I was chatting briefly with Mr. Wally Fish this afternoon regarding his status on G-Chat. It was a poem about Liriano’s less than stellar performance yesterday evening.
“Liriano’s pitching is so dumpy and I am very grumpy.”
Wally is certainly no Shakespeare but his poetry had me thinking of the Twins’ biggest grump, FanaticJack, and I started channeling Fanatic Jackspeare.
“Nick Blackburn is the biggest bum said Jack” (FanaticJack FTW!)
“And that there Gardy is an or’paid hack!” (IambicSteal! Winning!)
Wally asked if my enthusiasm for Twins poetry would lead me to an eventual blog post, and quickly checking the score of the day game, I cleverly replied,
“I’ll fire it through the interwebs by tweet.”
“A post about our most lop-side defeat.”
Twins fans, this is where we start. The Twins are now 9-14, back to five games under .500 and the Twins clubhouse seems more like a hospital than the home of a Major League Baseball team.
“Despite the wins we had that totaled three,
against the Rays a win was not for thee.”
And now the Twins have lost at least two more to the Rays, we have half of the Rochester Red Wings’ team taking the field (Steve Holm, Rene Tosoni, Alexi Casilla*, Luke Hughes, and Anthony Swarzak), and the weather has been anything but spectacular so we can expect another subpar pitching performance in the cold spring air.
*I know Casilla isn’t technically playing SS for the Red Wings, but he might as well be, he hasn’t contributed to the Major League team at all.
“Casilla could play short for the Red Wings,
And Trevor Plouffe to the Twin Cities bring!”
This team is struggling to score runs. Struggling to stay healthy. Struggling to understand what Bi-lateral leg weakness is. It seems as if the Twins haven’t been able put the same line-up in the field on back to back days all year. Not only does that mean that the Twins are missing key players, but they are missing the routine and consistency that is such a big part of the 162 game grind.
“Team chemistry is surely not the best,
When every day the Twins give someone rest.”
So the team has been underperforming so far this season and they have been hurt, seemingly more often than not, but I am not ready to write them off just yet. It is still early. There is still a lot of baseball left. Even now, the Twins find themselves only two and a half games behind Detroit, and assuming that the Indians and the Royals cool off through the summer, the Twins are still in a safe place.
“C’mon Twins fans do not give up hope yet,
The Twins will win, they just have health to get!”
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Lucky hat off this afternoon, predictable results. No hat this evening, cross your fingers.