forced to trust the players ahead of them and behind them in the order. The BB-K-HR model individualizes the game much more — each of those players was trying to hit his own home run, not sustain a rally for his team.

How does this effect the Twins and their organizational philosophy? The most famous Twins players were swing away hitters. Some of them could put it over the fence, some couldn’t. Some made more contact than others. But none of them kept the bat on their shoulder.

The Twins mastered the art of the old school offensive strategy close to the time it became outdated — and won a pair of World Series for their efforts. Even players who weren’t part of those teams, but were predecessors and part of the mold of “a Twins Player” remained in the public’s consciousness and hearts. Oliva, Carew, Puckett, Hrbek … free swinging, fun loving, old school baseball players. These are what a Twin is supposed to be.

And nothing changed since then. The ownership is the same, just older. The front office is the same, each GM naming his successor and keeping alive the victorious lineage of the ‘87 and ‘91 champions. The curmudgeonly manager of those championship teams finally retired and named his successor, keeping alive THAT victorious lineage.

Of course, the second championship was followed by a decade of dark, dark times. Exactly the kind of times a franchise could use for some serious soul searching, to figure out what direction the organization is going to take. To determine whether or not the game has passed them by, and that changes are necessary.

This soul searching didn’t happen. Nothing changed — instead, after a decade of futility, a new band of young Twins emerged, forged from the mold of old, Classic Old School Twins Players. They swung at everything, and they managed to do it in a row enough to score runs. The Twins re-mastered the art of the old school offensive strategy, just as other teams were mastering the new offensive strategy — walks and power.

The Boston Red Sox — certainly one of the most successful of the new school offenses — represent perhaps the perfect juxtaposition with the Twins. They didn’t maximize their walks + power offense until they added the ultimate DH … a certain David Ortiz. He stepped into their lineup and immediately started blasting balls over the fence and striking fear into the hearts of pitchers everywhere. Before DOrtiz was this feared hitter, he was with the Twins, where he was “forced to swing like a little bitch.” (His words.)

But, at the end of the day, is this Old School Offense that the Twins are employing such a bad thing? The Twins offense won’t score as many runs or be as consistent as the more modern teams, and they’ll probably amass a worse record over the course of the season than the teams willing to spend 2+ times as much money (that’s what it costs to get the good “Three True Outcomes” players). And another World Series may be hard to come by (although anything can happen).

I don’t personally watch baseball every day because I EXPECT my favorite team to be the best one that’s ever been constructed, every day of every year. That’s a bit of an East Coast mentality that’s a bit too oppressive for my tastes. I watch baseball because I enjoy it, it’s entertaining and fun to watch, and it recalls my memories of playing baseball as a kid. And when you’re a kid, not many people are able to hit a home run and everyone hates it when kids are getting walked around the bases.

I don’t LIKE watching a baseball game where every at bat is most likely to be a strike out, walk, or home run. That type of play tends to take a long time, and encourages both the batter and the pitcher to draw out each pitch as long as possible. The “greatest rivalry in sports,” Red Sox versus Yankees, produces nothing but unwatchable games. Every game takes over four hours, and there’s little suspense in wondering which team will amass the most home runs (following walks) over the course of these particular nine innings. I would MUCH rather watch a 2.5 hour game in which 4-5 hits could happen in a row at any time, and whenever someone manages to get on base you have to sit on the edge of your seat as a rally may be about to start. (And because of that, I can get over the fact that the rally only actually starts about 20% of the time. If that.)

I think the modern walks + power offense is a “better” way to go about it. I’d like to see the Twins adopt some aspects of it. But at the same time, I love and appreciate the fact that I root for a throwback team that eschews these modern lessons and plays the game “the way it’s always been played.” There’s something comforting in that.

(And I’m not even old.)

I was at the game last night. I stood, huddled out of the rain for two hours while a torrential downpour punished US Cellular Field (presumably for those dorky pinwheels). Finally, they started the game at 9 o’clock, despite the fact that it was still drizzling. I was not bullish on the team’s chances in the game. For one thing, they’d looked awful the night before. Secondly, Buerhle was pitching, and he always kills the Twins. And Monroe was in the 3-hole and Redmond-Tolbert-Punto were in a row. And the field was soaked. I said to my brother: “What are the odds the Twins score a run tonight?”

Well Carlos Gomez greeted me by crushing the third pitch of the game, lining it hard over the fence in left. When he makes contact on those “Who cares if I’m swinging way too hard?” swings, the ball can really sail. The Twins had scored a run, and beaten the odds.

