The Twins lost in Chicago on Monday because couldn’t close out the White Sox after the offense couldn’t build a substantial enough lead to make the pitchers’ work easier. For those of us watching the game at work (without sound), who kept looking up to see Twins running the bases, it seemed like there should have been more than three runs on the board after six innings — and thus more than a 3-2 lead. Every starter except Adam Everett got a hit, but most of the hits didn’t come at the right time.

That didn’t provide Guerrier and Neshek much margin for error, and Neshek’s failure came as the result of an ugly two-strike swing by Jermaine Dye, who somehow managed to bounce a game-tying single to center, and a broken-bat grand slam by Joe Crede.

Neshek gave up the home run after a visit to the mound from pitching coach Rick Anderson and catcher Joe Mauer. After the game, Neshek told Joe Christensen : “I don’t really like to go inside, but [Mauer] really wanted to go in there. It was up a little. It had a little bit of a tail, where I was really surprised he got that up like that.”

I’m guessing that by the end of today, some will talk about whether or not Neshek was looking to place blame elsewhere for what happened — a/k/a “throwing his teammate under the bus.”

Don’t go there. Folks, this is what happens. Pitchers and catchers talk. Credit Neshek, a stand-up guy in good times and bad, with giving us an insight about what was talked about on the mound — and Joe C. for providing information I couldn’t find elsewhere.

Crede missed most of last season injured and was thought to be in line to lose his job in spring training. Jamming him, in theory, sounds like a smart thing to do.

Pitch doesn’t get inside enough, pitch is a bit up, pitch breaks bat.

Pitch sails in the April jet stream over the left-field wall in a park where things like that happen.

That inning was the kind, with all of its moving parts, that can be dissected endlessly. Had Neshek gotten Crede out, you know we could well be focusing on how he struck out America’s enemy, the muttering and torrid AJ Pierzynski, for the second out of that inning.

Instead, it’s a 3-5 record and an off day.

other people are here too

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 8:20 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.