Rondell is not swell - and lineups
Posted on April 25th, 2007 – 5:59 PMBy La Velle
Rondell White had a big setback today when he re-injured his right calf while running in the outfield. It looks like he’ll miss another week or two. He’s as frustrated as I’ve ever seen him.
Castillo will need a few more days, but is doing better.
Cirillo looks great, but they aren’t going to rush him back - although some people are tempted.
The good thing is that Kubel is in against a lefty. The pressbox believes Kubel has to be let loose.
Lineups
Royals: 1. DeJesus, CF. 2. German, 2B. 3. Teahen, RF. 4. Sweeney, DH. 5. Gload, 1B. 6. Brown, LF. 7. Gordon, 3B. 8. LaRue, C. 9. Pena, Jr., SS. Pitching: Odalis Perez.
Twins: 1. Casilla, 2B. 2. Punto, 3B. 3. Mauer, C. 4. Cuddyer, RF. 5. Morneau 1B. 6. Hunter, CF. 7. Redmond, DH. 8. Kubel, LF. 9. Bartlett, SS. Pitching: Sir Sid.
72 Responses to "Rondell is not swell - and lineups"
If we can’t hit Odalis Perez we have a problem. Kubes has been hitting the ball hard all year it’s good to see him in the lineup 3 days in a row.
Let’s just hope the manager believes that Kubel needs to be let loose. Seriously, this situation is almost identical to last year with Cuddyer. Did Gardy forget what happened when he just put HIS name down everyday?
btw, what are the pressbox odds that Ponson is making his last start as a Twin tonight?
The Royals have 1 hitter over 300 and 4 under 200. Ponson better not make them look like All Stars
As for White, they should have waited until Friday in Detroit to run on grass instead of the turf in the Dome. There isn’t enough give.
25-1
Instead of investing in injury prone Rondell White the Twins should have spent a little last year on Frank Thomas, who was arguably Oakland’s MVP last year.
It’s good to see Gardy sticking to his guns (sarcasm intended). Didn’t he just say yesterday that the idea to move Casilla down in the order was to give him a chance to see pitchers? What happened to that glorious Gardy idea?
Lets get the Rondel White era over,and make him a bench guy at best. We deal Baker and Rincon to Florida for
LF Josh Willingham he’s 25 Hits Right
in 189 games 623AB 29HR 91RBI’s and
a .274 ave. playing for a bad team.
Then Kubel can DH and White and Tyner can come off bench. I think Slowey will
be up soon to replace Ponson, Keeping
Perkins in the pen to give us the option of having 2 lefty’s out there, which will also give us the option of trading reyes later when everyone is
looking for a lefty reliever.
over.
Why isn’t Bartlett hitting in the 2 hole
at least he would not be trying to show off his 300 foot power every at bat and he is starting to swing the bat better.
Willingham is pretty good hitter but shouldn’t take both Rincon and Baker to obtain. It is time for Ryan to try to obtain some offensive help. The Brewers and Cubs are overloaded in the outfield and may be willing to make a move. Maybe the Cubs could be persuaded to trade Matt Murton for Baker and a lower prospect.
It is completely dumbfounding how the clueless manager has used Kubel to this point. I firmly believe Kubel can be just as good a hitter as Mauer if given the chance. Instead, the clueless manager seems to do everything in his power to destroy the confidence of his young hitters. It’s amazing Cuddyer has panned out despite the coninual mind games the manager played with him. Bartlett was another victim of being continually jerked around by the manager. Watch, if Kubel goes 0-4 tonight, he won’t be in the lineup for the rest of the season if there’s a lefty on the mound.
Mike I’m willing to part with less to get Willingham, I’m just tinking if we need to sweeten the pot with a Major league arm Rincon makes the most sense.
I feel it would be easyer to pry a outfielder away from a team then a true
thirdbaseman. But I would not mind seeing the Twins make a run at Encarnsion from the Reds.
2 batters, 2 hits. Sweet Sid.
Sweeny hits a bomb, get the bull pen going. Just what our hitters didn’t need
a 2 nothing hole to start out the game.
So Punto should be swining for the fences in the 1st.
