There are a half-dozen ways to come at last night’s loss, all of which can make you a little crazy. I know that Scott Baker wasn’t very sharp on the mound, a point made over and over by Dick’n'Bert, but there were a batch of plays on defense that the Twins had chances to make and didn’t. There were four I counted that figured into Seattle’s scoring in one way or another.

I’m not saying that all of ‘em should have been made, but a team playing sharp baseball would have turned one or two. If that happens last night you may well have a different outcome.

In the third inning, Brendan Harris barely missed Ichiro’s leadoff single and Delmon Young failed to make an ankle-high catch on Jeremy Reed’s hit. Make one of those plays and Raul Ibanez’ home run brings in one less run. Make ‘em both and Baker pitches around Ibanez or, at the worst, gives up a solo homer. Later in the inning, Brian Buscher was eaten up by a sharp Jose Lopez single and, after another single, the Mariners took a 4-2 lead on a sacrifice fly.

In the sixth, when Seattle went from leading 4-3 to 6-3, Baker opened the inning with two strikeouts. But Joe Mauer couldn’t handle strike three on the second one and Bryan LaHair reached first. It was later in the inning when Ibanez smacked his two-out, two-run single.

None of the three hits in the third should have been ruled errors by any means and Mauer’s work behind the plate is better than most of his peers. But it’s not unreasonable to expect that one or two of the plays could have been made. Right now, our expectations are closer to post-season than .500.

That being said, if Gardy was going to use Joe Nathan in the eighth and ninth innings, I think it would have been wise to bring him in at the start of the eighth instead of hoping in vain that Matt Guerrier could get him through the eighth. Not only had Guerrier pitched in four of the previous five games, but he’d given up six runs on seven hits and two walks in those 3 1/3 innings — including three runs in one-third during Monday’s disaster. Those are Rinconian numbers from a pitcher who doesn’t deserve that label.

If Nathan starts with a clean slate in the bottom of the eighth — instead of coming in with two on and one out — he has the margin for error to which he’s accustomed (and often doesn’t need). We get spoiled by how easy Nathan makes closing out a game look. But the way things played out in that inning ran way counter to the philosophy of putting players in positions where they have the best chance of success.

Gardy made a risky (but necessary) move riskier by the choices he made.

It feels like the Twins dropped five games in the standings last night instead of just one, all the more because of the way the White Sox rallied to beat Detroit with their comeback in the 47th inning. But what last night really did was, among other things, reinforce the value of excellent defense and, even more, put the front office on higher alert that help is needed in the bullpen.

And one more thing. How many of you were in mid-grumble about Gardy letting Jason Kubel bat against Seattle’s left-hander in the eighth inning when the ball went flying outta the park? Just curious.

other people are here too

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 9:16 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.