Thankfully, the offense exploded for 13 runs on 16 hits, while Livan Hernandez took a shutout into the 9th (and promptly lost it when Jermaine “Roid Rage” Dye put one over the fence). And Carlos Gomez hit for the cycle … entertainingly, in reverse order — homer, triple, double, single. This is one of those dizzying highs for Gomez’s season, and I’m certainly enjoying it.

In the 5th inning, the Twins were putting a good threat together. Men on first and second, nobody out. Punto steps up to the plate. At the time, it was a 1-0 game, and it seemed this would be our chance to break the game open against Buerhle. Punto bunted, and proceeded not to run to first. Redmond was thrown out at third (it kind of negates the point of a sacrifice bunt if the guy on base is too slow to advance to the next base). It was a tough slide, and almost knocked Crede down … but he still had time to notice that Punto was still standing at home plate and set himself to throw Punto out. Quickly, the promising inning was no more thanks to a certain Nick Punto. (Gomez promptly tripled home a run, and Punto finished his game by hitting a couple of doubles and driving in 5 runs, so I guess someone really lit into him in the dugout. My guess is it wasn’t Gardy.)

(Quick aside: Over the offseason, Punto apparently worked out with Manny Ramirez. I wondered, at the time, what that would result in. Would Punto gain some strength at be able to hit a home run? Would Manny start playing with reckless abandon while trying to justify his contract? Neither seemed that believable. But last night, we finally discovered what Punto learned while hanging out with Manny: “Manny being Manny.” He put down that bunt and just stood there in the batter’s box, admiring his splendid work, just like Manny does when he pounds a homer (or near-homer). The thing is, “Punto being Punto” doesn’t have the same ring to it.)

This game really was incredible. It’s what you’d expect the first place team to be able to do once in a while. And excellence (13 runs, Gomez’s cycle, Livan’s gem) managed to completely overshadow utter incompetence (Punto’s “bunt”).

Slowey starts against Danks this afternoon, and we’ll get to see if the Twins can build off this performance.

It wasn’t too long ago that we were getting excited about the possibility of a more patient offense, one that wouldn’t swing at everything it sees, one that forces the pitchers to work, one that gets us to the bullpen, one that draws walks, one that scores runs.

Within days of Gardy’s first (and thus far, only) team meeting about this very issue, the Twins scored 12 runs while seeing 176 pitches. Things were looking up for the offense. Of course, things quickly turned south for the new offense, and the Twins reverted to their old free-swinging ways.

This culminated in Tuesday night’s game against the White Sox. Everyone on the team not named Joe Mauer went 0-26 with exactly 1 walk. Mauer drew a pair of walks, but perhaps most importantly, got the team’s sole hit with one out in the 9th to break up Gavin Floyd’s no hit bid.

The Twins were just 2 outs away from the amusing oddity of scoring a run despite getting 0 hits (earlier in the game: Mauer walked, advanced to 2nd on an error, advanced to 3rd on Cuddyer’s sac fly, scored on Kubel’s sac fly). But (fortunately) it didn’t happen, and all the players seemed to be thrilled not to be on the wrong end of a no hitter. Perhaps they shouldn’t be so thrilled about it — instead, learn to hit and avoid being anywhere near that situation.

Today, Gleeman brought up a new stat called Outside Swing Percentage. Basically, it measures the percentage of a player’s swings that are on balls outside the strike zone. Plate discipline is usually measured in walks, but this stat takes a look at another aspect of plate discipline: not swinging at bad pitches.

It seems like it should be really obvious, but if you avoid swinging at bad pitches (ie, pitches out of the strike zone), then not only will you draw more walks, but you’ll get more hits (because the pitches you’re swinging at are easier to hit) and your hits are more likely to be solid (because the pitches you’re swinging at are easier to hit — and you don’t have to reach for them). Apparently, this logic is lost on the Twins.

The only Twins players better than league average are Mauer, Kubel, Tolbert, and Punto. Kubel, Tolbert, and Punto haven’t got enough at bats to qualify for the batting title, so only Mauer qualifies as above average for our team.

On the other hand, Carlos Gomez (38.3%) and Delmon Young (36.2%) have the third and fourth worst Outside Swing Percentages in baseball (only Vladimir Guerrero and AJ Pierzynski are worse).

This is pathetic, and must be remedied as soon as possible. And it all came to a head in last night’s game.

