Mauer's not playing today?! Not playing! We need a win today more than anything today and he's not playing! Apparently he's a little banged up but he if cared about winning he should be demanding to play. Losers, nothing but a bunch of losers.
You were saying?
I'm not faulting them for resting Mauer. They should rest him MORE at this point of the season, if anything. He's just not playing well at all right now - he's not HEALTHY. I mean, he's only gotten worse as the year has progressed, which indicates serious wear and tear. He ended April hitting an admittedly punchless yet still Mauer-like .345 (and really, most of the team was punchless in April, not just Mauer). Then he followed it with a .293 May (in which he injured his heel on the basepaths). Then a .271 June. Thus far in July, he's hitting .229. You can't tell me he's not in bad shape right now.
I wouldn't be entirely averse to a stint on the DL, either.I'd rather have him not play now and have his health improve later in the year than have him play crappy all year. He's no good to us when he's hurt. Besides, it'd give Ramos a chance to come up for a cup of coffee and maybe boost his trade value. Just a thought. I mean, I like the idea of Delmon or Morneau in the three-spot right now.
The problem with Mauer is that the thing that makes him valuable - the fact that his bat comes out of the catcher position (indeed, that he's still among the elite hitting catchers in the AL even in a shitty year like this one should tell you something about how rare that is) - also makes him vulnerable. He's going to have to switch positions eventually (which will reduce his value). We should wait a few years before that happens though.
As for the rest of the team, it can really be hard to maintain perspective when your team is playing this badly. Baseball season is kind of like outer space - it's often hard to put into perspective how bigly, hugely LONG it is. Yeah, they've had a lousy 30 days or so, but there's a lot of baseball left to be played. They were 11 games back at the break in '06. 5.5 games back in '03. 4 games back last year. They've got plenty of time left to de-suckify themselves. Hell, the White Sox managed it, and they were playing every bit as badly.
With some fans (and I'm not saying you're one of them), I already feel like an old-timer at the age of 22 compared with some of the folks commenting on Facebook. I mean, I remember when our team consisted of such luminaries as Denny Hocking, Rich Becker, Alex Ochoa, and Scott Fucking Stahoviak. I remember when the best player on the team was Marty Cordova. I remember when Todd Walker LED THE TEAM with a .279 batting average. Now THOSE were hard times. And I spent what little money my ten year-old ass had earned on tickets to watch a shitty-ass team like that (though at least the tickets were cheap).
Like I said earlier, I think they should make a move for Haren or (possibly) Oswalt to give this team a shot in the arm and a better, somewhat more permanent solution to their starting pitching deficiencies than Lee. Try and make a Ryan-esque deal - none of the Twins' best pitchers of the last ten years have come out of our system (which speaks volumes about how shitty our philosophy of hoarding soft-hurling strike throwers is).
Topic: The 2010 baseball thread (Read 41545 times)
