Former fan-favorites Torii Hunter and Michael Cuddyer “admitted” as much, saying that everyone else on the team except for them (of course) were “nervous, all nervous”, and that the Twins were “mentally down” when they had to face the Yankees. It was good of them to keep themselves out of the admission — after all, they couldn’t have possibly been culprits, it’s not like they were the leaders of those teams or anything — and even better because their accusations were simply not based in fact.

In Monday night’s game against the Yankees, then, it sure seemed like those old demons would come back to haunt the Twins. In the first inning, Jamey Carroll was called out on a stolen base attempt by Phil Cuzzi, on a call that replay showed was incorrect. (You may recall that Phil Cuzzi was the left field umpire in that playoff game who called Joe Mauer’s double “foul” when replay showed it landed over a foot fair.) When that was immediately followed by a Mauer double, it quite clearly cost the Twins a run.

And when the Twins’ 2-0 first inning lead immediately turned into a 3-2 first inning deficit, memories of previous collapses came rushing back. Pavano struggled in that first inning, and looked like he didn’t have it. They’d be spending the whole night burning through the bullpen, getting blown out and setting themselves up for struggles not only through the rest of the series but throughout the road trip. It’s easy, I think, for an opponent to get into a fan’s head: all you get to do is sit and watch, and wonder, and panic.

But the players didn’t share that panic, at least not on that night. Pavano bounced back and completed six more innings, finishing with 7 IP, 7 H, 6 K, 1 BB, and 3 R. If you’d been told before the game that he’d do that, you’d have jumped all over it. The defense made big plays when they needed it — not least Casilla’s diving grab on a shot up the middle and glove-flip to Carroll to prevent what could have been a dangerous late-inning rally. And the offense didn’t give up when the early lead disappeared; no, they came back and re-took the lead in the fifth, and later added some comfort in the eighth.

It was a good win that ultimately probably doesn’t mean much. But the performance of Mauer and Morneau made it a Hollywood script. With Mauer’s three hits, he’s amassed 1107 on his career and passed Michael Cuddyer for 10th in Twins history. With Morneau’s 6th inning home run, he passed Torii Hunter for the 7th-most RBI in Twins history.

I’m guessing that the Twins weren’t thinking about Hunter and Cuddyer, or even the possibility of burying their Yankee-colored demons. That kind of thinking is more for fans than players. Still, for one night, it sure was nice to be able to say “suck it, Torii and Cuddyer”.

Earlier this week I finally got around to reading Jonah Keri’s The Extra 2%.  It details the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays rise from laughingstock to elite AL contender.  The driving force behind this change was a new ownership group.  Led by Stuart Sternberg and a cadre of Wall Street trained analysts.  The rest you know.

I came across this article while reading Hardball Talk this morning.  The cubs have signed a deal with bloomberg sports for a new player evaluation system.  This is something I can only assume the Twins do not have, but would laugh the Bloomberg Sports sales rep out of the room. Probably while giving him wedgies or something.  As with most people (or person) who read this blog, I am very frustrated with the arcane approach to player evaluation the Twins have taken, well, forever.

The extra 2% spends about half a chapter with quote from AL east executives lamenting the Garza/Young trade of 2007.  Because Tampa got such a good deal, they knew they would have another strong team in their division.  Even with Terry Ryan back in charge, I’m not sure I can envision the Twins staff outsmarting the likes of Freidman, Epstein, Cherrington, etc.

I am hesitant to blame ownership, because the Pohlad family has always been pretty hands off.  So the brain trust that has been in place  since the 90s is running this team with a pretty good head of steam, and it does not appear is if they will be changing course anytime soon.

Welcome back to the  blog everyone, anybody have any thoughts on the topic.

I won’t be going to see “Moneyball.”

Oh good, my friend Jason Whitlock is emailing me to tell me about his plans for the weekend! I also won’t be seeing Moneyball, at least until it comes out on Netflix*.

* I like the Netflix/Qwikster name change. Now that Netflix only has streaming, when I ask “Is it on Netflix?”, my friends can simplify their responses from “Well, they have the DVD”, to the much more precise and definitive: “No.” It’ll make things much easier.

The movie celebrates the plague ruining sports: sabermetrics.

I thought the plague killing sports was steroids. Or did sports end up not dying from that plague either?

That is not intended as a shot at Bill James, Billy Beane or Michael Lewis.

That’s good, because that’d be totally uncalled for.

James (the inventor of sabermetrics) and Beane (the most adept user of sabermetrics) are baseball visionaries worthy of glorification. Michael Lewis (the author of the book “Moneyball” that celebrated Beane’s use of sabermetrics) is one of the most important writers of this era.

I don’t know if I’d agree with everything you say here, Jason — for example, I personally wouldn’t call Beane “the most adept user” of sabermetrics, perhaps “an adept user” would be more accurate — but those are pretty glowing introductions! I’m sure the three of them will appreciate whatever you have to say about them now that they have just the right amount of smoke in their asses.

Wait. Hell, maybe it is a dis — an unintended one — of James, Beane and Lewis.

As long as it was unintended.

They unwittingly conspired to remove much of the magic and mystery from baseball.