The umpire had a small strike zone throughout (and it was consistent, so it’s not like the Twins were screwed). In the first inning, I sent a text message: “The small strike zone is going to hurt us tonight.”

The strike zone may have been consistent for both teams, but the Twins react terribly to it, and have for years. First, it hurts the pitcher because the corners aren’t called for strikes — meaning he’s giving up more walks and more hard hit balls than he’s used to. That isn’t consistent for both teams, however, because of the Outside Swing Percentage problems the Twins have: namely, they swing at everything that moves and won’t draw any walks regardless of how friendly the strike zone is.

For the Twins, a small strike zone means they’ll give up a lot of runs and struggle to get any baserunners. This isn’t new — Tuesday’s game was just an ugly reminder of the team’s (and, in fact, organization’s) woes.

Well, that was fun. Nothing like sweeping two rivals in one week. Lets start with friday. How Livan didn’t give up more than one run boggles my mind. It seems that even his outs were loud, but as the saying goes: don’t question miracles. Or something like that. The bats looked good on friday, consistent pounding the ball.  We got production from the entire lineup, which was awesome.  We only had one homer, but had 4 doubles and a triple to go with our 10 singles. The only person to go hitless was, surprise, Nick Punto. I can’t believe Ullger played him in Center.

Saturday was also good. Not a blowout. In fact it was very close most of the game. Craig was able to put it away with this second homer of the year.  The hero of the game was Brian Bass, with 4 shutout innings in relief of the injured Scott Baker.

After watching the first inning on sunday I was upset that the Twins were going lose the third game of a series in a blowout, something they seem to do all too often. After winning the first two they totally shut down on sunday and get trampled. However, they didn’t give up. They kept chipping away, and Boof righted the ship after the worst first inning I’ve seen in a while.

It was good to see Mauer catch all 5 games of the homestand. He looked good at the plate too, and I think he is going to have a big summer. Let’s hope Baker doesn’t need to go on the DL, but if he does Slowey will be ready to pitch in Chicago. So lets head to the south side and sitck it to the Sox again. Go Twins!

Huge win today.  Nothing like breaking a mini-slump by beating the team that is in first place.  Boof looked good tonight. He kept his pitch count under control, I was shocked when the count was only in the 70s and it was the 6th inning.  Some of his outs were really loud, but he made them miss a lot: 8 ks.  People have been knocking Boof, and I’m not sure why. He’s had a few bad starts, but I think he is much better than he was in 2007. He just needs to be consistent and I will be happy. I’m not expecting him to be an ace or anything, but a lower than average era and just keeping the team in the game would be great.  That being said, I wouldn’t be opposed to him becoming an ace.  Reyes looked pretty questionable, but Young made a nice (dare I say great) play in left, (I’m still not really sure how he caught the ball) and a heads up throw to the cutoff man (are you listening Gomez, to the cutoff man, not past him) who then nailed Swisher at first, by quite a bit. Nathan was Nathan and looked very good.

The bats had one good inning. If I recall, we also had some loud outs. Mauer stung the ball really well in his second or third at bat but it was right at Swisher, and Kubel did the same late in the game. I’m glad to see Mauer hitting the ball like the Mauer of old again. That was a nice triple in the first (I blame Swisher for the extra base more than I credit Mauer, but who cares).  There was a decent article in the Star Tribune today about Mauer hitting for power versus average. If he wants to hit lots of jacks, he is going to have to change that pretty inside out swing of his, which will result in lower average. I don’t want that. I will take high average, high OBP, and lots of doubles. I think Morneau and Kubel can provide the deep ball from the left side with Cuddyer, and Young (hopefully) providing power from the right side. I was surprised to see that Kuble is only hitting 247 on the year. I was under the impression that he was tearing it up, but I think he has had lots of big hits, but  has had few multi hit games. Which is something you need to do to raise your average and keep it high. Especially early on.

On a different note, has anyone else noticed how gimicky Twins games are?  Its been a while since I’ve been to another stadium, but it seems like in between every inning there is some sponsored contest or give away. Its almost like the Saints or something. I went to a Cubs game and a White sox game and I don’t recall seeing that much crap between innings. Especially at the Cubs game. My guess is the Twins, due to the dome, are much more desperate to get people in the seats so they need promo crap.  I had never really noticed it, until my buddy who I was with who grew up going to games at Camden in Baltimore, pointed it out.  I really hope it goes away when the Team moves to the new stadium and will be able to get fans to the stadium just to see a game and enjoy (or hide from) the weather. Not because they will have a chance to win a Mystic Lake prize package, or Treasure Island or whatever.

