There was a mental laziness about the loss to Detroit last night that showed itself even when the Twins appeared to be cruising. It started with the very first at-bat when Gogomez struck out by bunting and manifest itself when Mike Lamb hit the longest single ever in the second inning, the one that scored Mitt Harris from first base while hitting the wall in right-center. Even while the Twins were taking their five-run leads, there was sloppiness in the field and a couple of giveaway at-bats, the sort of things that get glossed over when enough other things were going well, which they were for roughly two-thirds of the game.

You could see it in the playful dugout reaction after Denard Span knocked his first major-league home run over the wall — the hug he received from Matt Guerrier and the high fives he got from some of the others. That it was Pudge Rodriguez’s home run — and Span’s role was deflecting the ball over the wall while almost making an extraordinary catch — seemed like a light, happy interlude because the Twins were still winning 9-5 with Guerrier on the mound.

And Neshek in the wings.

That still seemed like sure victory with a four-run lead against a team that seemed equally intent on giving away runs (three errors, five walks, one more fine Jeremy Bonderman dugout tantrum after Bobby Seay allowed his runs to score.)

I’ve seen worse.

I try not to tell too many “back when I covered the Twins” stories, but I was in the Cleveland press box on that amazing night in 1984, the final weekend of a weird division title race in which the Twins had a shot despite a .500 record, when the Twins led 10-0 after 2 1/2 and managed to lose 11-10. Last night, it was sore-shouldered Adam Everett doing the Gary Gaetti (”It’s hard to throw with both hands around your neck”) routine, with a crummy throw on a routine grounder that helped Detroit take the lead.

That night in Cleveland? A 10-run lead? That was unprecented.

Maybe Bert can talk about that game tonight because, after all, he was in the Cleveland dugout in ‘84. And maybe he can talk about the previous night, when the Twins were on a 3-0 cruise in the eighth before losing 4-3 in the ninth when the legendary RD gave up that home run to Jamie Quirk. That was Quirk’s only home run of the season. It was his only hit of the season. It was his only at-bat with Cleveland of that season.

As long as I have your attention, let me tell you about one more. Having watched the ‘84 meltdowns unfold, I could pretty much tell when a team was on the verge of turning sure victory into dramatic defeat. It was May 13, 1985 … Yankee Stadium … The Twins led 8-0 after two innings… The Yankees rallied… 8-1… 8-6… Bottom of the ninth… Two outs, two men on… Don Mattingly at the plate.

I looked knowingly at my ball-writing colleague from the Otherpaper and started typing: “Don Mattingly’s three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth…”

THWACK!

Home run… Game over… Yankees 9, Twins 8.

Lots of you saw last night’s game and there are lots of places on the web ‘n’ on the radio (if you can get them to stop talking about the Wild) where you can go over and over and over it, chastising the sloppiness in the field and the casual handling of the bullpen.

I’ve seen worse.

other people are here too

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 7:45 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.