*The Twins are in a section of their schedule where they should be able to get to the right side of .500. After finishing off with Washington today, the Twins play Arizona, San Diego, Milwaukee, Detroit and Cleveland. All of those are series that the Twins can win. Yes, Arizona is in first place, but that’s mostly from a torrid opening stretch. In the last month, the D-backs have won only one series. It’ll be interesting to see how Brandon Webb does on Sunday. Yes, he’s the first 11-game winner and a totally dominant pitcher — and he got knocked around by Oakland in his last start on Tuesday. Webb is pitching against Senor Smoke Free, who will be pitching against his second former team in a row. This is a good time to show that the Twins of June are better than the Twins of April.

*Tim McClelland is one of baseball’s best umpires, and he made the right call on the Twins’ almost triple play last night. (Click here for the video.) At first, it appeared that Alexi Casilla had dragged his foot across the base while taking a wide throw from Brian Buscher. And in real time, it looked like the wrong call. But in slow motion, it was pretty clear that the ball was never in Casilla’s glove at the same time his foot was on the base. The runner had veered out of the way, so there was no reason (as if there should ever be any) for the “neighborhood” call to be made. Good work, even if it cost the Twins web gem time. Speaking of web gems, did anyone else see what came in as No. 1 on ESPN’s list of gems so far this season? It was Punto’s sprawling throw from third base after making a barehanded stop on the run back in April.

*In this series, the Nationals have fielded the ball like they’re waiting for it to explode. Their left fielder took an awful route on a double that was given to Mauer on Tuesday and they made three errors last night. In my opinion — as an official scorer in retirement — there could have been four. On a grounder in the second inning, first baseman Paul LoDuca missed a backhand stop, the ball glancing off his glove and into right field. If LoDuca hadn’t tried for the ball, Washington’s second baseman would have had a clear shot and should have been able to throw to the pitcher covering. It was one of those plays that make you appreciate the frustrated goaltender who plays first base for the Twins, and some of the guys who played the position before him.

*Not that I want him back, but it’s been nice the last couple of years to see Cristian Guzman return to the Dome. He was an important part of the Twins teams that started to raise our expectations and I’m glad he’s conquered his injuries and is playing well.

“On the subject of shortstops, I wonder how often the Twins will say that Adam Everett “is a long way from returning.” For hindsight fans, If Bill Smith could take back one move…

*Lots of interesting thoughts about pitching and rules changes (or a plea for none) in yesterday’s post. If you didn’t read ‘em, the comments are worth going through.

*Check out Reusse’s interesting column about Ben Revere, which he reported while on his trip to Miller Park last weekend.

*Day game today. Find an excuse.

other people are here too

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 8:18 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.