The Twins are off today after a 20 games-in-20 days stretch of soggy, inconsistent baseball that ended with a 10-10 record. While the Twins are only 4 1/2 games out of first place, the frustrating thing is that they (and the White Sox) are the only teams in the AL Central that are really underperforming, based on what should be expected of them. In other words, if the Twins played for the first two months as they “should have,” even with Joe Mauer out of the lineup in April, I think they’d be leading the division.

Such starts aren’t uncommon to the Twins, however, so giving up and turning your attention to the NBA draft or the Vikings’ quarterback situation is only for the faintest of heart right now.

But teams don’t contend for championships when they throw to the wrong base (Brendan Harris on Saturday), forget to cover a base (Jose Mijares on Friday), take miserable at-bats (Delmon Young and Nick Punto on most days), don’t battle through tough innings (Francisco Liriano and Scott Baker in most of their starters) and don’t stop passing off reserves as starters on a daily basis (the middle infield).

What to do heading into June? Blog posts and comments often play to the dramatic, with their words sounding more like infomercials than anything that could reasonably happen. Trade Cuddyer for San Francisco’s Matt Cain! Buy Jake Peavy a huntin’ dog and convince him to come here! Dump swine, get pearls!

However, given baseball’s reaction to the economic climate, I wonder whether more useful players will be on the market as the season goes on, as more teams look to replace higher-paid players with youngsters who may have a higher upside. If that’s the case, the Twins ought to be aggressive players in that market. The  Luis Castillo type of fix (when the Twins picked him up for very little before the start of the ‘06 season) is what I’m talking about, with an eye toward the middle infield, bullpen and probably a fifth starter.

I’d like to think the rotation’s problems will work themselves out, but I’m not seeing a scenario in which Liriano, Baker and Glen Perkins all get their stuff together — and, as good as they were, I’m not yet buying Anthony Swarzak’s two starts as a sign that he’s ready for full-time prime time. Give that one another month of starts before making a conclusion.

In the meantime, however, here are a few things that I think ought to be done:

*Settle on Span-Gomez-Cuddyer as the regular outfield for now and acknowledge that Gardy meant what he said in Fargo last December. Gomez has been maddening in some different ways than he was last season, but in this lineup, the Twins can afford to have his center field excellence in the ninth spot in the lineup batting eighth or ninth. For a detailed breakdown of Delmon Young’s production this season (May numbers: 0 extra-base hits, 3 walks, 22 strikeouts, 59 plate appearances), you should read Aaron Gleeman’s current post.

*Gardy should swallow hard, call Brendan Harris into his office and say, “Brendan, you’re my starting shortstop. Play hard, play loose and play smart and I suspect you can fill that role and give the front office one (and me) less thing to worry about.” Harris has turned into the best available option when you combine offense and defense, and the Twins will have to simply swallow his lack of range. I’d like to see what he does when he knows the manager has his back. (Of course, keep in mind that you’re-my-guy promises are null and void if something better is available on the market.)

*Attach Rod Carew to Delmon for a week of hard-core instruction focusing on the strike zone. Follow the cliche model of the coach who moves in with the new quarterback and have them talk about nothing but hitting and life. This has been a terrible season for Young in every way possible and the best thing to do is to make him as useful as he can be right now and think about the long term. Young is out of minor-league options so the “send him down” argument doesn’t work. At best right now, he’s a DH against some left-handed pitchers.

*If Liriano is dropped from the rotation when Perkins returns, it won’t be the end of the world. The Twins almost certainly will need a spot starter or a rotation replacement for some reason (weather or health) down the road and Liriano would make a good option. In the meantime, let him throw hard for an inning or two at a time in relief. He won’t regain his 2006 form, but something close to his 2008 numbers would be nice.

*Keep Span-Mauer-Morneau at the top of the order. Mauer isn’t going to hit 11 home runs per month, but I’ll bet on his on-base percentage being closer to .500 than .350 after the final 110 games are played.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 1st, 2009 at 10:34 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.