If your name is Taylor Teagarden and you’re a jock, you’d better be good. Just sayin.’

After the aforementioned Mr. Teagarden (it only seems right to use the honorific) was the offensive difference in yesterday’s 1-0 victory over Scott Baker, it brought to mind the other home run by an unfortunately named catcher that once did in the Twins: the legendary Jamie Quirk home run in Cleveland back in ‘84 that pretty much KO’d the Twins from the pennant race.

The Quirk home run, in the final series of the season, was his only hit of 1984. Mr. Teagarden’s homer is his only hit with the Rangers so far, and there’s a good chance it will remain so for quite a while. Mr. T has been named to the Olympic team and, in order to participate in Beijing, he needs to be returned to the minors by Tuesday.

An aside: The Rangers current have three catchers on their roster. Mr. T, Gerald Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Maximiliano (Max) Ramirez — and one of them is almost certain to go when the Rangers reactivate two injured players. Saltalamacchia was sick this weekend, which explained Mr. Teagarden’s call-up. Someone on a Rangers blog has suggested the team combine the catchers into one “super psopect” who would be named Maximus Saltalamacchia-Teagarden. While that won’t happen, Lord knows that Saltalamacchia’s sister better not do a marry-and-hyphenate deal with Mr. T.

My hope is that when the season gets reviewed we don’t look back on Sunday’s game as the one that made a difference between playoffs and no playoffs because of a silly-named catcher and the home run that was the only blip against Scott Baker’s excellence.

Of course, and I repeat myself, to even be talking about playoffs v. no playoffs is a bonus.

OK, enough fun with names.

Now, the Twins need to go to Yankee Stadium and not have another series like they did in Boston. The Twins have shown an ability this year to learn from their setbacks and I hope the focus they showed they weekend can be maintained. My feeling about Sunday’s game is that they were simply shut down by a good pitcher who was on top of his game and had the Twins number for the second time this season.

That being said, I hope that Justin Morneau didn’t wake up this morning and say something like, “Dang, my hand really hurts.” In this season of hand and finger problems, seeing him get smacked by that CJ Wilson pitch in the ninth inning totally bit.

The other thing is that Gardy seems to be softening on his idea that Gomez must bad leadoff. Over the weekend he said, “If I have to move him down, I have to move him down. I’m just giving him every opportunity, and we’ll see.” Yesterday, the Twins pretty much gave away an out in the ninth when Wilson struck out Gomez on three fastballs. Batting against lefties isn’t the magic solution for Gomez that it was earlier in the season and, while the Twins totally benefit from his range in center field, this would be the right time to switch up the battindg order and put Span and Casilla in the top two spots.

I hope the people who counsel Gardy are telling him the same. You can add your internet voice by voting in a “poll” on the subject here.

Did anyone try to adjust their TVs or get their calculators when Delmon came to the plate Saturday night and his batting average was .300? It was even better that the hit getting him there was that monster home run to center field that was measured at 430+. Going back to June 1, when Gardy got comfortable with the idea that Delmon wasn’t going to break Cal Ripken’s streak, his numbers have become pretty slick. In that time he has a .350 batting average/.367 onbase percentage and .503 slugging percentage. He makes a fine No. 6 hitter in the order and, if Gardy stays with Monroe as the DH against lefties, I’m wondering if he should try Delmon in the No. 5 spot and hit Monroe seventh.

Monroe’s lack of production (and Cuddyer’s absence) are the reasons the Twins have put a right-handed hitter on their wish list along with another right-handed reliever.

OK, the bullpen is rested and two hot teams are on the schedule for tonight in New York. It’s a 6 p.m. start. No errands after work tonight.

other people are here too

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 10:10 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.