Over the past couple of days, Gardy has tried to revamp the Twins’ offensive philosophy by encouraging the players to work the count and wait for their pitch to hit, and he’s revamped the lineup by moving hitters down the lineup “because it stretches our lineup down there pretty good.”

I really liked the former move, and have been calling for it for a while. The latter, however, makes little sense to me; usually, when you construct a lineup, you want balance and you want the best hitters close to the top of the order. That’s why I don’t know why you’d want to move Tolbert and Harris up at the expense of Cuddyer, Kubel, and Young.

It’s only one game, but could Saturday’s 12-6 win over the Rangers showcase some early results of both decisions? Obviously, it’s only one game, and anything can happen. But you have to start somewhere, and I think it’s amusing that such an “example game” could happen so quickly. We’ll probably come back to this issue again later in the season and see how things have gone over a longer period.

Anyhow, how’d Gardy do? Read on!

Well, we scored 12 runs, so something must have worked! A big reason for the runs was the collapse of the Rangers’ defense, which committed three errors that led to 5 unearned runs. But there was more to it than that.

The Twins chased the starter — Sidney Ponson — from the game after 5.1 innings, having thrown 93 pitches. In all, the Twins saw 176 pitches in the game, from 5 different pitchers. This is despite the fact that the umpire seemed to be favoring the pitchers for much of the game, being generous with the corners (for both sides — consistency makes that 100% okay). The newfound focus on making opposing pitchers work showed immediate dividends; we get to see all their pitches and get deep into their bullpen, where inferior pitchers tend to live. I’d venture to say that it seems pretty obvious that this would result in increased offensive production, and I’m surprised any manager would be against it.

Interestingly, despite working deeper into counts and showing more patience at the plate, we only drew 3 walks (compared to 5 strike outs). That’s a good demonstration that the benefit of patience at the plate is not just walks, but the increased ability to hit (16 hits). Walks would help, but they’re not required.

So what about the decision to push the lineup down? The 6-9 spots in the order (Kubel-Young-Lamb-Monroe) combined to go 9-18 with 6 RBI. The 5 spot (Cuddyer) drove in 3 with a home run in the 8th. The 1 spot (Tolbert) went 0-6, but got on base via an error and stole a base (late in the game, mitigating the usefulness of “leading off”). He was the only Twins player not to collect a hit in the game.

I think it’s inappropriate to complain much when the offense is clicking like this. If this is the lineup that can score like this, then it works and we’d do well to stick with it. However, in the interest of constant improvement, might it not work better to try to push the productive hitters up in the order and move the plucky “gamer” to the bottom of the order where he can still be a sparkplug late in games? (By the way, the Rangers’ commentators described Tolbert as “David Eckstein, only taller!”)

I’m not complaining; instead, I’m offering what I consider to be constructive criticism. And when everyone in the lineup is hitting, it doesn’t matter that much what order they go in. So maybe I was wrong that this was a great game to judge the lineup choice — I was trying to highlight the fact that most of the offensive production came from the bottom of the order (which is true), but everyone was producing.

Finally, the offensive outburst gave us a chance to give Bobby Korecky a very low percentage inning for his major league debut. He struggled, requiring 25 pitches to get through the inning (only 11 strikes), while walking 2 batters and striking out 0. With the bases loaded and nobody out, Rick Anderson went to the mound and Korecky immediately got a double play ball (which scored the run from third) and then forced an easy grounder to Morneau to end the game. It would have been better to see him dominate and show better command, but I think this outing is acceptable for four reasons. One, it very well could have been first-time jitters, and those may now be gone. Two, he demonstrated the ability not to shut down in the face of pressure. Three, when he finally started commanding his pitches, he was getting guys to put the ball on the ground. Four, he was a closer in the minors, and it’s very possible that he’s not used to pitching in “non-save” situations. (Pitching is very mental, and it’s possible that this makes a difference for some guys — this is the one reason managers may legitimately have for saving The Closer for save situations, but I think it depends entirely on the mental makeup of the individual pitchers, making it the manager’s call. Just like some guys can’t be closers, it’s certainly possible that some guys have to be.) So the jury’s obviously still out on Korecky, but if we can start to trust him in high leverage situations in the 7th and 8th innings it’ll take a lot of the load off of Guerrier and Neshek. That would be fantastic.