I love everything about this sentence. There’s just so much here! First, of course, I can’t get past the idea of the three of them unwittingly conspiring — is it possible to unwittingly conspire to do anything? Doesn’t the definition of “conspire” pretty much require that it not be done unwittingly? I mean, if you were to “make secret plans jointly”, wouldn’t you have to know about it? And if the plan was to remove much of the magic and mystery of baseball, well, why would they plan to do that? Bill James, if my understanding of him from having read everything Joe Posnanski writes is even close to accurate, was and is driven in large part to understand and appreciate the magic and mystery of baseball. Beane was trying to win ballgames. Lewis was trying to write an interesting book that makes him more rich and famous. Rational self interest, and all that. Not so much an anti-magic conspiracy.

Or are we just using words like “conspiracy” because they sound good? Because, you know, I’m cool with that.

They reduced the game to a statistical bore. It’s no longer enough to be down with OBP (on-base percentage). To talk the game, you now must understand OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging), VORP (value over replacement player), BABIP (batting average on balls in play) and on and on.

Yeah, understanding things is hard! It’s better, if you’re going to talk about something, to do everything possible to not understand anything about the subject. That way everyone will be impressed that you’re able to have such strong opinions about something you don’t care or think about.

There’s a stat for nearly every action in baseball. Little is left to the imagination. Sports were never intended to be a computer program, stripped to cold, hard, indisputable, statistical facts. Sports — particularly for fans — are not science. Sports, like art, are supposed to be interpreted.

And wine is supposed to be appreciated for its earthiness, or the faint aroma of leather or blueberries or summer wind blowing through the leaves of that tree on the other side of the vineyard, or some such wine snobbery; wine is an art, not a science. Therefore, chemistry is bad and scientists have conspired to remove much of the magic and mystery of getting drunk.

It’s difficult to interpret baseball these days. The stat geeks won’t let you argue. They quote sabermetrics and end all discussion. Is so-and-so a Hall of Famer? The sabermeticians will punch in the numbers and give you, in their mind, a definitive answer.

It’s difficult to interpret baseball myopically these days. If, for example, you’re trying to argue that Jack Morris is a better Hall of Fame candidate than Bert Blyleven, you will indeed get both a punch in the numbers and a definitive answer. But not everyone is such a divisive topic — Morris’ legend lives on in the dreams of aging men, who will never forget that great Game 7 he pitched that one time, but all too easily forget all the times he got a W when his team scored 8 runs for him. Other players are borderline statistical candidates, for whom heart and hustle and love of the game and how sweet his swing looks on a crisp September evening may be able to swing him one way or the other. Some guys are just so obviously not good enough that you deserve to be punched in the numbers for caring about their candidacy at all, and others are so obviously in that it really doesn’t matter if they weren’t nice to sportswriters after games. Is this really that complicated?

Thanks for inventing the phrase “punched in the numbers”, by the way. I’m pretty sure I’m going to use that one.

It’s boring. It’s ruining sports.

That’s, like, your opinion, man.

Sabermetrics or analytics are overrunning football, too. ESPN is pushing a new statistical way of analyzing NFL quarterbacks, Total Quarterback Rating.

People are trying to come up with better ways to understand that Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers are really good? I’m intrigued, tell me more.

The nerds are winning.

Can’t have that. They’re nerds!

They’re stealing the game from those of us who enjoy examining the gray areas of sports.

You can still examine the gray areas of sports. Just, here’s the thing, not every area of sports is a gray area.

We’re about 10 years away from a computer program that will write stats-based opinion pieces on sports.

Ah, have we reached the point of this article? The real reason my friend Jason is so scared and angry? Watch out for those computers, they’re going to take our jobs!

I think it’s worth pointing out, though, that while it’s possible today to write a computer program that will write stats-based opinion pieces on sports, the writing isn’t going to be very good. This isn’t really something to be afraid of. Unless you don’t want to understand anything, and you just want to be scared and angry. Which, as Americans, is what we do best!

Last season, the basketball analytics crowd was convinced that LeBron James and Dwight Howard deserved the MVP over Derrick Rose. The fact that Howard’s whiny, immature crybaby-ass was even in the discussion tells you all you need to know about analyzing the game solely on statistics. The Orlando Magic were a joke last season in part because of the immature environment fostered by Howard.

I don’t know if “crybaby-ass” is a technical term, but I like it. It distracts me from what I care about when it comes to basketball, which is dunks. Dwight Howard is good at those.

As for James vs. Rose? Well, James devoured Rose in the Eastern Conference Finals. Rose’s defenders — most notably ESPN’s Ric Bucher — argued that Rose’s inferior supporting cast is what allowed the Heat and James to get the best of Rose and the Bulls. And by the time James disappeared in the NBA Finals, it was easy to see the merit of Bucher’s point.

I don’t … get this, but let’s move on. We’re talking about baseball, right? Or stats? What stats? Does it matter?

It doesn’t really matter who deserved the NBA’s MVP award.

Yeah, I guess it doesn’t matter. Great! Let’s keep talking about it, then.

What matters is that there was a fun, yearlong debate. As much as we enjoy watching the competition on the field or court, we take equal pleasure in interpreting and debating what we just saw.

