Didn’t drive off the road while listening to Sunday’s game on the way home from Kansas City. Got the first seven innings with the Royals crew, who are carried in Des Moines by a Christian station that broke up the game with bits of Bible wisdom, and then the final five with Gordo’n'Jack. The Royals announcers have a group man crush on the Twins based on what I heard … and then the Twins managed to live up to none of their hype.

Balls got thrown all over the place and the bases were left loaded twice, an extension of the untimely hitting that contributed to the unexpected outcomes in Seattle and a 3-3 road trip that should have been a 6-0 run. Sunday’s loss was a total team effort.

What many people will remember most vividly, though, is how Nick Punto capped off a stunningly bad two games by striking out four times Sunday and making two key misplays in the field. It was painful to listen to Jack Morris wail, “Oh, Nick” when he dropped a throw from the outfield on Mark Teahen’s double that opened the game-winning 12th — a base-running move that sounded destined to get Teahen thrown out at second if the play had been handled cleanly.

On Saturday, Punto’s night went downhill after he killed a first-inning Twins rally (first and third, none out) by stopping on the way to second base on a steal attempt because he thought the pitch to Joe Mauer was ball four (when it was really ball three). After that, he went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts (including a sad flick-swing fly out to shallow center with the bases loaded and one out). On Sunday, the low-key Royals announcers called him out a bit for his complaining after his first two strikeouts.

Here’s where you can practice discipline. Remain calm when the temptation is to do otherwise,

Baseball is a game based on failure. You know the drill: Fail 70 percent of the time and you get lauded for hitting .300. I suspect that if Punto could better deal with failure, we wouldn’t see the wild swings between success and failure that are his career pattern — a pattern that, by the nature of the game and some of the things he does when things go wrong, brings his failures more to the fore.

Punto gives the appearance of being wound too tightly for his own good, and the team’s good. Get called out on strikes? Go back to the dugout, cuss yourself out quietly, get over it and play the field. A close play at first base? Do NOT dive head first! Defense? Know the right thing and execute. It would be great if the natural ability that shows itself in Punto being one of baseball’s most “web gemmed” players carried over into the situations that go beyond simply reacting.

Here’s the deal: Nick Punto has value to the Twins. But it’s neither as an everyday player nor the No. 2 batter in the order. That hardly qualifies as great or original thought.

For now, however, Punto is the only healthy second base option, if you believe that Brendan Harris’ trouble turning the double play disqualify him from playing that position regularly. The No. 2 slot in the batting order thing is more puzzling, but there isn’t a clear-cut answer. I could make a case for Buscher against right-handers, but you could counter that having lefties batting 1-through-5 in the order can make for scary late-game situations, especially if Brendan Harris is also in the lineup. Harris’ .322 OBP doesn’t exactly make him a great choice for the No. 2 spot when he plays and his stats skew worse against lefties this season. Delmon is the only other option (and not a good one) unless you want to have the whole “Mauer should bat second” discussion again (yawn), which would lead to deficiencies elsewhere in the order.

Someone needs to get into Punto’s head and somehow prove to him the virtue of an even keel. (Someone should do that for a lot of us bloggers too, although we might not be as much fun that way!) In the meantime, you can model good behavior by remaining calm as you discuss him. Deep breaths, everyone.

Another thing that would help: Hurry back, Alexi Casilla!

other people are here too

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 12:06 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.