How would this line up look
2b Casilla
lf Willingham
c Mauer
rf Cuddyer
1b Morneua
cf Hunter
dh Kubel
3b Encarncion
ss Bartlett
I can Dream can’t I.
Charlie,
I’d sure rather have the Big Hurt, but in all fairness, he too had a lot of injury problems, and the Twins aren’t the only team that turned their noses up at him.
Wrt Ponson, the frustrating thing is he never did anything to win a spot. When they took a flyer on him, I wasn’t upset because I assumed that he’d have to show them something in order to bump Perkins/Slowey/Garza out of a spot. So wrong.
You know your hittings bad when you’ve
been dominated by Tampa Bay,Kansas City
(twice) and clevelands pitching staffs.
Nice job Hunter keep uping your Trade value.
Pop quiz: inSidious has thrown 48 pitches so far. How many times has a hitter swung and missed?
If you said zero, take a bow. He’s settled down some, but you’re playing with fire when you _never_ make the hitters miss.
Maybe if Ponson was pitching to Punto he could get some swing and misses.
I agree that the Twins need to do something, which means trading something for something. I like the idea of Rincon being the bait. He has good selling value and many teams are desperate for a little bullpen relief. I think it makes great sense. (I know that Ryan love trading for players that are on the skids on their own team with players that are out of favor on the Twins, but it would be nice to solidify some position spots on the team.) Is there really very many folks who think that Punto is the 3rd baseman of the future here (other than Twins’ management who like his debt ratio)?
I can’t believe that Ryan thinks that Punto is the future at third. I really think that some move will happen this year to solidify third outfield or DH for the remainder of the year and the next 22 to 3 years.
I’m sure Punto could take Ponson yard 1 out 4 times……on the whiffle ball
field. If some how Ponson can get us to sixth down 1 we might have a shot at this game.
Never mind I just saw the Bomb!!!!!!!!!
Dream on Twins fans if you think you’re going to get a very good young hitter like Willingham by only giving up Rincon and Baker. Florida will laugh in your face if you make an offer like that!!
We have alot of young arms to make an offer, Florida likes to sell it’s players, if you have not noticed they
don’t hold on to very many of them. We can’t hold on to all arms and hope our
role players have career years every year.
Is L-Rod hurt or has Gardy forgot about
him like he did with Loshes in the playoffs against the Angels.
So when do you guys think Ponson and that ugly mullet are going to get deported? Bert is rippin him pretty good.
I think Slowey will be here for the next start.
I hope so. By the way it sounds, he is makin a very strong case for the call. I don’t know about you guys but I get very fustrated watchin Ponson, and just want him gone.
I get very frustrated watching our hitters make awful pitchers look like
cy young contenders. I hope Terry Ryan
isn’t expecting hitting help for the
minors, we just do not have it down there. Thw worst part of having make a trade for hitters is the other teams know we are hurting for a bat.
LENIII, would you please ask Gardy and/or TR after the game how many more times the Twins can afford to run Ponson out there, considering the meatballs he’s pitching?
I’d ask you to ask the same regarding the pop gun offense, but there’s no one to replace those guys. There are many better options than Ponson, however.
I’ll have to agree with you on that one David. I’ll put that as #2 on my list…even though bases loaded no outs only = 1 run…sad.
okay lets see here…leadoff double…MAYBE we will do something here.
It’s brutal to watch or listen to the Twins right now
Things should be very interesting in
Detriot. So how many pitches do you think the twins will look at in the 9th.
I guess less then 10 between the three
hitters.
Right now 10 seems awfully high.
Kubel going to go Yard after redman walks. Then Gardy will play him everyday.
our 3 thru 6 hitters are 2 for 14 and you want to rip Ponson! How about our hitters? They really suck against average pitching.
That is why we said we need to add a bat or 2 3 hitters can’t carry a team for very long
I hate to be the one to say it, but: Sidney wasn’t great, but he’s not the one losing these games. The offense is horrid.
The Twins should win almost every game that they hold the opposition to 4 runs or less.