Right. Which, apparently, you got to enjoy even though some people were considering facts before coming up with their opinions. So we’re agreed, then? Stats aren’t evil?

Sabermetrics/analytics undermines the debate. They try to interject absolutes.

Only statistics would interject absolutes. Jason Whitlock, as you can see from those two absolutely non-absolute statements, would never do that.

No one will ever convince me that John Elway isn’t the greatest quarterback/football player in NFL history. I know what I saw.

See? Jason Whitlock would never make a boldly absolute statement or undermine a debate.

I don’t care that Joe Montana won more Super Bowls. I don’t care that Dan Marino threw for more yards. I don’t care that Peyton Manning’s completion percentage is eight points higher.

Yeah, when it comes to quarterbacks, Super Bowls and yards and complete passes are pretty much irrelevant.

I can and have argued credibly and passionately that Elway is the best QB and player in the history of the league.

You can and/or have argued credibly about something? Prove it!

You are free to disagree. I invite you to disagree. I’d love to refute your erroneous position. Just bring more than stats to the table.

When you say “bring more than stats to the table”, do you mean “don’t consider facts, because those make it much more difficult for me to win arguments”? It kind of seems like that might be what you mean.

The games are about more than stats.

Hello, Mr Strawman? Hi, this is reality calling. Is there anyone, anywhere, who has ever attempted to refute this?

That’s what bothers me about this whole era of sports.

What is? That the games are about more than stats? I wouldn’t have thought that would bother you.

In my lifetime, there have been two innovations that have significantly influenced sports fans: 1. fantasy leagues; 2. sabermetrics/analytics.

Just two innovations? I don’t know, I thought the 24-hour news cycle influenced sports fans, and HDTV, and the internet, and live streaming of games, and Twitter, and a whole bunch of other innovative and cool things that enable fans to enjoy sports as much as they want to.

Again, the stat geeks are winning.

Everyone is winning.

Our perception of athletes and their value are primarily being dictated by statistics.

They don’t have to be, but understanding what “value” means is helpful when you’re trying to determine a player’s value.

Peyton Manning is the king of fantasy football; therefore, he is the king of real football. LeBron James is the king of fantasy basketball; therefore, he is the king of real basketball.

What year is it? You know that Peyton Manning isn’t playing right now and has killed millions of fantasy teams who drafted him, right? And you keep using that word “therefore” in a way that makes me wonder if you know what it means. LeBron and Manning are really good at their respective real sports, therefore they’re really good in fantasy sports. For most people, fantasy doesn’t dictate reality.

Is it a coincidence that James and Manning have both struggled in postseason play?

Um, yes? Also, didn’t Peyton Manning win a Super Bowl? Seriously, what year is it, Jason?

I don’t know the answer. But I want to discuss and debate it. And I don’t want to do it with people who simply want to quote stats.

You mean quoting stats like “Peyton Manning won a Super Bowl”? Yeah, that kind of stat would be really inconvenient for your point. I can see why you wouldn’t want to argue with someone capable of remembering that, or looking it up.

The answers and the questions that make sports special, unique, our collective national pastime, can’t be found on a stat sheet. They’re in our imaginations and our individual interpretation of what we witness.

That’s true. And since stat sheets don’t preclude either the answers or their questions, they can coexist with our imaginations and interpretations. You don’t have to care only about the things statistics can quantify, just like you don’t have to care only about the non-quantifiable things for which stats are useless. Those non-quantifiable things like “heart” and “clutchiness” or “crybaby-ass-itude” can still be enjoyed, they can be feared, they can be talked about. They can be a source of hope or dread. They can be as much a part of a sports fan’s daily conversation as wOBA or WAR, or anything else.

When the “Moneyball” movie hysteria subsides, I hope the sabermeticians STFU.

I thought you didn’t like newfangled acronyms. So, I’ll help you out a little bit. STFU stands for “Shut The Fuck Up”. This might be one of those times where you should heed your own advice.

This has seemed to me like another example of one of the main problems I have with Gardy’s managerial style — that he seems to be very highly critical of his talented (but not highly talented) young-ish players, in a way that he isn’t of players who are either old or bad or both.

But check out this quote, courtesy of Phil Mackey:

“I think he enjoys it, to tell you the truth,” Gardenhire said, regarding Valencia handling criticism. “I think it makes him feel like he’s a part of stuff when people are getting on him. Because he’s constantly saying, ‘How come these guys are getting on me about this, Gardy, and not getting on this guy about this?’ So I know he likes it. I really believe he likes that stuff.”

Evidently, Gardy is deliberately trying to find ways to criticize Valencia, because he thinks Valencia likes it.

Of course, when I hear that Valencia says “How come these cuys are getting on me about this, Gardy, and not getting on this guy about this?”, I don’t think that sounds like he likes it. It sounds like he thinks it’s bullshit.

And even if Gardy is right, that Valencia does like being criticized more than all the other players even when he’s not doing anything wrong, I imagine he doesn’t appreciate it when Gardy says he needs to start producing more or he’s going to be sent down to Rochester.

What do you think? Have I misread Valencia’s feelings? Is Gardy out of touch? Or is this much ado about nothing?

