While the Twins are worrying about catching the White Sox, the talk in Chicago is about why the Sox can’t put away the Twins.

But White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen on Monday sensed that the Twins are turning into dead crappies - to borrow a phrase from a local columnist.

“Those little piranhas are out of teeth now,” Guillen told the Chicago media. “I got the feeling they don’t have any teeth left. They’ve been fighting and grinding all year long. They should have little teeth now.

“It’s time for us to pull them out and win it. Hopefully we stay in the pennant race.”

Guillen probably was joking - but this team has lacked bite lately.

I made a big deal yesterday  out of how the Twins struggle with lefties they’ve never seen before. Sure enough, they lost to Scott Lewis. But that can’t be an excuse at this point of the season.

Lewis has pitched at Class AAA Buffalo and Class AA Akron, teams that play in the same league as Twins affiliates. There should have been plenty of info to go on. Ultimately, the Twins hitters should be good enough to figure out a new pitcher - or sit down and let Matt Macri, Matt Tolbert and Randy Ruiz get after him.

Here comes another soft-tossing lefty tonight in Zach Jackson. Are we going to see more of the same? Is Guillen right? The calendar is beginning to work against the Twins, so it’s time for them to beat up on an inexperienced Jackson before they face future Cy Young winner Cliff Lee on Thursday.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 12:32 pm and is filed under The race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.