Baseball isn’t about perfection. Even Joe Mauer hasn’t reached base 43 percent of the time this season.

But good teams clean up after their own messes, and that’s what the Twins did Tuesday night against Detroit. The way the game went, you barely remember that Delmon Young opened it with a pitch for a Span-Gomez-Cuddyer outfield by playing Curtis Granderson’s game-opening double like a beer leaguer, although most beer leaguers manage more than two hits in 90 times at the plate. Or Matt Tolbert running Nick Punto off that ground ball. Or Denard Span trying to steal third with two outs and Mauer at bat. Or Jesse Crain’s two (more) batters of ineptitude. (Well, actually, Crain’s performance is sticking with me today.)

Those memories are more delible in the context of two-run homers, slick defense and Kevin Slowey’s six innings during which — if it hadn’t become so overused in these parts — you would say that Slowey really battled his tail off. The final nine outs by Mijares/Guerrier/Nathan were cake, by comparison.

Joe Crede did what Joe Crede does — taking a mistake pitch (a hanging slider) from Armando Galarraga (10 career losses, five against the Twins) and smacking it over the wall. For those trying to bury Crede about lack of production, his .305 on-base percentage and .442 slugging percentage are right at his career figures (.306/.447).  Mauer has put up 10 games worth of sick numbers (.500/.571/.917) that should put to rest debates about the batting order, his value to the team and the scab-picking that sometimes takes place when stars don’t shine brightly enough for some people’s taste.

Now, the trick is for the Twins to play that way day after day after day. A tough part of the schedule has sneaked up on us — two more with Detroit followed by a Yankees/White Sox road trip, three with the Brewers, four with the Red Sox and three at Tampa Bay.

The rest of the month will be a test that won’t withstand poorly played baseball.

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Among the pearls from last night’s game was this: Tolbert made a couple nice defensive plays, and the bullpen kept our lead intact despite Jesse Crain’s best efforts. Of course, my favorite part was the interview of Brendan Harris during one half inning. He used words such as “continuity”, “familiarity”, “accordingly”, “ambushed”, “fester”, “swivel”, “sniper” and “parity”. It made me very happy, and also led me to conclude that Gardy’s dislike may be partially derived from Tofu’s use of those fancy college words.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 at 9:36 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.