I think the pitcher and the offense can share the blame. Ponson did give up 4 runs. One thing that would be nice for the pitchers to try to do if possible not to give up so many runs early. The offense is slumping right now it would be nice if they could put a few zeros up on the board early. While it isn’t their fault all time it might help. But the offense is driving me nuts. EVERYONE in the lineup is in a slump. Its been only really a week but with a game every week it seems much longer they have been slumping. If the middle of the lineup (besides Torii) is in a slump we aren’t going to win right now. Bad news about Rondell. He can’t stay healthy. Extra BP for everyone! Everyone has to be hitting well for this lineup to work, it did last year. It has not so far this year.
In addition to what Nora has said, it would be nice if the hitters could push across a couple of runs before the 6th inning. Battling back is great but being ahead once in awhile takes pressure off of everyone. I mean getting only a couple of runs over six innings is going to make it hard on pitchers as good as Santana. And, make that 11 games scoring 3 or fewer runs. (And, not ripping a guy like Perez is quite troubling).
I must also say that hitting Punto #2 must be stopped soon. Slide everyone up if Punto is our best option to play 3rd, so then he can hit 8 or 9; it’s just too painful having a .200 hitter at #2. If he starts hitting, he can be moved back up, but he’s obviously struggling.
Agreed. Why Gardy refuses to do this is ridiculous. Anyone hitting in the second spot has to be able to hit and get on base. A lineup change all around couldn’t possibly hurt the way the offense is going now. Mix it up a little.
Time for some changes…
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results…
Ponson’s innings 2 thru 6: Two earned runs and pitching hard. It was the Sweeney homer that killed him. He hit a super-soft cookie, a horrible pitch by Ponson.
Still room for hope. He’s close to being a good #5 starter. Showed some improvement tonight. Needs some more. We’ll see……
The other thing that’s a bit unnerving is that we’ve been taken behind the woodshed on our home turf by some fairly weak pitchers.
I have a serious problem with the broadcasters and Gardy! Why is everyone Blaming Casilla and saying “he’s an exciting rookie who will make mistakes. His biggest concern was to motivate his hitters.” excuse me? he is a rookie but where is Scotty Ulger? it is his job to keep “the excited Rookie” where he is supposed to be! he has made countless mistakes ever since he has been here. he couldn’t teach hitting so, why can he coach third? And where was Gardy in that situation? he must have been thinking about Bowling and not where the tying runner was!
This is not Twins baseball.
Josh
Ponson is not close to being a good #5 starter. His pitches were terrible last night. His split finger does nothing; all the pitches were at the same speed; and he had no location. A real team would have really teed off on him. He has shown no improvement and no sign that he will improve. Slowey and Garza are being wasted at AAA right now.
Now, I will agree that the offense is a bigger problem in general than the starting pitching, but that still doesn’t excuse Ponson.
I find the fact that Ponson remains in the rotation more irritating in some ways than the offense, because there are better guys thw Twins have who can take his place. That isn’t the case for the offense.
Josh, fyi, as of last year, Ullger is no longer the hitting coach — Joe Vavra is.
Trade Torii for a 3rd baseman and another hitter. We need offense now.
During Spring training I was on here saying that I thought the Twins should look at trading Rincon for a 3rd basemen and I was practically crucified for saying that Rincon had value and that Punto was not the answer at 3rd. Now all of a sudden we should be trading everything but the kitchen sink for a 3rd baseman. Our offense has been horrible for the past few games. I asked LaVelle last week if he was concerned about all the lefties we were going to be facing since we look bad at the plate against them. Maroth must be excited to face us this weekend. We have guys trying to do too much right now and that is not going to help us either. I hate to say it but Ponson was not the problem last night. We got 6 innings out of our #5 pitcher with 4 runs. That is pretty much what you can expect most times out from your #5 guy. Santana gave up 4 runs this week too so we need to find ways to score runs again.
I agee in part that the pitching is not the problem except that we have given up way to many home runs. I still think Ponson should be on his way out and that Slowey should be up
he pitched great in the spring and is lights out a AAA. We need to find a bat
at 3B and DH the Problem is I do not think managment wants to part with any of our youg pitchers. I hate to see the Twins lose but if this is how it’s
going to be I hope we are out of it by
July so that we will start to move some
players and be better for next year.
