Thursday, May 27, 2010

Your frustration's showing, Mr. Gardenhire

The Twins allowed four runs in 1.5 ball games Wednesday and lost both. They have been outhomered in Target Field by more than a 2-to-1 ratio, they lead the majors in grounding into double plays and their record against the Yankees just keeps getting worse.

And Ron Gardenhire lashes out at an age-old bit of gamesmanship by the Yankees.

Buying time at the start of the inning by having a pitcher won't actually pitch that inning take the mound for his warm-up tosses is nothing new. It was standard operating procedure once upon a time. It's fallen out of disuse now, largely (I suspect) because of the emphasis managers have put on planning out their bullpen use ahead of time. They're generally not winging it now, as they did 30 or 40 years ago.

Do the Yankees waste time and drag games out unnecessarily? Absolutely. Was this an egregious example? No.

We know what Gardenhire's really unhappy about -- double plays and men left on base and fly balls to the warning track. But he's not ready (yet) to rip into his hitters for public consumption.

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