It’s a phrase whose meaning seems completely obvious to everyone who hears it — except that nobody seems to be able to agree, exactly, on a definition. For some, it means that you should put the ball over the plate repeatedly, eschewing both strikeouts and walks and relying completely on the defense behind you for your success. For others, it means you should rely on your stuff and put the ball over the plate, and let the balls fall where they may. Maybe some people don’t even see the difference between those definitions.

Sometimes, it can seem like “pitch to contact” is the only way some guys can survive in the league; could Nick Blackburn succeed if he were nibbling on the corners and walking guys in an effort to strike them out, or does he need to put the ball in the strike zone and hope the balls find gloves?

But other times, “pitch to contact” seems foolish, like when you’re talking about the antithesis of Nick Blackburn, one Francisco Liriano. His main talent is inducing swings and misses — literally pitching away from contact — and that has always been where his value lies. This, I think, is what frustrates so many fans when the Twins insist to Liriano that he should be pitching to contact. It seems, from far away, that he should be doing the exact opposite of that.

And, from my vantage point far away, it seems like Liriano also thinks that he should be doing the opposite of that. In 2010, Liriano had an unusually high 33% of balls put into play become hits behind him — a pitcher doesn’t have total control over how many balls the defense will convert into outs behind him, and all pitchers generally allow between 29-30% to become hits — which is why his tremendous strikeout-to-walk ratio didn’t translate into an equally-sparkling ERA and win/loss record. It’s a primary reason Liriano’s 2010 was described as “unlucky.” It stands to reason, then, that Liriano would react by avoiding contact, by trying to take more of the game into his own hands, by trying to rely less on his defense, which had repeatedly failed him all year.

This spring, I went to a game at Hammond Stadium that Liriano started. He only last three innings — and he struck out nine guys. Every out he recorded was via a strikeout. Of course, he also allowed four hits and three walks; and those seven baserunners in three innings amounted to one run. That start was a microcosm of everything that is right with Liriano, that is wrong with Liriano, that goes Liriano’s way, and that goes against him. And it’s further evidence, I think, in the mind of the pitcher that he can’t rely on the defense. If the batter makes any contact at all, they get a hit. So why in the world would he want to pitch to contact, and thus get shelled?

What I’m saying is that I can fully understand why Liriano would think that pitching to contact is a bad idea, and why he wouldn’t want to submit his chances for success to the sub-par defense behind him, and to the cruel fates who’ve decided that luck isn’t on his side.

And I can also easily understand that the Twins don’t want him trying to do everything himself — you can’t strikeout everyone, and if you try you’ll end up throwing too many sliders out of the zone and walk a guy every inning and run your pitch count so high you have to get pulled early in the game. A pitcher has to understand that he cannot control every outcome; he can only put himself in the best position to take advantage of the breaks that must eventually come his way.

But the real definition of “pitch to contact” continues to elude. Gardy has done his part to inject some confusion into the dialog:

“We understand that he can strike people out, but if he really wants to become a pitcher, pitch to contact.”

Statements like that lend credence to the “pitch-to-contact means stop trying to strike people out” camp, of which Liriano apparently counts himself a member (after a start against the Royals in which he successfully “pitched to contact” while giving up five straight singles):

Liriano said he was “throwing more fastballs than I used to in the game today,” adding, “I just wanted them to put them to put the ball in play, not try to strike out a lot of people.”

This debate has been raging among fans all season, fueled by the burgeoning loss column, and by each miserable Liriano start, and by Pavano’s league-worst strikeout rate.

On Monday, the heavyweights of the Twins blogosphere drew lines in the sand. Nick Nelson took the position that the Twins have been trying to tell Liriano to pitch well, and that his struggles are all on him and his command.

When Liriano was struggling he was barely throwing 50% strikes. How does that qualify as “pitching to contact”? Seems like an excuse. (@nnelson9)

I’d say that yesterday Liriano did exactly what the Twins want him to do. Throw strikes early in count, get ahead, then unleash the nasty. (@nnelson9)

Aaron Gleeman took the position that “pitch to contact” doesn’t seem to exactly mean the same thing as “pitch well,” and that the Twins have been confusing.

And you’re saying the Twins basically just wanted him to pitch well, in which case they sure phrased that oddly. (@aarongleeman)

If they just wanted him to “throw strikes” I don’t see why they wouldn’t say that. What they said was different. (@aarongleeman)

So you’re saying all the Twins did was phrase “throw strikes” poorly and now Liriano is just making excuses? That’s a tough sell. (@aarongleeman)

Nelson continued:

I think it’s clear Twins wanted him to do just what he did yesterday. 66% strikes, lots of quick outs, still plenty of K’s. (@nnelson9)

“Pitch to contact” is just their terminology. People acting like they were trying to turn him into Duensing is insane. (@nnelson9)

I think he gets in a mentality sometimes where he gets too fine, tries to make every pitch unhittable, racks up huge p-counts (@nnelson9)

Saying, “Throw the ball over the plate early in the count, your stuff is great, don’t be afraid of contact” = right approach. (@nnelson9)

So, after watching the argument from the sidelines,* who’s right here?

