But I’m not letting myself get my hopes up right now.

If the bullpen doesn’t return to bailing out this team and the fielding doesn’t get better, the only way the Twins will pass the White Sox is through sheer good fortune or statistical freakery over the final three weeks. (Statistical freakery  example: The Twins hitting a couple of homers per game) I’d love to be able to find a way to say the Twins actually deserve to win the division. But, on the other hand, before the final three weeks of last season, did the Rockies look like a team that deserved to make the World Series? And the Phillies made the postseason in ‘07 only because the Mets pulled off a stupendous collapse.

We spent Saturday at the Dome and it felt through the first six innings like the Twins were ahead by a whole bunch of runs instead of a handful. But the feeling and the scoreboard were different things, and that came back to bite the Twins when the bullpen executed its latest blow-up. I don’t think Gardy can be faulted for choosing Reyes to face Granderson (0 for 7 until the homer) and Guerrier to face  Ordonez (1 for 11 until the homer). Baker’s four walks were troubing, especially the walk to Detroit’s No. 9 hitter — Ramon Santiago — that prompted his departure in the eighth. With every pitcher in the rotation, you can see the leap that needs to be made from promise to reliability.

There were other things that went wrong, but either you know them from watching the game or you don’t need to see ‘em recounted two days after the fact. Sunday was discouraging because it featured yet another Glen Perkins middle-inning meltdown. As Bert said on the telecast (and I’m adjusting his words slightly), that’s pretty much a between-the-ears thing more than a stuff thing. The one thing it tells me is that if the Twins somehow make the postseason, Perkins is the guy who’d be my odd-man out in a four-man rotation. We can debate that, but right now that seems like a hollow exercise.

A day off to regroup and then three with Kansas City, a series that begs to be swept. A 2 1/2-game deficit can disappear in three days … but not if the Twins continue like this.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 8th, 2008 at 9:35 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.