Sunday, May 2, 2010

Twins at Indians - Juggling

Recap:
Friday -- Twins 9 - Indians 3
Saturday -- Twins 4 - Indians 5 (11)
Sunday -- Twins 8 - Indians 3

Twins take series 2-1
Record 16-9

~~~

When Joe Mauer gets hurt, the entire baseball world takes notice. ESPN almost made it sound like the apocalypse in Minnesota. Ok, so I exaggerate.

Joe's injury, which I've read as either a bone bruise or stone bruise (doesn't really matter which) of his heel, that he suffered on Friday sounds pretty series and awfully painful. It'll take rest and ice to heal, but it doesn't sound like it's going to be quick. This after suffering a swollen toe (that needed to be drained by drilling a hole in the nail - ick). Someone get some steel-toed boots for our favorite catcher.

So, while we wait to see if Joe's problem is DL-worthy, poor Gardy has to do some roster-juggling.

On Saturday, the Twins were essentially left with one catcher - Drew Butera. It turned out fine, but there was a scary moment in the 10th when Butera was leveled at the plate by Lou Marson (nice play, by the way, by both Span and Butera).

Well, we all know that if Gardy had his druthers, he'd have like five catchers on the bench. Obviously, having only one wouldn't do. So up comes Wilson Ramos.

But who to send down? Well, Neshek struggled. Once. His last time out. So let's send him down. (Yeah, nevermind the fact that -- ahem -- other members of the bullpen have struggled too.)

Oh, but wait. Neshek says his finger still hurts. Really? Even though he reported that it was a-ok? Fine. To the DL with him. (I guess that's one way to avoid AAA.)

And how about Wilson Ramos? I guess he wants to prove some kind of point about staying in the bigs, huh? Four hits in his major league debut. The last Twin to do that was Kirby Puckett in 1984.

Seems like if Wilson had his druthers, he'd force Gardy to do more juggling when Joe comes back.

3 comments:

Bill Lindeke said...

Puckett did it, but so did Jose Morales, our current backup DL catcher. (or so I've read)

k-bro said...

Bill,

In Morales' debut, he went 3 for 3, and then busted his ankle sliding into second. Ow.

Anonymous said...

Man, I'm actually kind of irritated at Neshek, if the media reports are at all accurate: they're saying he concealed that the finger was still painful. I miss Morales as a backup, but Ramos is easing the pain. :)

Notice that I'm not writing my papers that are due in 17 hours.