Those of you who slogged through Tuesday night’s game saw what it’s like to live in a city with minor-league baseball. The Twins basically gave away the game to Toronto.

Of the culprits, Kevin Slowey was probably the least culpable. But he still needed 107 pitches to get through 5 2/3 innings on a night when he allowed only five hits, two walks (to Matt Stairs) and three runs (including a homer to Stairs). He engaged in too-long battles with too many hitters and just didn’t have the “out pitch” that he needed to make things easier on himself. He got into a ferocious 15-pitch battle with Scott Rolen to get the second out in the sixth and, because he’d walked Stairs twice, I wondered if Gardy was going to pull him for Matt Guerrier, who was warming up.

Gardy didn’t, Stairs went deep and the Twins trailed 3-1,

In the bottom of the sixth, it should be noted, Toronto’s manager tried the opposite strategy. With two outs and Jesse Litsch pretty much cruising, John Stearns brought in lefty Jesse Carlson to face Justin Morneau, who smacked an RBI triple that made it 3-2.

By then, Gogomez had already thrown a ball from center field to Gardy in the dugout for an error, Adam Everett made such a weak relay throw home in the fourth inning that I’m wondering anew about how much his arm still hurts and Michael Cuddyer uncharacteristically misjudged a fly ball to right that went for a double.

In the seventh, though, things really got ugly. Greg Zaun hit a double-play grounder to Everett with a man on first. It looked like a routine double play, except that Brendan Harris made such an incredibly slow and awkward pivot that Zaun was safe at first. Marco Scutaro struck out, meaning the side would have been retired had the DP been executed.

After a single moved Zaun to second, he scored when Delmon Young FedEx’d his throw home, missing the cutoff man when he didn’t have a chance to get the runner at the plate. Had the throw been cut off, the runner at first would likely have been thrown out at third to end the inning. It was 4-2 and another single run in the eighth made it 5-2 before Jason Kubel — remember him? — smacked a pinch-hit home run to lead off the eighth.

In the ninth, Craig Monroe flailed his way through a dreadful three-pitch strikeout and Delmon finished up an 0-for-4 with a grounder that would have been a double play if Cuddyer hadn’t been off with the pitch. The whole night was more in line with New Britain or Beloit than Minnesota.

Speaking of Young, he has only one extra-base hit since Income Tax Day and excitement about his very good arm has been tempered by his growing tendency to use it for throwing to the wrong base and missing cutoff men.

This might be a good time for Gardy to get both Kubel and Monroe some at-bats and have Young slow things down by watching from the bench for a couple of days.

I know Delmon’s within 2,429 games of Cal Ripken’s streak, but he’s young. He can start another one.

other people are here too

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 7:59 am and is filed under From the Dome. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.