Funny thing about baseball is that we’re never quite satisfied. Joe Crede’s route to the bench for the rest of the season came through a batch of small, frustrating things. Now, after trying to play through the pain of an injury more extensive than it was thought to be, Justin Morneau is out for the season too. The corners have fallen off the Twins infield.

So how should the Twins approach the final 18 games of the season — trailing Detroit by 5 1/2 with 18 to play after so far being totally incapable of playing excellent baseball for more than three or four days at a time?

The good news is that we don’t really have to answer that question until the end of the weekend.

I’m going to presume at least a split in these next two games at Cleveland — and if that seems like a leap of faith to you,  my apologies. In that case, the Twins would be no worse than 6 1/2 games behind the Tigers with seven to play against them over the final 2 1/2 weeks of the season.

By the end of this weekend’s three games, the Twins will know how to fight the rest of the battle. In other words, if they don’t sweep Detroit, it’s almost certainly over, which is a difficult and unfortunate way to approach a series.

The Twins have been backed into a personnel corner in terms of who they play. With Cuddyer at first base, the outfield is pretty much set among Delmon, Gomez and Span, with Kubel making a cameo if Mauer’s is the DH. Third base gets handled in the same way it did last year, by three players who continue to remind the Twins that they need to upgrade that position for 2010 and beyond. (Harris is the main occupant.) Second base has moved past the shrug-and-a-coin-flip stage for now with Punto hitting safely in 9 of his last 10 and Casilla staying below .200. (Now it’s just a what-else-am-I-gonna-do-? shrug.) Brian Duensing is the No. 4 starter and Gardy ‘n’ Andy can form a prayer cicle to figure out what to do when the fifth slot in the rotation comes up (and when Blackburn is scheduled to pitch). Cabrera is the shortstop while he continues to remind us that he’s not a long-term answer, either — both with his bat (.271 OBP with the Twins) and in the field (range and arm).

That being said,  the Twins do have to figure out how to turn this flawed collection into a minimally flawed batting order. The decision was kind of made for them on Monday because Kubel’s struggles against Cleveland’s starter made him a good bench choice. That probably won’t happen more than one or two times for the rest of the season, though, and I would propose going this way — knowing full well that it’s not perfect by a long shot.

Span, rf; Mauer, c; Kubel, dh; Cuddyer, 1b; Young, lf; Harris, 3b; Gomez, cf; Cabrera, ss; Punto, 2b.

The Twins have to get Cabrera and his inconsistent bat out of the second spot, which makes Kubel/Cuddyer/Young the three/four/five combo by default. Harris has shown through his numbers that he suffers batting second and flourishes lower in the order. I pretty much picked the final three spots by drawing cards. I’ll let Gardy think out that one.

But the main thing is to show confidence in those who have been producing and, in the 17 games since his last hitting streak ended, Cabrera has a .227 OBP.

So that’s the deal. The floor is open for reaction and better ideas.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 11:09 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.