First off, don’t know how many of you saw the highlights from Thursday’s game … but Jose Guillen made a cheap move when he took out Nick Punto on that double-play grounder. He went well out of his way on a certain double play. I mean, if it’s a close call, you absolutely have to give the baserunner the benefit of the doubt. But this one doesn’t come close. Funny to me that the Kansas City account of the game makes mention of Punto leaving the game without a whiff of how-and-why. That Morneau apparently strained his groin going for the throw on that play makes it a bit more outrageous.

How bad are the Royals right now? Gil Meche had a Liriano-like performance, throwing 121 pitches and putting on 11 base runners in six innings — and said account of the game referred to Meche as providing “a silver lining in that he resembled his old self.” The manager, Trey Hillman, said he was “pretty pleased” with his starter, which I guess if relative while watching your team get 12 hits and a walk while scoring only one run and wondering why you’re cursed with a guy like Guillen, who has played for nine teams despite five 20+ home run seasons.

Keep in mind the Royals were facing the B-minus lineup — and got snookered in the eighth, when the Twins went from 3-1 to 5-1 — by Matt ( .187) Tolbert, who smacked an RBI single on a 3-and-0 pitch with Joe Mauer on deck. That’s the takingest of take situations, unless you consider that you’re not going to see anything except a batting practice fastball. That the Twins scored their final walk on the intentional walk and two unintentional ones that followed was a fitting end.

Glen Perkins had his fourth straight solid-to-reasonable outing since coming off the disabled list. He’s given up eight runs in those 27 innings while putting only 32 runners on base. He hasn’t exactly been facing terrors at the plate in those games, and it’ll be interesting to see how he does against the Yankees in his next start.

Same goes for Scott Baker, who’ll pitch the opener of the Yankees series after not getting enough notice for pulling himself together in June, when he went 4-0, 3.20 and allowed less than one runner per inning while striking out 35 in 39 1/3.

If the Yankees rotation stays in form, the Twins will be facing CC Sabathia on Tuesday, A.J. Burnett on Wednesday and Chien-Ming Wang on Thursday. (So it looks like the Twins’ stretch of missing their opponents’ top guns is ending.) But first there’s the matter of a three-game series against the team that just happens to be three games ahead of the Twins in the standings. In other words, a good weekend that kicks off an interesting stretch that leads up to the All-Star game. So I apologize for looking ahead and expect that you won’t do the same.

One final thought: After watching Punto come back from his injury and slobberbobber his way through another stretch of hitless and poorly executed at-bats  — 0-for-9 against the Royals — I went looking somewhere, anywhere for a replacement. Starting with the assumption that the Twins aren’t going to be able to get Freddy Sanchez from the Pirates, I found that the second-base market is extraordinarily thin. (Folks, Brian Roberts isn’t coming here, either.) The Twins apparently were wrong in thinking that Alexi Casilla was going to be the answer at second base — at least for this season — but that opinion wasn’t exactly a minority point of view. So I can’t join the “should have gone after Orlando Hudson” crowd.

But, on further review, Augie Ojeda isn’t any better what the current guys. My hallucination on that will hang out there on the Internet for anyone to see and hold against me, but I take it back.

Speaking on taking it back, I wonder if Gardy wishes he hadn’t gone off so publicly on Luis Ayala. If the Twins really did have a shot at an Eric Hinske-for-Ayala deal with Pittsburgh, I wonder if Gardy’s words helped douse those talks. At the same time, I have a hard time blaming Gardy on that one.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 11:12 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.