The commenter T-Mouse offered this up in response to yesterday’s holiday post and it’s interesting enough that it deserved to be shared more widely. This is the passion that comes with September baseball, and I figured it was a whole lot more eloquent that writing about how trips to Toronto are wonderful (because of the city) and scary (because of the baseball).

Without further introduction, here is T-Mouse and the Seven Dreams:

DREAM #1: A PRODUCTIVE GOMEZ
Carlos needs to get instructed to do more bunting — even with runners on second. We simply cannot absorb unlimited strikeouts from Go-Go. He has potential, but my dream is that he bunts once per game, and is given a kangaroo-court reward for every walk he draws in the month of September. Seriously. This is a guy with 122 strikeouts and 21 walks. He is on pace to draw 4 walks in September. Let’s give him $500 for every walk he draws over 4. We need productivity here. His .632 OPS really hurts us.

DREAM 2: MAUER PLAYS EVERY DAY. I do not mean he plays behind the plate every day. I do mean that he starts every game, taking on DH duties in day games. We have four day games left. Every game counts now. We need a guy with an .856 OPS, who — hallelujah — has drawn 73 walks vs. 42 strikeouts (compare to Carlos above). We need every at-bat from Joe that we can get.

DREAM 3: SEEK THAT EXTRA 1/3RD, 2/3RD, or FULL INNING. I understand why we manage our young arms so carefully. I disagree with Bert about this. I think we’re doing the right thing. But the arms are healthy. We need to extend our starters for some extra outs now. If you look at the inning by inning stats (a great future article by you, I propose!), you’ll see that the numbers support guys like Baker going into the 7th/8th often. Bringing in Crain, Guerrier, or Bonser has to be seen as the *downgrade* that it is. The numbers don’t lie. The dream here is to take a few games from starter right to Nathan this month.

DREAM 4: FOCUS ON PERFORMANCE RATHER THAN CIRCUMSTANCE. In my humble opinion, the bullpen has been mismanaged this year. You can start by comparing Breslow and Bass. What digits suggest we ever should have given Bass 2X the innings of Breslow. At this point, Breslow should be the go-to setup man for Nathan (yes, ahead of Guerrier, Crain, Reyes, Guardado). Rick and Ron need to stop tying outings so tightly to situations. They should focus more on performance.

DREAM 5: CAREFUL WITH EDDIE. In six of Eddie’s last ten appearances, he’s given up runs (not to mention inherited runs). During that period, his WHIP has been a terrifying 2.44 and his ERA has balooned a full 1.09 to 4.18. I’m not saying don’t use him. I am saying do so with a very tight leash right now. He isn’t getting the velocity and placement right now to warrant a loose hand on the controls. Be very careful here.

DREAM 6: PILE ON RUNS. It’d be a dream to just say it and have it happen: MORE RUNS. But I mention this because I worry that we may turn too defensive-minded down the stretch. We need Busch’s bat in the lineup vs. righties. It certainly deserves consideration to put Span in center, Kubel in right, and DH Busch vs. righties. Alternately, DH Morneau and put Buscher at first. The more you look at our situation, the more pain we suffer with Carlos at the plate right now (cf. Dream One).

DREAM 7: FOCUS ON THE TALENTS. When we insist on playing the following players, they need to be restricted to their areas of producitivity as follows:

- Everett: late inning fielder and only bats versus lefties;
- Buscher: DH of choice vs. righties and mostly off the field in the late innings:
- Casilla: either sits vs lefties in favor of Punto or bats 8th;
- Guardado: tight leash;
- Gomez: reduced plate appearances versus righties.

Go Twins!

T-Mouse (9-1-08)

other people are here too

(Blogger’s Note: Michael Reiter is among several dozen folks on a summer trip to watch baseball. The group took in two of the Twins-Yankees games in New York a few days back. Here’s the first of two reports from the bus tour.)

Like most baseball fans, I am familiar with the history of The Yankees, and of Yankee Stadium, “The House That Ruth Built.” And like many, I was appalled that the team could leave it’s hallowed grounds to play in a new ballpark basically geared to removing customers’ money a little faster (and hand it to the Steinbrenners). However, after two days in The Stadium, I’m surprised to hear myself say - TEAR DOWN THIS DUMP.

The group I’m traveling with is “Ballpark Tours” formerly “Save The Met” It was formed to oppose The Twins effort to leave Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington (unofficial slogan: we wuz right). Having failed in that effort, they have annually been chartering buses and driving around the country to visit outdoor ballparks. (I wonder if we’ll have to keep doing it after the new Twins ballpark opens because we won’t be able to afford tickets.) This year’s trip is a 10-day excursion through the Midwest and to the East Coast.

Days 5 and 6 find us in NYC, after seeing games in Chicago (Sox), Cincinnati, Altoona, PA, and Baltimore. All excellent examples of the recent renaissance in ballparks. One would think that our group would be inclined to be sad about our final visit to Yankee Stadium. However, an informal survey of them taken after the game indicates that we are pretty much ready to move on to Yankee Stadium II.

(more…)

(Note to all: Gregg Anderson grew up in St. Paul, went to the U and has somehow ended up in western Massachusetts, where he teaches history. He married well — my friend Audrey from Macalester — and writes real good. Here’s his take on last night’s game.)

