The Twins last hope!?!

Out of the mouth of Twins broadcaster, Dick Bremer, "And the Twins last hope, Rondell White comes to bat with two out in the bottom of the ninth."

How does Dick make these comments and maintain any decorum? More amazingly, how does Bert Blyleven not become hysterical and have to leave the booth?? I know I lost it and started laughing hysterically. And then of course the "last hope of the Twins" strikes out to end yet another shut out of the Twins.

Rondell White Ponders Retirement

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that

Twins outfielder/designated hitter Rondell White is leaning toward retiring at the end of the season, which would end a 15-year career.

This is sound thinking on Rondell's part. I only wish that he would think of retiring before the season ends.

After coming off the DL most recently, his legs are still a problem. Gardenhire has rested him for most of the Twins last home stand just so he could play on grass at KC; and then Rondell is in the game at DH. Suprisingly Rondell did get a base hit last night and he did work the pitches better than most of the Twins batters. But Rondell is not the bat the Twins can build an offense around for the next couple of weeks, much less till the end of the season.

Ultimately Rondell in or out of the lineup makes very little difference to the Twins at this point. One bat whether hitting or not can't change a Twins offense which has become simply offensive.

Goodbye Luis Castillo - some thoughts

I have been accepting the conventional wisdom that Luis Castillo would be leaving at the end of this year. That the Twins just couldn’t come up with the bucks required to hold onto this great lead off hitter, who went almost one full year without committing an error fielding. That freeing up the salary from Luis Castillo was the only way we could clear enough bucks to hope to hold onto Torii Hunter, and in the future Johann Santana and possibly Joe Nathan, too. Today I started to think about some of these assumptions. This thought process was started by comments made by Johann to the Minneapolis Tribune.

Santana expressed his unhappiness with the Luis Castillo trade. What really caused the unhappiness to boil over to the press was that no further acquisitions were made, just a couple of minor league players who may contribute “in the future.” It seems to be a trend that Santana may have had enough.

All of this started me thinking about my unhappiness with the Luis Castillo trade and everyone’s assumption that the Twins wouldn’t/couldn’t resign him. And a thought popped into to my noggin’ – why not? We resigned the dubious skill (sic) of Rondell White after his 2006 season spent mostly on the DL. When Rondell did play the role for which he was acquired – DH – his batting average was (and is) appalling. Instead of cutting him loose last winter the Twins, those miserly paymasters, resigned him.

Rondell was only making $2.5 million, so this may explain why the Twins resigned this rather questionable talent. But Rondell has never filled the role for which the Twins picked him up – DH. The only time he hits is when he’s also playing in the outfield. As an outfielder Rondell plays okay and he does hit, but the Twins have many, many outfielders in waiting, all of them lower in price and all who could be part of “the future.”

Luis Castillo was only signed through the end of this year. Everyone in the press and the blogs has been saying that the Twins wouldn’t be able to resign him. The common wisdom was that Luis Castillo would go for way more money than the Twins could afford. I’m questioning this now. The Twins were paying Castillo about $5.7 million for 2007. They have now saved $2 million of that to apply to buying the guys better lunchmeat I guess.

Now I know that there is a large difference between $2.5 million and $5.7 million. I also know that there is a really big difference in the contributions past, present and (what could have been the) future of White and Castillo. The Twins could not have known that White would be on the dl again this year. But the Twins did know that White could not fill the needed role of DH and that should have been enough to NOT resign him last winter. There – I’ve just found half of the money needed to resign Castillo.

So, since we can’t afford the skills and bat of Luis Castillo, then by God, we had better not afford Rondell White again this winter!!!!

If I can't watch the game - did it really happen?

A new rule, games not available to be watched locally should not count against the team.  So today's game (I have my fingers in my ears so I can't hear all the runs that were scored) was simply exercise for the Blue Jays (and they got a bunch, didn't they?).  ....mumble , mumble, Jays tied team record for most runs scored in an inning........ can't put fingers in ears far enough to keep all the runs out....LNP gets a hit, then is thrown out stealing (I've heard this somewhere before)...... da, da, da, and we were resting RonDL after he appeared in what, 2 games?!?.......mumble, mumble, mumble; and the non-Kubel ends the game by striking out LOOKING - dead silence.

Here we are in the top of the ninth

Torii Hunter standing at third with one out and Rondell White is at bat.  Dick Bremer mentions that the Twins are rapidly running out of outs here in the top of the ninth.  I say "You're right Sherlock, and I predict that Rondell White, the Great Hope, will burn up one of those outs" - and then loe and behold - Rondell strikes out!!!  And he's not a 100%? -oh,  just wait till he gets back to full performance. (heavy sarcasm should be applied here)

And then to end the inning Tyner flys out to center field.

Santana was not on tonight - perhaps the stress of trying to pitch shut out baseball every time its he takes  his turn on the mound is beginning to tell.

Twins out hit Toronto, but of course we had fewer runners cross home plate - and that Baby, is where it counts.