Twins-Tigers: Gomez Leaves Game With Head Injury
Posted on May 2nd, 2008 – 3:46 PMBy La Velle
Twins outfielder Carlos Gomez left tonight’s game in the fifth inning after being hit in the head with the ball as he stole second base.
The throw from Detroit catcher Ivan Rodriguez nailed Gomez on the left side of his helmet as he arrived at the bag. Gomez grabbed his head but stayed on the ground for a few minutes while being attended to.
I’ve never seen Twins physicians Dr. Dan Buss or Dr. Vijay Eyunni on the field during an injury, but they rushed out to make sure nothing serious was wrong. Gomez eventually rose to his feet and was carted off the field.
Update: The Twins report that Gomez has been checked out by Twins doctors and is O.K. He did not lose consciousness and will not, as of now, undergo further testing.
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Twins manager Ron Gardenhire has left the club after learning on Thursday that his brother, Mike, passed away unexpectedly while at his home in Oklahoma. Mike Gardenhire was 55.
While Ron Gardenhire’s return date has not been determined yet, he will miss the weekend series against the Tigers. It’s possible he could return during the midweek series in Chicago against the White Sox.
Scott Ullger will manage the club in Gardenhire’s absence.
Sorry for the delay. Busy pre-game. Adam Everett is back.
Tigers (14-15): 1. Granderson, CF. 2. Polanco, 2B. 3. Sheffield, DH. 4. Ordonez, RF. 5. Cabrera, 1B. 6. Guillen, 3B. 7. Renteria, SS. 8. I-Rod, C. 9. Jones, LF. Pitching: Galarraga.
Twins (13-14): 1. Gomez, CF. 2. Harris, 2B. 3. Mauer, C. 4. Morneau, 1B. 5. Cuddyer, RF. 6. Kubel, DH. 7. Young, LF. 8. Lamb, 3B. 9. Everett, SS. Pitching: Hernandez.
118 Responses to "Twins-Tigers: Gomez Leaves Game With Head Injury"
First
I’m that guy
first off forget baseball my condolences go out to the entire Gardenhire family in this tough time. Take all the time you need the Team will be fine just take care of your family
Wow…
I saw his brother on TV over on FSN not long ago and he looked very young. Prayers are with Gardenhire and his family.
real classy “first”
to bad for gardy and his family, sucks to think i’m that old.
It’s always a sad thing, whether you’re the Twins manager or concession worker. Good luck Gardy.
My thoughts and prayers go out to Ron and his family.
Yes, family and life first. Baseball next.
Go Twins.
Go Gardy.
:(>
First, really?
Thoughts are certainly with the Gardenhires!
Maybe the team will respond and take the series from Detroit!
how about maybe the team will respond and show their love…
My thoughts and prayers are out to the Gardenhire family…
How did he die?
From here on in, it would be great if the commenters didn’t mention or acknowledge dangalusmn and his arguable comment.
Regardless of what is posted on these boards, it’s times like these that hit home and remind us that everybody goes through “normal person” stuff and has to deal with personal tragedies like Ron is going through right now.
Take as much time as you need, Ron. This team and community will be waiting for you to return with support.
Gag me.
Along with the others, my condolences and prayers are with the Gardenhire family.
My heart goes out to the Gardenhire family.
Could this be a Punto free weekend?
55 is young. Way too young.
My thoughts go out to the Gardenhire family.
Tragic for the brother. Quite sad, indeed. But good for the Twins to get rid of Gardy for a weekend. (Hey, were instructions left to make sure Nick Punto gets into every game?) With how fat Gardy has gotten, perhaps this will serve as a wake-up call to stay away from Dunkin’ Donuts from here on out.
Prediction: Hernandez gets smoked tonight, while Everett goes hitless with an error.
Love those off-season FA signings, man.
My thoughts and prayers go with Gardy and his family.
I keep thinking about all those attacks he had last year and wondering about how fortunate he was that they weren’t more serious. These things run in the family.
Sorry for your loss, Gardy. That’s really hard. Lost my own father at 51. It’s way too young. Take your time Gardy with your family.
And the rest of us give a hug and tell your son/daughter/mom/dad/wife/husband you love them. You never know how much time you have. Enjoy the moments you do get.
Go, Scotty. Prove you’re a worthy managerial candidate! You always should’ve been the guy!
