Lew Ford: Mr. Brutal

I don't understand why the Twins insist on not only keeping Lew Ford on the major league roster, much less give him the starting job in the outfield, unless of course, they're trying to win with a certain degree of difficulty. Last night was a perfect example of how the Twins were able to win, despite a certain outfielder with no fundamentals, no bat and no clue starting in left field. He turned an out into a double by badly misplaying a short flyball in the 4th, by sliding on his knees only to have the ball go over his glove for a free two bases. Luckily, rookie pitcher Kevin Slowey was able to escape the inning with no damage.

Then in the 10th, Mr. Choppy comes up with the bases loaded and nobody out only to chop into a 5-2-3 double play. Good work there Lew. I was desperately hoping for a strikeout to keep some momentum in the inning. But no, he did the worst possible thing and made contact with the ball.

I'd imagine anybody else could have done something better, why waste a roster spot on somebody with no redeeming qualities. He is after all hitting .186 and left five guys on base yesterday.

Dancing, Dancing too much dancing

As the tradition with any wedding in our family, the three of the four brothers decide to show their moves on the dance floor. I'm not included in the display of humanity. While I am hairy enough, I'm not jiggly enough. Keep an eye out for Streaky Pete about 65 seconds in. Enjoy. If you can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBIUsMWQIss

Slowly improving

As part of the festivities for last weekend's wedding, there was a 9-hole golf outing between the rehearsal and the dinner at River Oaks. We played the front nine and my Uncle Scooter and his girlfriend were part of my group. Things started off brutal enough for me with a 10 on the first hole, things would have been better if I didn't pitch it over the green and have to take a drop. Oh well. One part of my game that has been acceptable has been my putting. I made a 6-foot breaker to make par on the par 3 4th hole after hitting my first shot short of the green.
However, my solid putting abandoned me on the par 3 7th hole. I hit my first shot to about 10 feet, leaving me a slight downhill putt for my first birdie. I marked my ball and kept telling myself to make sure I hit it hard enough as decelerating has been an issue for me with some of my short game. Sure enough, I brought the putter back and watched the ball roll about 4 feet and stop. Brutal. I didn't even realize I decelerated, again. Thankfully I was able to put the par putt in the heart to avoid complete embarrassment.

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I can't write about the Twins. There are too many problems with that team. For the most part, they're not even in games, even if they are close. Nobody is hitting and if they do hit, they lose games like they did the other night, 15-7 (thanks Jesse Crain). I have no faith in that lineup, nobody outside the 3-4-5 slots can hit, especially with guys on base.

When Joe Mauer gets healthy, it will be an interesting race between him and Jeff Cirillo to see who can hit into more double plays. It could be a three horse field with Choppy Ford back in the lineup. Nice outing today. Three hits for Santana. Too bad he gave up 2 solo homers in the 7th. One would have been enough to sink that ship. By the way, this was posted before the game was over, they may sneak a base hit in the 9th.

Catching up

I know it's been a while, I've been a little busy lately with Caroline's wedding and such along with my work schedule, I only have a couple of hours a day (at most) where I have a chance to post. I guess I'm done making excuses now. I also didn't know I had more than one or two readers, shocking, since nobody posts a comment.
First up the wedding. I think I'm finally recovered from my sleep deprivation, very little the night before even though I had a chance to sleep in with Pige staying at Ahma and Papa's. I was still up around 8:30. Then I had some running around to do and then off to the Cathedral. As we were short one usher I had to make two trips down the aisle in my crappy shoes from the Tuxedo place. The aisle at the Cathedral from the back to the front is 50 yards. After walking my mom down the aisle I had to hustle back before Sneaky Pete made it 20 yards so I could walk Wifey down the aisle. I made it with about two steps to spare, with a slight jog thrown in for good measure.
It was good to see all the relatives from Minnesota and Chicago that made it. Some of us didn't get to sleep until around 4:15 Sunday morning, good times. Well they were good for everyone besides Katie as she decided to drink the rest of someone's shot of tequila thinking it was water after she was already wobbling. Needless to say, she was next seen on her way to the bowl in under 30 seconds. At 4:15 I decided to go to bed and at 4:16 I was sleeping. A wonderful 4 hours later some joner was playing his guitar and singing off key in the room below us. Thanks for the wakeup call.
Mother's Day activities included going to Ahma and Papa's for breakfast at 10:30, picking up Luann from the kennel and returning my tux, then off to Sneaky Pete's for a bit before I went to work. At least I wasn't hungover for work. Anyway, that's the short version of what happened last weekend.

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Twins update

Jesse Crain: you still stink. Nice effort Tuesday against the Indians, 6 runs in 2/3 of an inning. Enjoy your stint on the DL and you return trip to Rochester.