* Gleeman later pointed out that “having long, public Twitter conversations with people you often instant message with feels weird.” Basically, this was a private conversation, one that friends and strangers have had thousands of times in every bar in the country … and this one had an audience of thousands. I’m going to go ahead and call this one of the wonders of Twitter.

Nelson’s basic premise assumes that he understands what the Twins have been trying to say with their “pitch to contact” mantra. That when they say “pitch to contact,” they don’t mean “be like Nick Blackburn and give up a lot of hits,” which is how it sometimes seems. So what are the Twins saying about that?

To clarify, it wasn’t that Gardenhire and Anderson instructed Liriano to get rid of the strikeouts and pitch to the barrel of opponents’ bats in April. They simply told Liriano, “Don’t be afraid (of contact),” Anderson said.

“You can’t strike everyone out on the first pitch. Your stuff’s pretty good to get to two strikes. …

“That was basically ‘attack them more, trust your stuff.’ But if you back up farther, it’s more or less, ‘keep yourself under control and let your pitches work,’ like you saw (Sunday).”

Rick Anderson, clearly, falls into the “what the Twins mean is that pitch-to-contact means ‘pitch well’” camp. (Which is utterly unsurprising, of course, because it strains belief that the pitching coach would actively want to make Liriano a worse pitcher, which has sometimes been the accusation around the blogosphere.)

It seems, then, that Nelson has understood what the Twins have been trying to say in way that many others haven’t. When the Twins explain themselves more explicitly, they’re saying exactly what Nelson says they mean. Still, it’s hard to quibble with Gleeman’s position that a) why not just say “throw strikes and trust your stuff” and scuttle the “pitch to contact” terminology that is so confusing? and b) whenever Liriano has tried to “pitch to contact” he’s been focused on the contact and it hasn’t worked at all.

Liriano, meanwhile, may have misunderstood the coaches in the same way that most fans have. Here’s what he said after another bad start last month:

“To be honest, yeah, it’s a little bit hard for me,” Liriano said about pitching to contact. “But I want to go deeper into games, I don’t want to be throwing four innings, five innings. Whatever I have to do to go deeper into games.”

And this week, after nearly no-hitting the Rangers:

“I’ve always been the power pitcher, trying to strike out people,” Liriano said. “I’m not the guy who’s going to get 10 groundballs or 12 groundballs in a game. I’m trying to be me, (the way) I used to pitch last year and the year before. I’m not thinking about contact at all. …

“I feel more comfortable pitching like that (power guy).”

So, if there are misunderstandings among the fans as to what exactly the Twins mean when they say “pitch to contact,” well, I don’t think it’s that surprising. They haven’t successfully explained it to their best pitcher either. Is that Liriano’s fault, or is it on Gardenhire and Anderson? Like most failures in communication, I think a little bit of blame goes to both sides.

Gleeman and Liriano, like Nelson and the Twins, all have a point. Liriano does need to learn to pitch, and he can’t just try to strike everyone out every time. He needs to learn to rely on his defense, but even more than that he needs to learn to trust his stuff — hitting a baseball is the hardest thing you can do, and Liriano’s stuff is good enough that most major league hitters can’t make good contact even when it’s in the strike zone. Liriano needs to grasp the intrinsic difficulty of hitting, and take advantage of it. Part of that is that he needs to stop dancing outside the zone in hopes of tempting the hitter to swing at something he can’t even reach.

At the same time, though, the Twins need to make more of an effort to explain to him what exactly they mean when they tell him that. A good teacher isn’t one that is always right — it’s one that knows his students well enough to say exactly what each of them needs to hear in order to learn. “Pitch to contact” might be clear enough for Blackburn, but it is obviously not clear enough for Liriano. So they should probably stop saying it, and stick to different platitudes like “throw strikes” and “trust your stuff” when it comes time to teach him.

It’s a learning moment for everyone, then, from the fans to Liriano to the Twins. All thanks to an oddly public conversation on Twitter.

This is a graph of the 10-day moving average of the wOBA of a bunch of players:

You can see in that graph that the Twins’ offense has been meek this year — nearly the entire team was sitting below .300 wOBA for the whole year. Mauer, on the handful of days he played, was below a .300 wOBA.

But another thing you can see is that as soon as Mauer left the lineup, something happened. Delmon and Cuddyer and Valencia started swinging the bat — you can see a strong upswing in all their lines as soon as Mauer’s cuts off. And when Morneau left,* they continued to rise; except for Cuddyer, whose trajectory increased violently to match Kubel’s. (Kubel, by the way, has been hitting very well lately. A .450 wOBA is excellent.)

Now, if I’m being honest, I’d assume that the timing of this is just a coincidence.* These guys are better hitters than their .200 wOBA was showing, and it was only a matter of time until they started making better contact. But let’s just say the coincidence is striking.

* Except for Thome’s precipitous drop coinciding with Morneau’s absence from the lineup. He’s played a lot of consecutive games now, and for the second year in a row that’s not what he signed up for.

But still, I wonder if there’s something to this. Gardy’s teams have always performed better than their talent should have allowed — until the team had talented players. Maybe there’s something about Gardy’s style of coaching that simply works better when there’s less talent to work with, when there are no stars in the lineup. I doubt it can be quantified, but it seems believable that a manager could be more inspiring when the players know they can’t rely on great players to win the game for them. I also think it’s believable that, without lineup mainstays like Mauer and Morneau, Gardy has more freedom to tinker, to mix and match players, and to make moves.

