Brian Duensing came through huge Wednesday night for the Twins, getting through five innings and turning the game over to the bullpen for four scoreless, including two from Jesse Crain. Such doings, in part, are the reason I don’t share my in-game thoughts with you on my Twitter account. What I say to Ms. Baseball or Young220 in the real-time semiprivacy on the living room — “Jesse Crain, just who you wanna see in the 6th inning of a tie game” – often doesn’t hold up a few minutes later. And, frankly, I’m not sure anyone should care what I might grumble during a game.

The thoughts from Section 220 are kind of scattered in the aftermath of the White Sox sweep and  the whole two-games-outta-first-with-one-day-til-the-(non-waiver)-trading-deadline thing. Freddy Sanchez is on his way to San Francisco and I know that many of us are distressed by this. But it seems appropriate right now to share this POV from the fangraphs.com site that says, in part: “Sanchez is a nice complementary player, but he definitely should not have cost an A-level pitching prospect. In five years, this (panic?) trade is going to hurt. … The Pirates just got more value for Sanchez than (Toronto GM J.P.) Ricciardi could drump up for Halladay. That has to burn.”

I’m not necessarily buying that, but with all the Sanchez excitement going around, I thought it would be good to provide something to soften the landing. Patrick Reusse writes that the only comparable pitcher the Twins could have provided is Anthony Swarzak.

Besides, now that Gardy and Section 220 have gotten into Alexi Casilla’s head, maybe he’ll have a final two months of this season that are the equal of his first two months of 2008. Those numbers would be .315/.357/.440 for those of you who don’t remember why Gardy is reminding people that second base wasn’t as issue going into this season.

The most heartening takeaway from the White Sox sweep, though,  is that the Twins won those games with the lefthanded mashers — Mauer, Morneau, Kubel — going a combined 3-for-27 with two RBIs. Such group slumps are going to happen and the disproportionate damage done by the bottom of the order this week was a good thing to see. The Twins need to minimize the automatic outs in their lineup.

The middle infield batting numbers for July, presented without comment:
Punto .194 BA/.346 OBP/.274 slugging
Harris .189 BA/.221 OBP/.311 slugging
Casilla .146 BA/.314 OBP/.171 slugging

Has anyone noticed that Punto hasn’t dived into first base for a while? Weeks, maybe.

So how would you rank the Twins biggest need as of today? Middle infield and relief pitching have been the popular and valid choices, but a starting pitcher is making a hard charge now that we know that Kevin Slowey is out for the season and Francisco Liriano was benched Wednesday with a tender arm.

I know the Twins were saying last night that Liriano will make his next scheduled start. But short of him coming to the Metrodome with his arm in a sling, that was (and is) going to be the company line — at least until Friday afternoon’s deadline. If the Twins express any kind of pessimism about Liriano right now, it would only drive up the cost of a replacement part. As it is, I’m sure there will be enough skepticism among potential trading partners, with Bill Smith having to answer the question: “You mean you weren’t thinking about replacing the American League leader in losses — the guy with the 5.56 ERA — until now?”

So what’s the biggest need today? Middle infield? Starting pitcher? Bullpen? Trading Cuddyer because his 17 home runs and solid outfield play aren’t good enough for some of you? Just wonderin’ what you think.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 9:16 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.