The Twins bullpen, one of their strengths in previous seasons, is rather shaky. The only guy I really trust out of there is Pat Neshek. Rincon is average at best and even Joe Nathan hasn't been that good this season.

The team as a whole is very frustrating to watch. The starting rotation isn't that good, even with Ponson gone (for good? let's hope so). The lineup has no pop outside of Cuddyer, MVP and Hunter. Joe Mauer hasn't been driving the ball and only two guys have hit a homer out of the big three and Mauer, Redmond (Sunday night) and Kubel (Tuesday night). Really, nobody else can even maybe hit one out? Tyner's never homered in his life, but has come close. Until he does, he's still a slap hitter.

This isn't their year. I can't see this team finishing up .500.

I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt I am.

Hockey playoffs and Twins

Two subjects today, the NHL playoffs and a short Twins note.
First the playoffs. My favorite aspect of the NHL playoffs is overtime, the longer the game the better. The fact that a team that has been outplayed for the majority of a game, can still come away with the win. An excellent example of this is the Canucks-Ducks game from Thursday night. The Ducks held almost a 2-to-1 shot adavantage, but they were going to overtime and one break by the Canucks can send the series back to Vancouver for Game 6. Alas, The Ducks won in the second overtime. The longer the overtime, the better as each save extends the game.
However, as soon as a team scores, it is always bittersweet, mostly because it means the game is over and I have to wait another day for the next game. Oh well, at least I get to watch bonus hockey and it doesn't end in a shootout like in soccer or regular season hockey.
I don't know what this says about me.

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Now onto the Twins. Losing 2 of 3 to the Devil Rays and dropping the season series. How pathetic is that. Joe Nathan looks human, especially against the D-Rays, the only team he has given up an earned run to this young season. That doesn't bode well for the rest of the season, especially with the Red Sox and White Sox coming in the next two series.
I have two underachievers from the last series: Jesse Crain and Joe Mauer.
First Mauer, like TrulyBrilliant said, he can't hit with guys on base. Let's recap some at-bats from the last 2 games. He had 1 RBI in the Wednesday game when he came up with the bases loaded and grounded into a force out. Thursday night was worse, striking out with the bases loaded and nobody out in the fifth and grounding out with the bases loaded and 2 out in the 8th, down one run. WTF? I checked out his splits from this season and his numbers are actually pretty good with guys on, with 14 RBIs so far this season, not too bad. Maybe it's just a stretch of rolling balls to the middle infielders, but he's got to start driving the ball.
Now Jesse Crain. He's been awful in his last three or four appearances including giving up a homer to lead off the 8th after the Twins rallied to get within one in the top half of the inning. He can't get anyone out when it counts and has become the most unreliable pitcher on the staff and unlike Mauer, I don't see him turning it around. Crain, Juan Rincon and Matt Guerrier, don't inspire a lot of confidence in me.

How did that happen?

As we were preparing for an Open House on Sunday, I was giving Pige a bath. While I was filling up a cup with water to rinse her off, I turned ever so slightly and in the process my lower back locked up and I couldn't move. I called for Wifey, but she was on the phone. When she arrived in the bathroom, the water was running with a 2 year old playing with the water and me holding onto the sink, telling her I was stuck. I eventually let myself to the floor and crawled to the bedroom and climbed the bed to lay down for most of the day.
My lower back is still a little sore and it's slightly uncomfortable to sit for extended periods of time. However, I'm able to walk and lay down with relative comfort. I just don't know how it happened, with my only explanation is I'm o-l-d.
So that's why I haven't posted anything recently, but I should be back in the swing of things in a couple of days.
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One other quick note I've been meaning to post.
When I went to the post office to drop off our taxes a couple of weeks ago the name of the postal employee at the window was Ben Franklin. What are the odds? I didn't ask him if that was his real name. If I had a $100 bill I would have asked him to autograph it.
I also wonder if his sisters Candy and Muffy are strippers.

Twins stinking

What is going on with the Twins hitters? Nobody can seem to get a timely hit, especially against some of these pitchers they've been facing.
I think the biggest problem is pitch selection. Instead of looking for something they can drive with less than two strikes, they're up there hacking away and taking defensive swings with one or no strikes against them, often times resulting in weak pop-ups and groundballs. I don't understand why they don't look for a pitch in their comfort zone that they can take a good solid swing. Instead every pitcher they've been facing looks like Cy Young.
This poor hitting is eerily similar to the start of last year, when they weren't scoring more than a couple of runs a game and fell way behind the Tigers and White Sox, before the Whities faded of course and eventually Detroit wilted.
It is April after all and there are still five months to go, so I'm not giving up hope yet. But, they better turn things around and give Santana and company some run support.
Who knows, one of these days, I might get to watch a full game and give a detailed report on what they did right, wrong and my full distaste for Capt. Obvious and Mr. Circle (Dick & Bert).