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Saturday, April 30, 2005 |
We Shall Speak Of This Again: Twins 7, Angels 4
One of Richard's favorite phrases is "let us never speak of this again", something I've read repeatedly over the last year, and even Josh has picked up on it. (That's not a slam, by the way, just an observation.) (Update: sorry, that was Richard.) Usually attached to an inglorious Angel loss, I found myself expecting to see it at the end of Pearly Gates' liveblog post on yesterday's 7-4 shellacking. That is, this game should have been eminently winnable. However, that didn't happen for a couple of interrelated reasons.
- Weak fielding. Paul and especially Chone Figgins made crucial blunders that sank the ship.
- Fielding-dependent pitching. One interaction I didn't consider when the Angels started the season was that Paul Byrd isn't a strikeout artist; he's going to get a lot of his outs by the ground ball, and so you'd better have guys who can make those plays. Figgins is marginal by that score, and McPherson is still gaining his sea legs. Only Cabrera of the three is anything close to what you'd call reliable, and even he's not my first choice in shortstops.
Finally, I'm pleased to see that Richard and I are converging on the idea that Jeffy's not the ideal DH candidate and Juan Rivera should be given a shot. As I wrote when the trade broke, Rivera is a step down from Guillen, but he's not that much of a step down, and the saber-thinking seems to be he could become Guillen if given a full-time shot; DH is as good a place as any, and the Angels are ransacking the kitchen cabinets looking for bones these days.
Comments:
Hey now, it was Richard who said that. I may have thought it, but I certainly didn't say it and I mentioned it in my preview for the next game.
I couldn't agree more about the need to give Rivera a shot over Jeff in the DH position. The weakness of hitting at that position this season has been a key reason why the team has lost too many close games, in my opinion.
What we're seeing now is an example of dubious management. Mike has a tendency to show a strange bias towards certain players, giving them shot after shot regardless of how poor their performance is.
- Chris
What we're seeing now is an example of dubious management. Mike has a tendency to show a strange bias towards certain players, giving them shot after shot regardless of how poor their performance is.
- Chris
# posted by 
: 4/30/2005 04:19:00 PM
: 4/30/2005 04:19:00 PMNewer› ‹Older
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