Garza has spat with his own catcher
Posted on June 9th, 2008 – 11:12 AMBy Joe Christensen
In case you missed it while following the Twins’ carnage in Chicago, Matt Garza had a heated exchange with Tampa Bay catcher Dioner Navarro and then a shoving match in the dugout during Sunday’s loss at Texas.
Rays manager Joe Maddon offered very few details, calling it an in-house matter. From the St. Petersburg Times:
As if on cue, Garza, 24, then walked into Maddon’s office. He spent about 15 minutes there with the door closed then, looking as if it had been emotional, spent 57 seconds talking to reporters insisting there wasn’t anything to talk about — though apparently something to fix.
What happened with Navarro?
“Nothing really, just keep it in-house and fix it. That’s about it,” Garza said. “Heat of passion, probably. We’re both competitors. Whatever happened will stay here, and we’re going to fix it. We definitely can fix it. This is a great bunch of guys, and everybody’s on each other’s side, and we’re going to fix it. It’s a big step, and we’re going to fix it.”
To my knowledge, Garza didn’t have an incident this heated with a catcher in the Twins’ organization. Last spring, he had a public dispute with the organization over his pitch selection — the team’s insistence that he use more off-speed pitches and his desire to stick with his bread-and-butter fastball.
The highlights showed Garza shaking off Navarro several times before grooving a fastball that No. 9 hitter German Duran drilled for a two-run homer. A little later, Navarro went to the mound and barked at Garza, with his mask right in the pitcher’s face.
42 Responses to "Garza has spat with his own catcher"
Navarro probably told Duran what was coming, à la Bull Durham, just to teach Garza a lesson.
Well, at least he didn’t take a bat to his door:)
Joe C.
Lavelle is a jinx. everytime he covers the team they go in the tank. Come back before he jinxs our team out of contention!!!!!
Great weekend for not to much rain here. As for the Twins enough said
im not sure how the twins can top the last couple of days…..any suggestions….win maybe?? hit the ball - throw the ball, and catch the ball..
“im not sure how the twins can top the last couple of days…..any suggestions….win maybe?? hit the ball - throw the ball, and catch the ball..”
All they need to do is the little things right. Of course hitting multi run homers wouldn’t hurt either.
mj1 says:
June 9th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
im not sure how the twins can top the last couple of days…..any suggestions….win maybe?? hit the ball - throw the ball, and catch the ball..
Pray for rain and maybe we will get rained out
Mientkiewicz just picked a fight with Randy Johnson.
“Joe C.
Lavelle is a jinx. everytime he covers the team they go in the tank. Come back before he jinxs our team out of contention!!!!!”
At least, the bloggers being scientific about this. No one is hysterical and pulling nonsense out of their ass!
“Pray for rain and maybe we will get rained out”
This was a key point in getting the new stadium built to help stop losing streaks. The Twins brass are a sneaky bunch.
maybe Navarro called for something other than a fastball, and Garza took offense.
“The highlights showed Garza shaking off Navarro several times before grooving a fastball that No. 9 hitter German Duran drilled for a two-run homer.”
There’s your problem. Scouts know about Garza’s “love” for his fastball. So when Duran saw him shaking off that many pitches…what would YOU think is coming?
But if you shake off your pitcher like that and give up a dinger on the next pitch…yeah…that’s nobody’s fault but your own.
Dioner Navarro=5foot9
Joe Mauer=6foot5, 235lbs.
Garza=if it ain’t broke don’t try to fix it
PS: If Garza had done that in a Twins uni, you can be dang sure he’d be the butt-end of the blogs wrath for at LEAST a month.
You aren’t a blogger - no matter how many times you say that everyone commenting on a blog is a blogger, you are not a blogger. You are a commenter on someone else’s blog. You could do two things. Call yourself a commenter or a fan, or start your own blog (free from google). But right now, you are not a blogger.
we’re not like that, T
blogger=7 letters
comentater
commenter
commentater
comenter
=too hard to spell
BC of ND says:
June 9th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
“Pray for rain and maybe we will get rained out”
This was a key point in getting the new stadium built to help stop losing streaks. The Twins brass are a sneaky bunch
lol I would have to agree. Maybe the Twins FO thinks if we have an outdoor stadium that some of the opposing teams best players will be struck by lighning in the new stadium thus forcing them not to play against us and upping the Twin’s odds
Joe C.
Lavelle is a jinx. everytime he covers the team they go in the tank. Come back before he jinxs our team out of contention!!!!!”
At least, the COMMENTERS are being scientific about this. No one is hysterical and pulling nonsense out of their ass!
My bad!
kinda worried about gomez about the 6th caught stealing in a row!!!! i wonder if he’s tipping it?
