Boof, Aloof on the Hoof

Congratulations to Boof Bonser for a fine outing and the Twins for producing an enjoyable game to watch. The fact that Bert Blyleven chose to take a day off Tuesday made it even more enjoyable. Boof will never win a Cy Young Award, but he takes the ball every five days, does his best, and will be a workhorse on the Twins staff. After the fiasco in Texas, maybe there is a glimmer of hope. Winning one of a three game series on the road is not terrible, but doing it in Texas certainly is. Even lowly Kansas City wiped the Rangers nose yesterday.

The Twins being shut out by Cliff Lee a couple of weeks ago is no big deal. Being shut out by Vincente Padilla is cause for extra batting practice. A lot of it.

Last word: Once again Dick bungled the AFLAC trivia question. The longest hitting streak by a catcher. He guessed Sandy Alomar. But if you pay attention to your Topps baseball cards - of course there was a special card in 1988 lauding Benito Santiago's 34 game hitting streak for the Padres. I'm not sure if Alomar had 34 hits in a year.

Red Wings, Here I Come

Looks like my hope for a winning season will be on his way to Rochester soon. I hope Mr. Liriano can get his rhythm back and help us. But, I'm looking forward to Kevin Slowey returning to his spot in the rotation. I like guys who don't walk people. Wednesday, the first two runs that Oakland scored were runners who got a free pass. Now we go to Texas, losers of their last 7 games. These are games we have to win to remain in the hunt. Maybe with Cuddyer back we could score a few runs.

On the major league front, how about that Chase Utley - 10 dingers, a bunch of RBIs, and in the top ten for average. Could he be the next triple crown winner? We haven't had one since 1967, and Yaz was only tied with Killebrew for the home run title. And Chipper Jones, 40 years old and hitting double his weight! You can bet they are mostly solid hits, at that age you don't get a lot of leg 'em outs.

Get it Right

I have not been a fan of Twins broadcast teams for years. Of course I liked Herb Carneal, I think everybody did. But I'll only listen to John Gord-AND when absolutely necessary. The TV crew is equally poor. You have Bert, who describes every hit as "the pitcher got the pitch up, the hitter dropped the barrel of the bat, (formerly dropped the head of the bat), and it was a good piece of hitting."

But tonight they went the extra mile. The trivia question was, "Who threw the pitch that Mickey Mantle hit 565 feet out of Griffith Stadium in 1956?" I knew it was Chuck Stobbs, not because I remember the hit, but the homer was featured and described on a 1961 Topps Baseball Card. Dick suggested it was the pitcher who started the Twins first game at Met Stadium, and went on to tell an urban legend about Pedro Ramos. What I guess he forgot was that Senor Ramos started opening day at Yankee Stadium, shutting out the Bronx Bombers
6-0. Pete Whisenant was the Met Stadium home opener starter.

But that's not the half of it. Later in the telecast, after a near wild pitch, Dick related it to a game a couple of weeks ago, when a ball got away from Mike Redmond, allowing the only run of the game to score, on a pitch thrown by Scott Baker. C'mon Dick - - it's only been a couple of weeks, and if you can't remember that frustrating game for Nick Blackburn, you should go sit by Sid in the press box.

If they don't win it's a shame

Okay! Working on two weeks into the season and the Twins are looking good. I get a kick out of the scribes and their worthless predictions. How the Twins' rotation was questionable, but they traded some pitching to get hitting. But now I watch as the starters keep us in every game while the hitters seem to have holes in their bats. Save for Morneau and Kubel, we have a power outage. Not like the days of Zoilo, Tony, and the Brew. But a win is a win, whether by home run or squeeze bunt. We need Francisco to hang some zeros tomorrow, then on to Detroit and kick the Tigers while they're down.

Could be a long season

Baseball purists are said to worship 1-0 games. I guess I'm no purist, because I don't like them, even if the Twins win. I actually once played in a slow pitch softball game that went the full 7 innings and ended 1-0. But tonights Twins game was the worst. It's bad enough to waste Nick Blackburn's performance, but to have the only run score on an infield hit, sacrifice bunt, groundout, and a wild pitch wrenches my stomach. Meanwhile, our team failed to get a bunt in fair territory on at least a half dozen tries. Evidently Twins Territory is outside the baselines. We only had about 6 opportunities to hit into double plays and were successful 4 times. Our double play average was .667 while the batting averages dropped to under my bowling average. I know it's easier said than done, but let's get it done before the season is lost. Not even Ted Williams could pull the low outside pitch, so stop trying. There is area in the opposite field. Instead of batting practice 70 mph meat, they need to get the Juggs machine out there and crank it up to 96. The hitters are all late on 89 mph fastballs. And why is it so difficult to bunt. Stop trying to walk the line with the ball and get one somewhere fair, especially on a sacrifice. Since no one had gotten an outfielder to back up for three games, it's time to brush up on you small ball.