Fenway’s the greatest venue there is if you had a good seat- I had one last night- upper deck down by the right field foul pole (or the Pesky Pole as those with Sox credentials call it ). I walked up and bought it at the ticket window before game time — $50 face value, factor that in the next time you complain about the Dome. My attempts to work the ‘informal’ market were unsuccessful - $40 for standing room seemed a bit steep. (Don’t all us guys think we’re master negotiators when it comes to scalped tix?) It would also seem as if the South Boston Bulger mob (See Howie Carr’s excellent book The Brothers Bulger, for clarification) runs the ticket scalping operation outside the park-It looks like a cross between a Dropkick Murphys show and the Massachusetts Legislature. I could’ve had a box seat for only $200!

A tip for MN visitors- if you park a mile or so down Comm Av. (Commonwealth Avenue to those of you “from away”) you only have to feed the meter for an hour or so - beats $25-50 near the park. Also be advised that Mass. state statute requires that at least one member of your party have an Italian sausage outside the park- IT’S THE LAW! All that said it was a beautiful night for baseball — warm, a breeze blowing, friendly banter with the Sox fans once my cover was blown- people at Fenway in my experience ARE pretty knowledgeable. A terrific game, too even though the result was not what we had all hoped.

But as for the game:

(more…)

Maybe you saw the comment from yesterday afternoon, when Mike in IN was decided whether to hang with friends or go to Indianapolis to see Francisco Liriano pitch. He chose Liriano and filed this report, which makes things sound better than the lefty’s pitching line.

Mike offered up this endorsement for minor-league ball: “The game actually got a lot more exciting after he left. Being able to watch a exciting back-and-forth game and thoroughly enjoy it despite ‘my’ team losing on a walk-off three-run home run reminded me why I love going to minor-league games. If the Twins lost like that, I’d be grumpy for a couple hours.”

Here’s the Mike in IN report:

Francisco Liriano gave up 5 runs on 9 hits in 5 innings (7 strikeouts, 1 walk, and giving up 2 HR). Perhaps I am being overly optimistic, but I thought he looked better than that ugly line. He touched the mid-90s on the radar gun (which the radio guys claimed was as accurate as can be found in MiLB), and the ball popped into the mitt impressively. Plus, he stayed ahead in the count fairly consistently. I saw some weak, off-balance swings, and four of the Indians’ hits off him were infield hits. Two that stood out were lucky ’swinging bunts’ that were promptly followed by towering home runs. He left after the fifth having thrown 88 pitches. The Indians’ starter, former #1 overall draft pick Bryan Bullington, lasted only 2 2/3 innings.

(more…)

Section 220 correspondent JimCrikket provides his third and final report from Florida. We thank him for his fine work and wish him a safe return to Iowa.

So my spring training adventure wrapped up today. A few days in Orlando at a conference before heading home. As I got ready to head to Sarasota, I read that Cedar Rapids was getting snow today. I felt awful about that. But not for long.

Anyway… as for the game against the Reds…

Fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice… well, you know the rest.

Yes… I did it again. I bought two tickets. This time it wasnt ALL my fault. I actually asked the guy if the ticket he was selling me was in the shade. “No… right down by the Twins dugout.” Now, I shoulda known. How often is “Row NN” anywhere near the dugout? Anyway… I sat 5 rows from the top, in the shade, to watch the last few minutes of Twins’ batting practce, then left the stadium and got a second ticket.

By now the green grass, blue sky and cold beer is becoming something I’m just taking for granted. I expect it.

So let me tell you what I saw today that I didn’t expect.

I didn’t expect Nick Punto to get the only Twins hit in the first several innings. In fact it was the only swing that even came close to a hit for a while.

I also didn’t expect the drought to be broken by a Jason Kubel triple.

I didn’t expect Nick Blackburn to be almost unhittable for several innings. (OK, I didn’t REALLY even expect to see Nick Blackburn pitch… since some member of the media who shall remain nameless had informed us before I left for the game that Boof Bonser would be pitching today.) More about Blackburn in a moment.

I admit I left the game early… after Joe Nathan’s inning on the mound and Brendan Harris’ ground out to start the top of the 8th. That’s when I saw something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. There, just a few cars away from where my rented Ford Escape was parked were four full grown adults trying to fit in to a Mini Cooper. And yes, they were wearing Twins gear.

Since, once again, there wasn’t a lot of offense for me to get excited about (although I admit I found it cool to see a Ken Griffey Jr., home run… while I’m sure Jesse Crain didn’t think it was so cool.) So I chose to get excited about watching Blackburn pitch. You know many of these kids have the arms and have the stuff to pitch at the major league level. But you’re just never sure if they have the smarts to do the job. Nick Blackburn has the smarts.

How do I know? During the first time through the Reds order, he faced Griffey and Adam Dunn each with nobody on base. He walked both hitters, Griffey in the first inning and Dunn in the second. Smart man, that Blackburn.

I’ve seen Griffey before. I had not seen Dunn until today, other than on television. Folks, that’s a big man. If I were pitching to him with nobody on base, I’d be rolling the ball up there to keep him from having any chance to hit that thing back up the box at me. I remember watching Frank Howard with the Senators as a kid going to Twins games at Met Stadium and thinking he was huge. He was. Dunn is every bit as impressive, at least size-wise.

Oh… and I have to admit, I couldn’t help but wonder if Crain wasn’t secretly wondering why he got to come in to pitch the sixth inning and face the heart of the Reds order, while Mr. 47 million Dollar Man, a.k.a Joe nathan, was saved for the 7th and the bottom of the order. I know I woulda been.

I’m ready for the games to start counting… I suspect the players are too.

other people are here too