Going back through some comments of recent days, you might think that Michael Cuddyer is the main reason the Twins have lost six in a row, the starters can’t locate their pitches, the bullpen has been a disaster in key situations and the little things kept getting done wrong. That’s the same Cuddyer who is batting .310/.430/.535 over his last 20 games and has the highest OPS on the team except for three guys named Mauer, Morneau and Kubel.

He has seemed to run afoul of the baseball socialists who seem to think that others should be getting a chance based on unmined potential or some of the numbers that can be found if you drill down deep enough into the statosphere. Some people seem to be making the leap that he should be benched because he’s overpaid — at least that’s the argument I’ve been extracting from a quick review of their words. I like numbers. I like the ones that I cite and I’m intrigued by the numbers that some of you bring up. But here’s a simple contention: If more Twins were producing like Cuddyer, the Twins could make even Terry Felton a winning pitcher.

And can someone remind me why I should be excited about seeing Brendan Harris’ name in the lineup? “Because he’s not Nick Punto” gets only partial credit.

That all being said,  right now it’s about the pitching. The novelty of pitching with a lead last night was so overwhelming that Francisco Liriano said after giving up seven miserable runs in the fourth inning, “I think I was getting too excited.”

Let me contend that, even after giving up the game-tying home run to Paul Konerko, Liriano should have been excited to see what was coming up for the rest of the inning, because there was no way 2-2 should have become 7-2. But that excitement led him to give up a double to Alexi Ramirez (.218), an RBI single to Josh Fields (.218) and a double to the legendary Corky Miller (.219). Then, after walking Jayson Nix (.226), Joe Mauer put his glove in one place, Liriano threw to another and Jermaine Dye (previously hitless in six bases-loaded at-bats this season) cranked that slop into the bleachers.

All of the excitement about Liriano regaining velocity absolutely has to be tempered by his lack of command (11 walks in his last 15 innings. among other indicators). Throwing hard doesn’t mean squat if you can’t throw consistently to glove.

When this happens hard after another Scott Baker meltdown (What was with the Bakercam in the dugout last night?) and Glen Perkins getting Tysoned (That’s a first-inning knockout) in New York the night before, it pretty much tells me that all the lineup tweaking and fussing doesn’t mean much right now. Harris or Punto? Tolbert or Harris? More Kubel? More Gomez? More Buscher? Where’s Luis Rodriguez? Job 1 is getting the pitching staff straightened out, rotation and relief. The Twins have worked too hard in many of the games they’ve won (the comebacks against Detroit, for example) and made things worse for themselves by giving away too many games early. That’s a recipe for <500 over the course of 162 games.

But, like I said before, it must be Cuddyer’s fault.

Day game today. Maybe Nick Blackburn steps up.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 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.