OK, I’m not really sure what to say.
The home plate umpire (not going to bother looking up his name) should be ashamed of himself for missing that call at the end of the game. Simply pathetic. You are a Major League umpire. Do your job.
THAT SAID… The Twins should be even more ashamed of themselves for blowing a 12-2 lead against one of the worst offenses in baseball (dead last in AL OPS).
Ron Gardenhire should be ashamed of himself for his continued mismanagement of the bullpen. Over the last two games (both heartbreaking losses), R.A. Dickey, Bobby Keppel, and Kevin Mulvey (making MLB debut) pitched in high leverage TIGHT situations, while Joe Nathan sat in the bullpen. Nathan did not appear in either game, which is another reason why holding your closer out in “non-save” situations is mis-guided and irresponsible.
FSN should be ashamed of themselves for not treating this game like a bleepin’ funeral. I’ve been in the media long enough now (6 years) to know how fans feel after games like this. They don’t want to see the FSN crew (all 5 of you) smiling, laughing and joking about what happened. Fans are ready to jump off the ship, and you aren’t adding any value to the broadcast with those antics. Stop showing batting stance guy, and stop asking Gardenhire about “the positives”. God.
And, finally, the front office should be ashamed of themselves for not making a bullpen move at ANY POINT over the last 18 months. Dickey and Keppel were long overdue to serve up game-changing home runs, and it so happens they did it in back to back games. And I don’t want to see Kevin Mulvey making his MLB debut in the 8th inning of a one-run game IN WHICH YOU BLEW A 10-RUN LEAD.
For the record, Cla Meredith would have induced an inning-ending double play ball from Matt Holliday in the 7th. Too bad he’s pitching for the Orioles now.
Wake me when the joke is over.
Ugly game all around, plenty of blame on Gardy and our bullpen. But other than the blind umpire i got to blame most of this horrific outcome on Blackburn. Even the first three runs he was spotted was depleted to a one run advantage in the bottom of the first. It’s been a bad trend with our staff giving runs right back early. He’s got to buckle down there……..very dissapointing.
I agree. While that last play was pathetic, it isn’t the reason we lost.
This season, I’ve lost all faith in Gardenhire.
Fine points on the broadcast — let’s see a little more sincerity there; apt depression.
And yeah: batting stance guy’s 15-min. have somehow evolved in 15+ months. Perhaps he should start working on his “Windup Guy” routine before he starts mirroring random stances for sidewalk handouts . . .
I agree with everything you said. It was a rough one. What I don’t get with MLB Ump crews is why they allow more than 1 per crew to take vacation time at this point of the season.
I looked up the crew team using the MLB.com link they have and we had 2 umps up from AAA last night, the HP ump and I believe the 2B ump. If going by the info MLB provided, we had an MLB umps with 10 and 4 yrs experience and 2 AAA umps to fill in for vacationing crew chief and another.
I hear you on the Cla Meridith trade, but doesn’t it seem weird that with all the teams clamoring for bullpen help (Tigers, Rays, Yankees, Twins, WHite Sox, Angels, Seattle, Mets, Braves, Brewers, Cards, Houston) non equal an Oscar Salazar type or better? It almost feels like the Pads had Salazar in mind and used Meridith to get him. Those teams are all represented by very astute GM’s who wouldn’t pass on talent like that for that little of price. And why did the Pads choose to move him a week before the deadline if Oscar Salazar was all they were going to get. If the were looking for maximum return you would think they would have held onto him until at least the middle of next week. I will be interested to see what Paul Depodesta has to say about this on his blog, it just doesn’t seem wise.
The biggest problem our organization faces is an accountability vacuum, and the cavernous threshold between the common rube Twins fan/consumer and the Twins front office staff.
Even the media, who can be occasionally tough (usually in print) on the front office management, has to practically trek through the temple of doom to press someone’s button about the terrible, placated management of this organization in this very winnable division. If there’s nobody breathing down Bill Smith’s neck, there’s no real reason (other than common sense) for him to believe he’s doing a bad job as a GM… from a business aspect, Twins fans are still coming out in droves to watch this mediocre team struggle against other mediocre teams, and as long as the cash flow is there, why would he change anything?
4 or 5 years down the line, when Mauer is long gone and Morneau follows him out of town and the Twins revert back to the bottom dwelling cupcake they were a decade ago, while the mystique and allure of the now 5 year old Target Field wears off, the profits will begin to nosedive, and Bill Smith (who I assume will still be the GM) will finally feel the heat for his years of failure. The Pohlad’s are content with mediocrity as long as the money is consistent… that won’t be the case in the near future.
Since money is the only thing that our organization cares about, I wish they’d realize that to secure their financial future, they must make this team as competitive as possible BEFORE the start of the 2010 season.