That move-making doesn’t always work, but it’s worked the last two days. And Gardy’s “let’s stick together in the face of hardship”* act appears to have lit the fire that was necessary to get some of the Twins’ essential bats to start clicking.

* Assuming, of course, that he’s done anything. I hope it’s fair to assume that.

The Twins were a very fun team to watch this decade when they were plucky underdogs — and without Mauer and Morneau, that’s what they can be again. Of course, it’d be best if Kubel and Young and Cuddyer and Valencia continued to hit well as Morneau and Mauer return, allowing the Twins to perform as the expensive machine they’re supposed to be now that their payroll has rocketed past $100M.

What do you think? Coincidence? Gardy doing a good job? The players banding together without the protection of the stars? What are you talking about, it’s only two games?

• Troy Tulowitzki: 5
• Nelson Cruz: 5
• Howie Kendrick: 4
• Alex Rodriguez: 4
• Miguel Cabrera: 4
• Ryan Braun: 4
• Asdrubal Cabrera: 4
• Lance Berkman: 4
• Ian Kinsler: 4
• Mark Teixeira: 4
• Pat Burrell: 4
• Alfonso Soriano: 4
• Jorge Posada: 4
• Prince Fielder: 3
• Jose Bautista: 3
• Jonny Gomes: 3
• Logan Morrison: 3
• Paul Konerko: 3
• Ryan Howard: 3
• Russell Martin: 3
• Alexei Ramirez: 3
• Justin Upton: 3
• Jason Heyward: 3
• Chris Young: 3
• Rickie Weeks: 3
• Rod Barajas: 3
• Josh Willingham: 3
• Torii Hunter: 3
• Brian Roberts: 3
• Adrian Beltre: 3
• The Minnesota Twins: 3

Sorry about making that list so long. Don’t blame me, blame the Twins. They are currently the worst offensive team in the league, having amassed -0.5 WAR on offense thus far in the season. They are the second worst pitching team in the league, with 0.1 WAR. As a team, they’re hitting .236/.283/.506, for a batting line that would get a backup catcher sent down the minors.* Every day, the Twins’ fans debate on Twitter whether it’s time to panic or whether it’s just a small sample size.

* Except, of course, if you’re the Twins’ backup catcher. I’m beginning to suspect that Joe Mauer’s contract includes a secret clause that says the Twins can’t have an adequate backup for him, thus explaining Drew Butera’s continued existence. I call it the Joe Mauer Must Look Good Clause.

But on Thursday night, that was supposed to change. They took their league-worst offense and faced off against the second worst offense, the Rays (-0.3 offensive WAR). Carl Pavano was on the mound, with his personal caddy behind the plate, Drew “Make Mauer Look Good” Butera. And Pavano didn’t disappoint — last week he dominated the anemic A’s offense, giving up 1 run in 8 innings. This week, he dominated the Rays’ offense, giving up 0 runs in 8 innings. He’s doing what he can to silence those pesky complaints about his contract.

And to top it off, Pavano struck out 7 batters in his 8 innings, re-trading ground balls for strikeouts upon realizing that the Twins’ infield defense can’t field balls hit directly at them and can’t move at all. (Michael Cuddyer started at second base, again.) Unfortunately for Pavano, and the Twins, Pavano doesn’t know how to win. Eight scoreless innings is only a good performance if the bullpen can finish off the win.

Pavano left the game with a 2-0 lead — the Twins had finally broken through in the 6th inning, characteristically leaving the bases loaded — and Nathan took over the mound. You know that saying from football, that if you have two Quarterbacks, you really have zero? Well, the Twins are apparently trying to see if the same is true of Closers. With one out, Nathan induced Felipe Lopez to pop up to shallow right field, and the ball hung in the air for what seemed like minutes — and was enough time for Morneau and Hughes to get from the infield all the way out there to right field, just in time to convince Cuddyer (who had apparently been playing somewhere in the plaza beyond the fence in right-center after switching from second base) not to attempt to catch the ball. It dropped in for a double; apparently that was enough to rattle Nathan, who walked the next batter. After a coaching visit to the mound, Nathan did what all Twins pitchers do after receiving a visit to the mound: he got rocked for a game-tying double.

So Pavano’s effort was wasted, and Nathan had blown his first save of the year. For what it’s worth, it should be the first of many.

Not to be outdone, Matt Capps* took over the mound in the 10th inning with the lead newly replenished — by a potentially-game-winning single by Danny Valencia that made the score 3-2 — and did everything in his power to make sure he didn’t lose the race for most blown saves for the Twins this season. Just six pitches into his outing, he surrendered a walk-off home run to Johnny Damon, and the Twins got to hang their heads in shame once more.

* With all the whining about Mauer and Butera right now, is it cruel of me to point out that Wilson Ramos is currently hitting .450/.522/.550 right now? Yes, small sample size. Still, that OPS is double the Twins’ as a team. And by the way, I am never going to let Matt Capps live down the fact that he was traded for Wilson Ramos, in some sort of cosmic do-over of the AJ Pierzynski heist.