At least our young pitcher could come up and pitch in the bigs like the pitchers for the Tigers did 2 years ago, that worked out preety good for them. The Twins playing on cheap is finally chatching up to them. I wouldn’t Trade Slowey or Garza, but I would have no problem trading Reyes,Rincon,Baker and some lower level
pitchers hell at this rate I’d even trade Hunter since it looks like he will not be next year.
that should say pretty(spelling is hard this am)
I understand looking/trading for offense but trading Torii for “a hitter and a third baseman” not a good call. Torii is pretty much our ONLY power threat from the right side. I’ll go with the Rincon/Reyes/Baker arguement, but you have got to hang on to Hunter and Castillo till the trade deadline. And don’t tell me contract year has nothing to do with numbers/performance.
Yeah, when your lineup is looking foolish against every mediocre lefty the opposition can find to throw at you, it really makes sense to suggest trading away the one guy who is actually hitting lefthanded pitching.
If you’re totally out of contention in July, then everything is on the table. But now? Not a chance.
Hey man, I am just making suggestions. I don’t know if I can wait until June for the Twins to come around and start playing. After last year it will probably kill me. What ever it takes to get a spark into these guys. If trading Hunter for some young bats gets these guys going, do it. But waiting until the trading deadline to do something is not the answer.
Maybe Gardy needs to sit everyone down and have a heart to heart talk like he did with Morneau last year.
Pat Reusse told it like it is this morning. This team is going nowhere and there could be another “Motown Massacre” this weekend! Detroit went to the World Series and upgraded in the off-season. The Twins have done very little and even our best lineup isn’t suited for a playoff run when it gets harder to put 3 or 4 hits together in one inning against top quality pitching. This team is headed for a 4th place finish! As for Ponson, he finally threw some good breaking balls in the 6th inning, but this experiment has to end soon. If they don’t want to release him and eat the money, then send him to Rochester and see if he improves there.
This could be a very ugly weekend. Any chance it will get snowed out?
Things will look even wost when we do not trade Hunter and he leaves as a free
agent. Then you guys can cry about how we got nothing for him. This team is a mess and and staying with what we have will not make it any better. Do you really think a line up with no true
thirdbaseman no DH a light hitting 2B and SS is going to do much in the
AL? Our pitchers confidance is going to go south in a hurry when they know
that they can’t give up more than 2 runs
in a game if they hope to win. I’ve loved baseball since I was five years old I remember when the Twins were losing in the late 70′ and early 80’s
but we had hope because we had good young hitters and our pitchers were just
starting to come around. Now we have the pitchers we need to get hitters.
It’s alot easy to aquire hitters than it
is to get good young pitchers. Hopefully the Twins will figure this out befor it’s to late.
“Detroit went to the World Series and upgraded in the of-season”??
The only “upgrades” the Tigers have that I can think of off the top of my head are Gary Sheffield and Jose Mesa. If you want to see a couple guys that make TR’s off-season moves look brilliant, check out the stats on that pair. New DH Sheffield’s hit a buck-sixty-seven with 1 HR (sounds vaguely familiar to Twins fans, doesn’t it?) and Mesa’s ERA is north of 20.00 in his 4 appearances!
Do the Twins have some holes to fill? Absolutely. But, compared to Detroit’s “upgrades”, I’ll take what the Twins added, thanks. Even the guys on the DL at least aren’t failing as miserably as the new Tigers.
Sheffield will come around and hit 25 or more homeruns and will prove to make the Tigers a little more dangerous.
JimCrikket, all those stats are fine and dandy, but Detroit is still an awesome ball club and Sheffield just makes Detroit that much better.
Hey,
I was just listening to the AAA team for fun. Mike Venafro struck the lefty in 4 pitches, inlcluding and over the top KO pitch. Any chance of them giving Venafro a shot. He has 2 saves and a win. He really has pitched well on the farm with the exception of the very first game which they used him for 3 innings in 30 degree temps. Either that or we should trade him to fill in our injuries.
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