Condolences to Ron Gardenhire and his family.
My thoughts with ya Gardy!!!
May God be with you Gardy, and your family. Get some confort in knowing Mike is in a better place.
and as sad as it can be i will apologise for the few on here (lala) that have no class at all and are surely not twins fans…unbelievable….theres always a couple…..never fails….
finally the sleeveless look…i love it…
Maybe Galarraga will come down to earth tonight.
Even so, 4 of the first 5 Tigers in the order are all-stars — the other one is Sheffield.
Then there’s the clutch Ivan. And Jacque likes hitting here.
Here’s hoping Livan has incredible movement on his pitches and he leaves it all on the field for 6 innings. Enough of this innings-eater stuff.
Looking for the Twins lefties — M&M, Lamb & Kubel — to do some blasting.
ya romer, hopefully he can keep this awesome bunch off balance long enough to get to the deep end of the bullpen, and not bass- so heres hoping they brought their hitting shoes also tonite…
Y’all have fun tonight. The wifey is dragging me out.
Who’s the 3rd base coach?
Livan picking up right where he left off last start.
“the thing he does so good” Bert must have said something to that effect 5 times already tonight.
everyone was all about freeing jason kubel early on in the season…maybe it is time to reimprison him
Thoughts are with Gardy and his family.
Lala, your comments above are deplorable.
fezik, it might not be time to “reimprison” Jason Kubel, but it’d be nice if he reverted back to the hitter that would take a walk once in awhile.
I know, I was being facetious…kinda…but it would be nice to see him start hitting the ball…
that ball doesn’t drop if Gomez is playing CF. we’ll take the gift triple.
Kubel is an awful hitter. now that is facetious.
and we give it right back. minnesota nice
Dick and Bert just said on the TV broadcast that Gardy’s brother Mike spent last weekend in Texas watching the Twins.
What just happened? I’m watching on gamecast…no TV. Did Gomez get hurt?
What happened to gomez?
why is punto pinch running? what happened to gomez and is punto going to play CF?
He stole second and pudges throw hit him in the head.
did he have his helmet on? or had it fallen off?
gomez stole 2nd base and got hit with the throw in the ear flap. he was down for a long time, not moving much. in the end he got up and walked to the cart and was taken to the hospital.
cheap dirty play to knock him out! veteran play by pudge
He had it on but it hit him in the side of the neck under the helmet. He was down for a few minutes but got up and walked to the cart and rode off sitting up.
How is that a cheap play?
yeah nothing about that sounds dirty
i think he was joking
punto our best option in CF? Really?
was pretty classy by the tiger players. pudge came out to 2nd and was very concerned for gomez… trying to talk to him. If it was AJ, he probably would have thrown another ball at him.
fezik
thanks for recognizing the joke. not like a pitcher throwing at a stationary target. odds of pudge hitting gomez throwing from home to second and trying to hit him? its called sarcasm.
if it were aj, it would not have hurt gomez at all…he has such a terrible arm
A bit surprised to see Punto in there, but I’m not sure Monroe would have scored on the single, so I guess it’s paid off, and we still have Monroe’s bat for PH if needed.
Good one Carlos! lol.
nice gesture by pudge.
gomez with amazing speed. the last 20 feet or so, it looked like he would be easy out. he just covers ground so fast. I think cabrera thought he was out and was catching the ball at the bag and all of a sudden carlos is there before the ball.
Doesn’t it make sense to put Monroe in center, Punto never plays out there
update for those not watching dick n bert… gomez is in the clubhouse, not hospital; must be doing pretty well if they didn’t take him to hospital. Also, they are saying maybe below the ear flap. Seems to me that it had to hit helmet. The ball rolled to the Twins bullpen after hitting Carlos… i guess we’ll hear more later.
Now they are agreeing that it was helmet and he is fine.
maybe it was one of those times where he thought it was worse than it actually was
correction… renteria was waiting for pudge’s throw
Get the bullpen ready.
hoping the best for Carlos and hope Gardy is alright. This sucks
A liilte yard work by Harris! That’s a big run.
My bad that should say little.
how ’bout that Harris homer
and
how ’bout them Tiggers (sic) getting ready to make their proverbial ‘run’?
Keep pouring it on.
This is all Vavra’s fault, right?