Entering Thursday night, the Twins hadn’t had many leads to protect, and neither Nathan nor Capps had blown a save. By the time the bartender of life cut off my MLB.tv feed, they’d each blown one. The bullpen is showing itself to be about as weak as everyone had feared it would be. The defense has somehow managed to be even weaker than everyone feared it would be. The starting rotation is currently having everything go wrong aside from injuries, which are surely right around the corner. And the offense, which was going to have to carry the load this season, well … remember the old saying that against a good offense you’d have to pitch around the first eight and pitch to the pitcher? Well, we’ve found the opposite of that. Against the Twins, the optimal strategy seems to be “pitch to everyone, while the fans cross their fingers and hope there isn’t a perfect game.”

No, it isn’t time to panic. It’s still early in the season, though the Twins seem to be doing what they can to skip over the summer doldrums right to the end-of-season slide, having picked up right where they left off. But it sure would be nice if someone would light a fire. Right now, it seems like they’re just going through the motions. And badly, at that.

The best thing that can be said about Thursday’s game — and possibly the worst thing that can be said about the season so far — is that, while the game ended in crushing defeat, at least it distinguished itself by being exciting. The same cannot be said for the rest of the Twins’ games so far, which have been mostly one-sided affairs filled with nothing but frustration, ineptitude, and boredom.

My question to you, the reader, is this: are you settling in for a long season to watch a surprisingly bad, boring team, or are you still hopeful* that they can turn it around and contend?

* And does the news that Mauer is on the DL change things?

At the beginning of the tenth inning, Dick & Bert were talking about Nathan’s lack of confidence in his fastball. But he’d been throwing a lot of them, especially as he lost command of his slider. He’d hit 91 MPH with the fastball a few times, but caught a lot of the plate and was fortunate that the Jeter of today isn’t the same Jeter that built the legend that bears that name, and he fouled them off.

The look on Joe Nathan’s face said he knew he was all alone out there. That he was nearly out of gas, and his fingers were cold, and help was not coming. That if Jeter reached base, he’d have to face a red hot Mark Teixeira representing the winning run. A walkoff home run literally loomed in the on-deck circle, especially considering Nathan’s chilled fingers and lack of command and diminished velocity.

Joe Nathan looked old. His beard, now, more white than anything else. It’s more shocking than it might have been, except that he hadn’t been seen for so long.

Five times, six, he blew into his right hand, desperate to warm up his fingers for one final attack. Seven. Nathan reared back, and he fired.

He’s accustomed to having plenty of gas, for situations like this. Mid-to-high 90s, the type of heat that keeps his hands warm and blows away good hitters and made him one of the best closers in the game. He knows, though, that that heat has cooled, that his gifts have left him. This fastball won’t have speed — Nathan knows he has to win a battle of wills against Derek Jeter.

A battle of wills against the Yankees has, for many years, been the Twins’ downfall. Too many times, they find themselves trailing the Yankees and the magic they have against, say, the White Sox, runs dry. I can’t pretend to know what the problem is, and I daresay nobody does. But like any hitter in the midst of a slump, all you can do is keep running out there and smashing your head against the bars of your cell until you find that one phony bar and break through and escape.

The fastball arrived at home plate, high, probably above the zone. Scouting reports have been saying for the last few years that Jeter is vulnerable to high fastballs, that he can’t hit them but can’t lay off them. This one arrived, and the radar read just 89 but it seemed like it was faster — Jeter swung late, and underneath, and he missed.

The game was over, and Joe Nathan had beat Derek Jeter. The score read 5-4, and the Twins had finally beat the Yankees. It hadn’t been long since they’d faced another dark hour, behind in the late innings in New York. But tonight, for just one night, the Twins had vanquished their pinstriped demons.

It’s just one win — perhaps the more important thing is that Nathan has taken the next step in his transition from dominant firebreather to wily old man. He’ll need to complete that transition to remain successful, unless his velocity returns. I don’t know if it will, but tonight’s save has to help Nathan’s confidence in a way that Sunday’s couldn’t.

And maybe this is just one of those things, that this apparent breakthrough doesn’t really mean anything — like Kubel’s grand slam against Mariano last year — but it sure feels great to steal a win from the maw of the Yankee beast.

I’ve been reading recaps from the handful of games that took place yesterday and for most of the winning teams, the phrase “according to plan” was in the recap somewhere.  That got me thinking, what should the Twins “plan” be to win the game today (and win the division).  Last year, Pavano was relied upon to pitch deep into the ballgame, so one would assume that getting him into the 7th is a major part of the plan. That goes for probably everyone on the staff, but having the Kevin Slowey insurance blanket will be nice if someone flames out.  Another thing that was supposed to be part of last year’s plan was Span getting on base, that didn’t happen too often in 2010.  I think we need to see Span dramatically raise his OBP from last year and get it back into his 2008-09 range.  I think he is capable of doing that, Over the Baggy did a nice write up looking for the root of his problem in 2010. I think everyone knows how the rest of the plan is suppose to work.  Get guys on base for Mauer-Morneau-Young (and maybe Cuddyer and Kubel) and they drive them in.  That part of the plan is pretty simple. Even with Span’s problems we scored plenty of runs last year.

