Well, the Twins played Wednesday night like they were honoring Butch Huskey and Mike Jackson, the last Minnesota players to wear No. 42, not Jackie Robinson. We lasted seven innings in Section 220 and got home in time for the final outs. Luis Ayala gave up two more runs in the time it took us to get from the car to the TV.

For all that went wrong, the thing that struck me most about the letharge was the unfortunate play of Carlos Gomez: Wimpy at-bats, missing the cutoff man on throws, a misplaced and poorly executed bunt. Gomez has one single in his last 19 at-bats and a .103 batting average. He looks lost and dispirited and there’s no way (other than the “give him time, he’ll snap out of it” speech) that playing Gomez regularly can be justified right now.

And this is on a team with outfield depth and bats-on-the-bench itching for a chance.

Gomez needs to play. Just not here at the moment.

I’ll make this quick and keep it simple: Sending Gomez to the minors for now would not be an act of panic or anger. It would be an act to make the Twins stronger, immediately and down the road. Gomez needs to work on the skills that make him the potential star many of us are pretty sure he will become. His temporary departure would create more at-bats for Brian Buscher, which needs to happen before bat atrophy sets in. Denard Span would become the every-day center fielder. He’s earned it.

You could have this batting order against right-handers:

Span, cf
Casilla, 2b
Morneau, 1b
Kubel, lf
Cuddyer/Young, rf
Buscher, dh
Crede, 3b
Redmond/Morales, c
Punto/Harris, ss

Down the road a couple of weeks, if all goes well, that could become:

Span, cf
Casilla, 2b
Mauer, c
Morneau, 1b
Kubel, lf
Cuddyer/Young, rf
Buscher, dh
Crede, 3b
Punto, ss

I’m making the assumption that Buscher’s primary value, based on last season and spring training, is to smack line drives against right-handers. Against lefties, the outfield goes Young-Span-Cuddyer. Kubel or Brendan Harris can DH. I’m not addressing the Cuddyer/Young playing time issue today. That’s not the point.

The last thing I want to do is see Carlos Gomez fester on the bench and get caught in a numbers game that goes nowhere while the Twins veer between playing just well enough to win and losing decisively. The Twins haven’t led any of their first 10 games from start-to-finish, which means that winning has been more difficult than it needs to be so far. Two of their six losses have been by two runs; the others have been worse.

Gomez would be this year’s Francisco Liriano project. When Gomez starts smacking the ball, running the bases and playing defense in such a way that Rochester highlights start turning up during FSN broadcasts, we can all start wondering when he’ll return — and clamoring for it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 9:03 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.