Why haven’t we beemed AJ during this series when games were out of hand. It may motivate the Twins to just beem him a few times. It seems like the Sox are just crowding the plate thinking the Twins are pushover’ and that they will never come inside and just beem someone. Just an idea.
I don’t think Gomez needs to tip anything… pretty sure he’s going regardless. Maybe more fastballs and better pitchers holding him on?
someone should be a wonderful American and post the ESPN insider colomn regarding Rincon on this blog.
Tyler, what did it say?
Danimals
I do not know what it said, but i saw a column on espn this morning titled “Rincon out of Minnesota?” for insiders only. So I was hoping someone could post it here so us cheapskates could read it. Infact someone posted it in Lavelle column i guess.
the espn insider piece was not to insightful i thought. I was hoping it would mention something about the Twins being aggressive in shopping him, and maybe getting a solid utility guy in return. But all it was a stealed quotes from St.Paul Pioneer Press.
Hey JimmyBee, a pitcher doesn’t beem a batter, he beans the batter. That is why they are called beanball wars when 2 teams start hitting each others’ batters.
Rincon on the outs?
Juan Rincon | Twins
Twins reliever Juan Rincon believes he could be on his way out of Minnesota, writes Kelsie Smith of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Rincon, who has a 5.19 ERA, told the Pioneer Press he wouldn’t surprised if he were waived or traded, even though he and his agent haven’t gotten word of any impending moves. GM Bill Smith, though, is looking to pare the bullpen, the Pioneer Press reports.
Manager Ron Gardenhire told the Pioneer Press, “All we can do is keep running them out there until some other decision is made where we can’t.”
Garza was a head case and it was pretty clear that he would be his own worst enemy regardless how good his stuff was or what type of potential he had.
Getting delmon young for him was highway robbery now if Brendan Harris would start hitting more the deal would look great and we could dump Everett or Punto cause they are both bummy!!
IMO the Rays traded Delmon for Garza because they thought Delmon was too emotional.
IMO they thought Garza was more calm and mature. After all he’s older than 22!
Live and learn.
Maybe the Twins could use just one hotheaded pitcher rather than the pansy asses we have. Even Bert Blyleven was getting pissed about the pitchers lack of courage and guts by not throwing any balls inside. In the past, when our pitchers were experienced and good, it was ok to be around the plate all the time. Now, with the young guys, it’s just like taking batting practice for the good hitting teams like Chicago and Detroit. I didn’t see today’s game, but I was begging for somebody to get beaned in last nights game. At least pretend you’re not going to throw every pitch over the middle of the plate.
You really can’t analize who got the better of the Garza-Young trade for at least three years
Garza is only about himself, think Chuck Knoblauch basically the same personality good riddance!!
A catcher has no business coming out and sticking his masked noggin in a pitchers face. Especially, after the pitcher just gave up a HR. I would have liked to see someone try that with Morris, Drysdale, or Gibson.
All the great ones had fire inside of them. Glad to see Garza put that punk, Navarro, in his place.
Controlling your loco catcher, is way different, than a hitter throwing a bat at an umpire. The latter is the work of a NUT JOB.
Garza and Navarro have issues. It’s on both of them. Navarro shouldn’t have showed him up, but even before that they’ve got to get on the same page.
The term ‘bean’ or ‘bean ball’ is (or should be) reserved exclusively for the act of hitting a batter in the head. A beaning is unprofessional, dangerous, and shouldn’t be tollerated, let alone encouraged, by anyone. A fastball between the sholder blades is an entirely different thing.
bisonaudit,
The terms “bean”, “drill” and “brush” are separate and are almost self-defining.
I agree that they are mutually exclusive and you have categorized “bean” perfectly.
Garza would be the #1 pitcher in terms of stuff in the entire Twins organization if he was still here. Easily. He may have some issues, but if he harnesses them, he’ll be a star. Funny how everyone preaches patience with Delmon, but has given up on Garza.
mike
We gave up on Garza when he turned 23.
In his first year in the league, and now he is in his second year. I’m not sure what you are trying to tell me saam.
I was poking fun at all the “Delmon is only 22″ comments.
I’m fine that the Twins traded Garza for Young. It was a trade involving two players with a lot of potential and some potential issues. Hopefully both will succeed with their new teams.
I thought maybe you were, just checking.
yes, that would be good.
To TD:
Now, don’t go lumping Everett with Punto. Punto has the genuine goods; Everett–well, have you noticed that no one is crying over his absence???
Garza’s got a big ego that tells him he can throw his heater past anybody. We saw how well that worked out when he was here in Minnesota. KABOOM!
