Forget Umps - Twins' Manager Is The One Who Blew It

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There was so much focus on the "blown call" in Friday night's American league playoff game that there was no focus on what the real story was, and why the Minnesota Twins went into the third game of their series against the New York Yankees (+110 to win the World Series at BetUS) with no hope.

Joe Mauer hit a pop fly down the left field line in the tenth inning of the game, and Melky Cabrera, who had been moved over to left to accommodate Brent Gardner, who had come into the game as a pinch runner the inning before, could not make the play. The ball came off his glove in fair territory, and landed in fair territory, yet despite the presence of umpire Phil Cuzzi, who was assigned to the left field line for this purpose and was staring right at the play, the ball was called foul.

Because there is no instant replay on things like this, Mauer wound up not on second to start the inning but on first after he subsequently singled. That probably made a difference between the Twins scoring and not scoring, as Mauer got stranded on third in what had been a bases-loaded, no out situation. The Yankees then proceeded to end the game on a Mark Teixeira homer, and the series was, for all intents and purposes, over.

In the post-game press conference, Gardenhire was making comments related to the probability of Mauer scoring, since two hits followed him, and extolling the virtues of instant replay in situations like this, by way of possibly throwing a red flag like they do in football. He was disappointed in the outcome of the game, to be sure, but at the same time he was probably a bit relieved that he could pin the blame on the umpires so he did not have to take the blame himself, for what was probably the most untimely managerial gaffe in recent years.

The Twins had gone ahead by a 3-1 score in the top of the ninth, and as all this was happening, you saw Joe Nathan, the Minnesota closer, warming up in the bullpen, and TBS flashed a graphic indicating that Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez were a combined 12-for-22 lifetime against him. That's a .540 average. According to BaseballReference.com, they were 10-for-19 combined. Hey, whatever. It's all bad. Teixeira had six hits in ten at-bats against him, with seven RBI. That would project to about 420 RBI's over a full season. That's a pretty good season.

I must admit that I was not aware of all this before, but when I saw it I called a friend to tell him Gardenhire was about to make a momentous mistake, one of most idiotic things one could ever witness. It's too bad I didn't have the phone number to the Twins' dugout.

Why would you throw a pitcher into a situation where he's got two of the top sluggers in the sport and they have owned him? Those numbers loomed over the proceedings very ominously. At that point Minnesota had been using Matt Guerrier, who brought a 5-1 record, 2.36 ERA, 0.97 WHIP ratio and .207 opponents' batting average into that game, and a scoreless inning under his belt.

What I mean to say is that he didn't exactly have a stiff on the mound. He could have used Guerrier against Teixiera and A-Rod, and had the option of putting Nathan in after that, depending on what happened.
Common sense would have dictated that the Twins may have been better off with anyone BUT Nathan in that circumstance. Was Gardenhire looking at a chart? Why didn't his crack staff have the same numbers TBS had? Had he studied anything that would have shown him those statistics, and if he had, would he have been stupid enough to put Nathan into that game at that time regardless?
What proceeded to happen was really no surprise. Teixiera singled, Rodriguez homered. Game tied. Then, in the tenth, the Twins have bases loaded, no outs, and it is the manager's responsibility to get one run across the plate, no matter what. Gardenhire had nothing to offer in that case.
Soon afterward, game over.
This is all part of that simple-minded baseball mentality which is somewhat new but has gotten old and tired in a hurry. "Gee, it's the ninth inning. It's a 'save situation'. It must be time to put my closer in."
First of all, when a guy can't get the first two hitters in an inning out, and has shown no history of it, he's not closing ANYTHING.
I realize that even some of the mangers who went to college (like Gardenhire, a Texas alum) may not have studied too hard, but they should know how to read numbers. All it really took, however, was some common sense.
In retrospect, the exercise two days later was moot, but for the record, Gardenhire had the "good sense" not to use Nathan in the ninth inning against Teiexeira and Rodriguez, although Nathan did give up base hits that let both of them to score and put the game away, and has since fueled talk in the Minneapolis media and in blogs everywhere about trading Nathan.
They should think about making a move with that manager instead. Yeah, I know the argument: Gardenhire has won five division titles in eight years; he's a great manager. Interestingly, he has just six playoff wins to show for those five playoff appearances, and there is probably still a big gap between the top and the near-top, evidently.
When you want to play with the "big boys," at the highest level, you can't afford to get caught thinking inside that little box, sleeping at the wheel, or simply not paying attention.
Did we need to see a more vivid illustration of that?


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