When the Twins hit poorly they are doing it because of Vavra, when they do well, they are doing it in spite of Vavra
Leland must have read the Twins book of how long to leave a pitcher in the game. Livan shop beable to get a complete game now and save the bullpen.
Yeah, let’s fire him
well, I guess no one is really surprised to see 8 runs on the board in the 8th inning.
Livan living on the edge of the cliff in the 2nd and 3rd. 2nd inning was huge with sacks jammed and no outs without giving up another after that leadoff blast by Ordonez.
Yep, 8 runs with Livan pitching seemed about right. Nice.
Now be honest, though — if you were told that the score would be 8-1 tonight…how many people would have bet one paycheck that it would be the Twins who had the 8? Would anyone have taken that bet at 7:00 tonight?
btw, (since nobody mentioned it) these cutoff shit uniforms are horrid…
It’s so hard to not get too excited about this Twins team, but for my own sanity I know I need to keep my expectations low. But they keep showing glimpses of putting it all together, and with how young they are you just never know how good they could be come the second half.
Rightnow it really seems that when Gomez gets off to a good start the rest of the guys hit so much better! Here’s to hoping Gomez is back in the lineup tomorrow!
that was supposed to be ’shirt’…
btw, (since nobody mentioned it) these cutoff shit uniforms are horrid…
Yes, they’re pretty awful.
Oh, yeah, suuuuuuuuuuure it was, thrylos!
Knowing the superstitious nature of ballplayers, you know you’ll be seeing them again tomorrow.
Twins are pouring it on
save some of those runs for tomorrow
actually, remembering back to the last series we had with the tigers, maybe its better that we get as big of lead as possible for our bullpen
The vests are allowing the Twins to more easily swing the bats.
“Prediction: Hernandez gets smoked tonight, while Everett goes hitless with an error.”
Have some crow Lala.
Vavra should be fired.
The Twins hitters don’t know when to stop and save some runs for tomorrow.
Undisciplined and uncoached!
Don’t worry sane…Punto will end the hitting for the night 
Whats the over/under on how many runs the twins will score tomorrow night??
I’m so glad to see Go-Go stayed at the Dome. Was watching the game, and finally got to my computer to check out his status.
Hopefully he’ll be back Sunday or shortly after. I can see an off-day tomorrow.
Pretty much the whole organization is hitting tonight — Rochester, New Britain and Fort Myers all put together nice offensive games, too. Only Beloit didn’t put up crooked numbers.
I notice Dinkleman left the game after 1 at bat. Anyone know why?
gotta love that the hawks beat the celtics tonight…here’s to hoping the hawks take it in 7…sending kg home early
Also, do we have any stat that shows splits with our vests? I know Garza and Silva were really the only Twins’ to ever wear them, and I think that was only in 2006, not ‘07.
Best part of tonight was putting pressure on Detroit’s bullpen. Hopefully we can do the same tomorrow.
Garza wore them once last year. They lost in them.
I think if I recall correctly the Twins wore them 5 times in 2006- 3 by Silva and 2 by Garza. I know the Garza starts were both losses, but I think Silva was 2-1 in them.
Silva did also pick the vests with the even rarer red hat. Twins would be wise to encourage the pitchers to pick the vests and red hats more to maybe help some more of them. Plus, I like wearing my authentic vest
hey sane,
vavra should be fired, regardless…
rincon looks great with a 10 run lead.
might be some angry tigers tomorrow night, but it is so sweet to put a whuppin on someone else.
and, we’ll see you tomorrow night.
Hope gogo is ready to gogo tomorrow I’ll be sittin in the homerun porch!!
I’m thinking Go-Go will get a day off tomorrow. It be awesome to see him back thought.
Classic Livan tonight. Keep them off balance and keep the ball around the zone. Sometimes he’ll get hammered, but at the end of the year he’ll have his 200 IP, an ERA ~4, and 15 wins.
1) Cutoff shirts–I’m not a fan.
2) Rincon has good stuff. He needs to build up his confidence.
3) Twins are due for several games with a lot of runs. Their lineup IS better than last year, even though the results haven’t shown yet.
4) Gomez is a big key to how this team does. If he manages to get on 33-35% of the time, they can do some damage.
5) Livan has little margin for error, but the man knows how to pitch.
great game…big win, and helluva way to start this important series….hope the bats stay alive and detroit stays asleep again…..nice start and also a great game for livan……i like the uni tonite, and always have…maybe they will wear them more often now….do it again tomorrow….this one was for gardy….hang in there gardy…..