The next step is keeping everyone healthy.  Losing Morneau last year didn’t hurt us nearly as much as I would have thought.  However, that doesn’t mean I want it to happen again.  Some of the more injury prone guys need to be given their fair share (or maybe more) days off early on, so that they can be 100% for the stretch run. It also helps that there are a lot of off days in April.

What else do the Twins need to do to be successful this season? I know I’m not breaking any ground with “get on base” and “stay healthy” but when it comes down to it, the formula for winning isn’t that complicated.  Welcome back to HTFP and we hope to have a great season.

Good news, everyone: Justin Morneau is playing in a game today. He’s getting into a B game against the Pirates, but whether it’s A or B, or the opponent, or whether the team wins or loses, or whether he gets a hit or not, these things are utterly unimportant to the biggest, best news so far in 2011. Justin Morneau has been cleared to play in baseball games, and he’s getting back onto the field. Joe Christensen was first with the news, and was quickly followed by the official announcement by the official Minnesota Twins Twitter feed. Phil Mackey says that the announcement is not official yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to get excited.

No, it’s right and good. Get excited.

This has been a serious concussion — it didn’t seem like it would be at first, but the thing about concussions is that you can’t tell and you never know. Having suffered my share of concussions, I am pulling for Morneau in a way that I never have before even as he established himself as one of the stars of the league for my favorite team.

I always root for comeback stories.* Josh Hamilton’s was a good one, and it has been fun to root for him to ascend to stardom from the depths he found. But Morneau is different. He didn’t choose to plumb those depths, they were instead thrust upon him. And perhaps most importantly, for me, is that I can relate to what he’s going through in a way that I simply cannot for a guy like Hamilton.

* I believe that’s common among Americans.

It’s still springtime, and so it’s still time to dream. With the sun shining brightly in the middle of an impossibly blue sky in the Fort Myers of my mind’s eye, I can still hope that Morneau steps into the box and hasn’t missed a beat. That he can return and be the .345/.437/.618 monster he was last year before he went down. That he will punish those baseballs that got a reprieve from his menacing bat for all these months. That the perceived front office missteps this offseason won’t matter as long Morneau is in the lineup making opposing pitchers quiver in their cleats.

Whatever Morneau says about not needing much time to prepare for the season, I know there will be setbacks and unpromising days. I know there will be 0-for-4 days, probably several. But spring training, while a beautiful thing, doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how he does in these games.

What matters is that he’s in them. For today, that’s enough.

And for everyone who has struggled to recover from concussions, this is a lot bigger than baseball.

For them, this is about their lives. And win or lose, Morneau has a chance to be a hero.

Sid Hartman has an article up today with plenty of Morneau quotes that finally make it sound like he’s close to recovery. Enjoy.

“We’ve had more good days than bad days,” Morneau said Sunday. “I don’t know, what we’re waiting for it’s got to be a week of good days or whatever it is, so we’re still waiting for that.

“We haven’t quite gotten to that point yet but it’s been real minimal now. If there’s anything, on a scale of 1-10, [the severity of the effects is] a one. We haven’t had any days like we had back in September or October or November where I didn’t feel like doing anything and if I had a headache I was laying in bed, that type of thing. It’s been good.”

“I think I’d be lying if I said the answer to that was no,” he said. “When I got hit in the head in ’05 [at Seattle], every once in a while I stepped in against a lefty and it would be in the back of my mind. I got over it over a little bit of time and things started to feel better and it was to a point where I didn’t even think about it. I’m sure it will take a little bit of time but we’ll get over that point. That’s why we’re going to wait until it’s 100 percent so we’re not worried about that stuff and I can be the hitter that I’m used to being.”

“It’s close now. Just making sure we’re doing it right,” Morneau said. “We don’t want to come back too soon and then all of a sudden some stuff creeps back up and then we get set back. We want to come back, we want to come back fully 100 percent and not have any setbacks and not have any concerns of if we slide in or if we get hit by a pitch or whatever it is. They tell me when I’m recovered, I’m recovered, and if it happens again it’s a new injury and we’ll know better how to treat it.”

“I’ve been doing everything down here [in Florida] that I normally do in spring training, I just haven’t played in any games yet,” he said. “This is the last hurdle we have to clear and we still got time. Personally, I feel like I only need about two weeks’ of at-bats to get ready for the season, and even 10 days might be pushing it, but that will be close. And if we can go down to the minor league side and it’s a little more lax down there, I can lead off every inning if I want to get nine at-bats in a game or stuff like that. There’s ways to get me ready if I need to get ready.”

“If I was 21 or 22 I think I’d be a little bit more worried or concerned about my timing and all the rest of it,” he said. “But I’ve been around and I’ve had a lot of at-bats now in the big leagues, and I feel like my swing is what it is. It’s kind of to the point where mechanically, it is what it is, and it will just be the timing that needs to come.

“Like I said, those two weeks or 40 at-bats, or whatever number you want to put on it, I think that’s how long it will take, and once we get to that point, I think my swing is what it is and I’m pretty confident in that.”