Notes, quotes and comment

My all-time favorite Brandon Inge photo,
illustrating the virtue of a baggy jersey.

Brandon Inge is 34. The Tigers released him Thursday. His slash line this season (20 AB) is .100/.100/.300. He hit .197 last season. He can't hit any more, possibly because of the big metaphoric fork stuck in him. He's done.

And multiple sources say that the Twins are interested in signing him,apparently with the notion of demoting Danny Valencia and going to a platoon of Inge and Sean Burroughs.

It's a silly idea. If valid, it is also a damning indication how far Valencia has sunk in the esteem of the Twins decision makers.

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Delmon Young and the Detroit Tigers arrived in New York on Thursday evening and the former Twins outfielder wasted little time in, well, getting wasted.

And arrested. And charged.

He's not, obviously, the Twins problem anymore. I am, however, curious if the Twins ever saw any indication of a drinking problem during his time with them.

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The Washington Nationals announced Friday that Bryce Harper, age 19, will make his major league debut Saturday. Harper hasn't been tearing it up in Triple A, so this is a bit of a surprise. It's been a while since a teenager played in the majors; Harper will be two years younger than any other player in the majors.

I don't expect him to stick all season, because financially it makes more sense for the Nats to hold back his service time. It's cheaper to let him develop in the minors, and as I noted, he hasn't been knocking the door down.

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Yankees general manager Brian Cashman on the season-ending surgery for trade acquistion Michael Pineda:

Our fans are right to be upset about this. I'm devastated by it. I just hope everyone understands that every move I make is to improve this club, not hurt it.

Salvaging a split

Luis Valbuena (left) and Ezekial Carrera demonstrate how
not to converge on a fly ball in the gap.

Wednesday's wasn't a particularly crisply played game by either team, but the bumbling and miscues pretty much canceled each other out.

The Twins gave away at least one run when Ben Revere dropped a fly ball and another when Drew Butera inexplicably hesitated to throw home on a passed ball.  Cleveland reciprocated with an Alphonse-and-Gaston routine in left-center that was no small part of the Twins' winning rally.

Luis Valbuena is not a particularly gifted defensive infielder who was pressed into duty as a left fielder the last two days because (a) Michael Brantley had a heat-related illness and (b) Travis Buck took a Francisco Liriano fastball to the noggin. The ball seemed to find Valbuena at the right times for the Twins in the late innings Tuesday and Wednesday.

(Buck was said Wednesday to have a headache, but the Indians insisted that he had no concussion. I'm not a doctor, but something doesn't smell right to me.)

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Ron Gardenhire often talks about "piecing together" innings from his bullpen. Wednesday was prime example of it: Alex Burnett opened the seventh without much success, He left with men on second and third and one out. Jose Mijares, the master of ball one, entered — and got out of the inning on five pitches, all of them strikes.

I repeat: Mijares threw five ptiches, all of them strikes. I didn't think it could be done.

Of course, he couldn't replicate that when he started the eighth; he fell behind Asdrubal Cabrera 3-1 and gave up a double. The ever-popular Matt Capps eventually got the Twins out of the eighth without a run.

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Brandon Inge demonstrates the value of
a baggy jersey: More HBP, less pain.

Detroit next, with Justin Verlander going today for the Tigers. Verlander's turn in the rotation was Wednesday, but the Tigers pushed him back a day so he'd pitch in the Minnesota series.

The Tiger have also swapped out third basemen. Brandon Inge (and his .177 batting average with 10 extra base hits) was designated for assignment Wednesday after Detroit traded a couple of prospects to Kansas City for Wilson Betemit.

Inge is one of those guys who is far more popular with the fans in a given city than his talents merit. Part of it, without a doubt, is that he was there when the Tigers were a godawful team in the early 2000s and he was there when they went to the World Series; part of it is that he moved, without complaint, from catcher to center field to third base to catcher to third base; part of it is that he's spent his career there and seems to like being a Detroit Tiger.

He's Detroit's version of Michael Cuddyer, and perhaps a warning on the risks involved in investing heavily in such a player as he enters his middle 30s.