There were so many greats things tonight:
A) Go-Go looked great.
B) Livan looked awesome after a rough time out last time. That curve in the middle innings to pick up the strikeout was nasty.
C) Most of all, getting this win for Gardy was great…
Prediction: Hernandez gets smoked tonight, while Everett goes hitless with an error.
Hahahaha ya good call LaLa72!!!
Its always a good game when the Twins crush a division rival!
Hung out with some friends after the game (I found out at the last minute that there was a free ticket for me available)
Got REALLY nervous in the top of the 2nd, Livan looked like he was about to get rocked and he got a great throw by Cuddy and a slick DP turn to save the inning. After that he settled down and the offense got into a groove.
I’ll say this again, mostly in jest…but who’d a thunk that right now Harris would be the biggest part to come out of the Young/Garza deal?
Glad to hear Gomez is okay. Sitting in the stands it looked like he had gotten KOed, couldn’t tell what happened and they wouldn’t show replays (out of respect I would imagine…they didn’t know what was up either)
He was laying there not moving for a while, and I thought for sure he was out cold. Was very nice to see him get up under his own power.
On base at least twice, a couple of stolen bases…looked good.
I understand why Punto came in to run for Gomez, but I’m confused as to why Punto stayed in once it switched to defense.
My thought was that the game was still close, and Gardy was saving Monroe for a potential PH (though that didn’t make much sense)
Oh well, it was 11-1. Just like a 10-0 blow out is a failure by the whole team…the whole team (offense, defense, pitching) was spot on.
I thought it was a bad throw — about 3 feet to the right of 2B if I remember correctly.
Loved the Unnies, actually. Good to see, for one game at least, Hernandez rebound. That’s one rebound game better than Ortiz last year. Next up, soon to be ACE of the staff, Baker. Twins willn’t score more than 5 runs Sat. though. They almost never follow an offensive outburst with another. 1-4 Verlander will look like Cy Young. They might win, but it will be a nail biter if they do.
‘Willn’t”. People don’t use “willn’t” enough.
“hey sane,
vavra should be fired, regardless…”
Vavra is still getting a bad rap from the stat wizards who peer over their keyboards into their monitors.
Please tell me what Vavra is teaching that is incorrect or is in any way different from what the “good” batting instructors are teaching.
Until I get a valid answer, I will just have to repeat that theme every one-hundredth time Vavra gets blasted.
“stat wizards who peer over their keyboards into their monitors.”
That was actually a term of endearment.
I respect the game and I respect all the other people who love and respect the game.
Great win last night. Couldn’t believe we actually strung together 6 hits in a row. That was a big start for Livan especially when he had the bases loaded and nobody out in the second and the Tigers didn’t score keeping the game
1-1. If we can get Lamb and Young hitting more consistently, our lineup should score some runs.
Those were quite a few meaningless runs the team was able to throw up on the board last night. Nice to see the boys pad the stats a little, when the pressure is off.
After the barrage of last night, the team is now on pace to score 653 runs for the season. Compare that to the last time they won the division (2006), with 801 runs scored.
Funny how the blog wizards complained about the hitting of the “little piranha” in 2006, but love this group of hitters.
If Terry Ryan’s fine collection of pitchers hang in there, the Twins could still finish first in their division in 2008, despite their pathetic hitting. The Central appears to be an extremely weak division. None of the teams in the division have been very impressive, overall.
BCBEN-Vavra must have been a good hitting coach for at least a day.Proves that the players have to swing the bats,not the coach!
Comin in late on this one, but I liked the shirts. And being an old time superstitious ballplayer, I think they oughta keep ‘em for awhile.
might be time to stick w. the sleveless jerseys…..nice bats boys…..god bless gardy and family
Is it just me or has Bert been MIA? Anybody have any insight?
Any chance they bust out the red alternate jerseys from 10+yrs ago? Believe they wore them on a Sunday and Molitor was still on the team. Anyone with any insight?
Bert was their last nite. I think I heard him and Dick talking about how he took a little vacation or something.
Am I the only guy who enjoys both Dick and Bert, and Gordo and Gladden? Hear some negative talk about both duos recently. I enjoy all 4 myself. Morris is insightful as well.
There was something with Bert’s family I think. Like a kid graduating maybe?
