Three Thoughts: The Opening Day Edition
● When Someone is Right, Admit It:Two of the most maligned people on the boards at BYTO are Ron Gardenhire and Michael Cuddyer. Both of them deserve credit for their performances yesterday—Cuddyer for driving in the Twins only run and Gardenhire for making the difficult decision to bat Cuddyer third. The knock against Gardenhire (at least my main knock against him) is that he’s more a players’ manager and not really all into that strategy nonsense. Then again, when the Twins have scored runs in the past there’s a very clear formula for it. Load up the guys heavy in on-base percentage and put them in front of the biggest bat the team has, Justin Morneau. When the offense has really worked in the past, Morneau has had, in no certain order, Joe Mauer, Luis Castillo, Nick Punto, Denard Span and the much-maligned Cuddyer in front of him. All of them have one thing in common, they work counts and get on base. It shouldn’t really be all that surprising that Morneau came up to the plate with the most chances to drive in runners in 2006 and 2008. Odds are, you aren’t going to see as many ducks on the pond with an OBP hole like Carlos Gomez or even Tony Batista in front of you. This is the purpose Cuddyer is going to serve while hitting in the #3 hole for the team while Mauer nurses his back injury. He needs to be in the line-up whenever there’s stuff-heavy pitcher who you need to take pitches to beat, a lefthanded pitcher, or like Seattle’s starter tonight Erik Bedard, all of the above on the mound.
● Killing Your Babies:You don’t like to have to choose one of Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez to sit on the bench. Both of them have upsides, and sitting on the bench probably isn’t going to help the two become the players we all hope they become. But the reality is Span and Cuddyer are better hitters when they’re going right, and if the goal is to win this season, they need at-bats. And most nights, that’s going to mean choosing between Gomez and Young for the unfortunate role of riding the pine. Tonight, however, is probably one of the better situations to run out both of them given Kubel probably shouldn’t be in the lineup versus a lefty. A good lineup versus Bedard might be something like:
Span LF
Casilla 2B
Cuddyer RF
Morneau 1B
Young DH
Crede 3B
Gomez CF
Redmond/Morales C
Punto SS
● Fear: Unfortunately, each start that Francisco Liriano makes, he takes a step further and further away from the fire-breathing, indestructible monster and closer to becoming the next Bird Fidrich. I guess that’s the argument that needs to be made any time somebody says that Tommy John Surgery is becoming less and less of a big deal.
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