Needless to say, where you’re talking baseball today at work or with your posse or with the stranger sitting next to you on the light rail or at the bar, you need to refer to the local baseball team as “the first-place Twins.” As in, “Liriano looked pretty good, and I think it was just the right time for the first-place Twins to summon his butt from Rochester.”

Or: “That was a pretty odd looking lineup out there Sunday, but there was enough offense there for the first-place Twins to win.”

Or: “If the first-place Twins remain in first place, you think Morneau has a shot at MVP? And does it really matter?”

Or: “Now that the first-place Twins have taken care of last-place Cleveland, it’s on to Seattle for three games against the last-place Mariners. You think Carlos Silva is gonna be jealous?”

Or: “The middle infield is going to have to work together a bit better if the first-place Twins are gonna remain in first place.”

Or: Well, you get the idea.

And that how I expect you to refer to them in the comments section, OK?

Had an interesting time on Saturday at the Dome. Before the game, I was MC for a panel discussion on Macalester College Alumni Night. We had Dave St. Peter, Clark Griffith and Josh Ortiz (the first-place Twins’ Community Service Coordinator and a former Macalester baseball player) at the front of the room, and Dave was quick to acknowledge the incredible surprise that the season has brought, an admission that others in the organization have been a bit slower to make. By the way, Clark said he’s sure the first-place Twins are going to win the division.

Dave noted that it was supposed to be a season for the young players to learn what it takes to play in the majors and for management to figure out exactly what kind of talent it had acquired and developed. Yet here’s that group of talent, a half-game ahead of the White Sox and atop the AL Central. No Johan. No Torii. No problem. ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian was talking about the first-place Twins as the division’s team to beat this weekend, even before the takeover too place.

That Joe Mauer is among the league batting leaders and somehow also leads the AL in batting against left-handed pitchers with a .366 average couldn’t have been foreseen based on last season’s health struggles, and should at some point quiet the critics who get all upset when Gardy sneaks him an unexpected day off, as he did Sunday.

I’d respectfully suggest to those folks that they cut their grass while wearing full catcher’s gear (preferably a hilly yard) and watching out for an active toddler. I know the neighbors and drive-bys will look at you funny, but that’s the best thing I can think of to approximate the rigors of catching game after game. This isn’t about Mauer worship. It’s simply acknowledging that most teams would kill for a .260-hitting catcher who runs the game behind the plate as well as Mauer.

(Of course, if you want to wonder and fuss a bit why Redmond bats third when he fills in for Mauer, you’ll get no argument from me.)

And Morneau continues to make an MVP case for himself, although it’s hard for me to imagine him outpolling A-Rod or Josh Hamilton at this point — and I hardly think it matters. I’m assuming that Brian Buscher keeps Morneau supplied with energy drinks and backbacon for handling the errant throws that come across from third base more frequently than they should. (Has anyone else noticed that Mike Lamb, who filled in for Morneau at first in the finale, has 5 hits in 12 at-bats over his last three starts — including two doubles and a triple?)

By the way, the Morneau/Gold Glove hype is another silly distraction. Morneau has made himself into a very, very good first baseman. But the honor will rightfully belong to Kevin Youkilis for as long into the millennium as he remains so solid. No shame is having the best hitting/second or third best fielding first baseman in the league. Yes, players tend to get Gold Gloves based on reputation sometimes more than their actual performance in a season, but Youkilis is that good. (By the way, the award is voted on by managers and coaches, not them ignorant media guys.)

The immediate challenge for the first-place Twins is to get their road stuff together. You can find the numbers elsewhere, but this is a team whose road performance has paled in most ways when compared to how they’ve played at the Dome. They have 30 games left on the road and 21 at home, and the five-under road record (skewed by the 0-6 at Fenway and Yankee Stadium) needs to be bettered. A week’s worth of games in Seattle and Kansas City should help.

And, finally, a word about the return of Francisco Liriano. He was certainly good enough to handle Cleveland, a team that seems to have an aversion to scoring runs. While he didn’t throw enough strikes and was too often working from behind in the count, the good news was that he was wild low and didn’t give in or get frustrated. Redmond also did a good job of keeping him focused in the tougher going.

There’s room for him to get better. And Dick’n'Bert made an astute point during the telecast, when they pointed out that it’s unfair to compare the pitcher we saw Sunday to the Liriano of 2006. For now, first-place Twins fans should feel good about the comparison between Liriano and Livan Hernandez, the pitcher he replaced in the rotation.

West Coast baseball tonight. Take a nap! As for me, I gotta go to ice my mousing arm from using the italics button to write about the first-place Twins.

other people are here too

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 8:30 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.