We’ve had some discussions about the use of the “closer” in the comments on this site, and the prevailing attitude of most of our readers is that the closer role is overrated — and therefore the Joe Nathan signing was unwise. After Friday night’s loss, Howard Sinker has some words about the conventional wisdom of keeping the closer on the bench in extra inning games.

The “closer” is supposed to come into games and end them. Close them out. He pitches those last three outs to finish off the victory. That’s all he does. Right? Well, let’s think about why you’d have someone called a “closer” who would have that responsibility.

Are the outs in the 9th inning “special” in any way, or somehow more difficult to get than outs in any other inning? Probably not. However, their importance is increased by the fact that there’s so much leverage during that time. Performance during these outs has a huge impact on the output of the game. If the pitcher gets outs, the team wins. If the pitcher fails, the team loses. That’s quite a bit of leverage.

I think everyone would agree with that, regardless of where they stand on the pro-closer or anti-closer debate. If I’m wrong about that I’m sure someone will let me know.

So you use your closer in the highest leverage situation in the game. He’s your best reliever, that’s when you should use him. But even though the last three outs intrinsically have a higher leverage than “normal” outs, is the final inning when your team has the lead really the highest leverage situation? Always?

When you’re winning by one run, going into the 9th inning, and the middle of the order is coming up … obviously that’s a high leverage situation where you’d want your closer available. So you bring him in and he gets the “save.”

But when you’re winning by three runs and the bottom of the order is coming up … that’s not a very high leverage situation. You should hope that you could trust every reliever in your bullpen to get through that inning without surrendering the lead. But you bring in the closer and he gets the “save.”

These are just examples, obviously. And they’re the opposite ends of that spectrum. But imagine the inning before that. Say there are two men on base, 1 out, and the middle of the order is up. These are high-leverage outs. If you end this inning cleanly, you have a good chance of going on to win the game (since you’d be winning by 3 and the bottom of the order is up, and any reliever on your team can handle that). But if you blow it, you may well lose the game. Whoever can get you out of the inning has “saved” the day. Would you bring in your best reliever, or an inferior reliever?

Most people would say “bring in the best reliever!” And they’d probably look at me like I’m being an idiot for even asking the question. But then you give these guys titles. Do you bring in The Closer or a Setup Man? Well … then the answer might change. Especially if you’re a manager. “Closers close games!” So the manager brings in the inferior reliever, and Detroit beats us twice in a row because of it. Oops. I mean … the team’s chances of getting the win drop dramatically. Kind of slipped there, I guess.

But that brings us to the reason I’m bringing this up today. Last night, the Twins lost in the 10th inning to the Rangers, ending their 7 game losing streak. The heart of the Rangers’ order, the 3-4-5 hitters, were due up in the 10th. In a tie game, where any run could end the game, we had two guys warmed up in the pen. Joe Nathan, elite reliever vs Juan Rincon, washed up former juicer with arm problems and diminished abilities (and an ERA filled with crooked numbers). To the untrained eye, this seems like a no-brainer: it’s a high leverage situation where you should use your best pitcher! But that’s just what an untrained observer thinks! He’s not a major league manager like Ron Gardenhire, who knows that Joe Nathan is The Closer, and therefore he can only pitch when we’re already winning. So Rincon pitches the 10th … and we lose.

Maybe we would have lost the game anyway. We hadn’t scored for 8 innings, and Rincon would probably have had to pitch the 11th whether we had the lead or not (though it would have been the bottom of the order). But that’s not how a manager should be thinking during the game. He’s supposed to put the team in the best situation to win; give us the best chance. And putting your best reliever on the mound to get the toughest outs is one of the few things he can actually do during a game to change the outcome of the game. So last night’s decision was a bad one. In the “humble” opinion of this addled blogger, anyhow.

I’ll finish by pointing out that, unsurprisingly, I did not address Nathan’s contract here. I don’t fault the GM for signing the contract. There’s nothing at all wrong with having an elite reliever on your team, and there’s nothing wrong with paying him at the same rate as his (lesser) peers. I fault the manager for misusing Nathan’s elite services. Someday I’ll write a post about how I care more about “baseball” than the “business of baseball,” and I’d rather think about what the manager could do to improve our chances of winning a game than think about what the GM could have done to get us a better deal on someone’s contract. I can watch baseball games. I can’t (and wouldn’t) watch contract negotiations. But today is not that day, so I’m not going to write about it. (This paragraph is a “subtle” request that we all try not to talk about the contract. In case you missed that.)