The Twins were continually on the verge last night, falling one run short owing to some bad at-bats (especially Michael Cuddyer’s flailing strikeout with the bases loaded in the fifth) and a couple of other things that seemed to go unnoticed because of the clutch offensive failures.

As Gardy said after Wednesday’s one-run loss: “We’re competing with them, but we’ve got to beat them.”

Repeat after me: “You can’t give away runs and outs to the Yankees.”

That’s exactly what the Twins did in the second inning and, to a lesser extent, in the fifth. Those are the innings when the Yankees scored their four runs. There were two defensive misdeeds in the second inning. Even though it was called a hit, Brendan Harris (Is he taking bad at-bats into the field with him?) should have been able to throw out Hideki Matsui on his grounder up the middle. Owing to age and injury, Matsui has evolved into a lead foot — and if Harris had brought his throw down, Matsui would have been out at first. That would have given the Twins two out and none on in the second.

It didn’t go down that way, though. Matsui managed to score the first run when he scored from third on a bases-loaded, one-out tap by Nick Swisher. Anthony Swarzak opted to tag Swisher instead of trying to get the force at home. On the replays, with the camera showing a wide view, it looked like an on-target throw home would have gotten the force. Again, that play would have been possible because of Matsui’s slowness. (Jeter and most of the others are easily safe on both of those plays.) Would a veteran pitcher have shown more field awareness in that situation?

In the fifth, it would have been an excellent play, but Justin Morneau came up just short chasing down A-Rod’s foul drifter — the ball glancing off his glove and A-Rod coming back with an RBI single for the Yankees’ final run. Again, if Morneau makes that play, it’s an excellent catch. But when the Twins are battling to stay near the top of their division and fancy themselves a postseason contender, excellent plays are the ones that make memories and pull out victories. (Joe Crede’s running, sprawling catch of Mark Teixiera’s foul pop in the third inning, for example.)

This was the wrong night for Morneau/Cuddyer to go a combined 0-for-7 and for Span to get the groaners going in the first inning by getting picked off second. The Twins escaped the second without more runs scoring even though Joe Mauer sailed a pitchout throw to second on a Brett Gardner steal.

A frustrating night. You kept waiting for the big hit that didn’t come and then hoped for a miracle when Mariano Rivera came in to close.

Day game today. Maybe this one will erase some memories from the first two, instead of forming an ugly series of three that’ll make some people wonder whether postseason baseball would be the crapshoot that the Twins would want it to be — or a foregone conclusion that makes you wonder if an October meet-up against the Yankees or Boston is worth the chase. I believe the former, but can understand those who think otherwise

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 8:58 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.