Nishioka, Liriano and another loss

Pretty lousy math for the Twins on Thursday:
Add one loss, subtract one second baseman.

Of more importance than the 4-3 loss this afternoon for the Twins in New York is that Tsuyoshi Nishioka suffered a fractured fibula turning a double play.

Obviously, he'll be on the DL for a while. Luke Hughes, who lost out to Matt Tolbert for the utility infielder job, is likely not only to fill Nishioka's roster spot but second base as well. That's how I'd do it, at least — stick him in the lineup and see if he'll hit enough to carry his glove.

I didn't see the play in question, but I'm inclined to give Nick Swisher the benefit of the doubt and assume it wasn't an out-of-the-baseline slide or dirty play. The Twins say it was a clean play.

Meanwhile, Francisco Liriano pitched better than he did against Toronto, but the worst aspects of his game cost him. He threw first-pitch strikes to just nine of the 24 men he faced; he walked two leadoff men, both of whom scored; and the crucial hit of the three-run fourth inning came when he got ahead of Andruw Jones 0-2 and started shaking off Joe Mauer. The old Crash Davis line applies to Liriano: Don't think; you can only hurt the ball club.

Dan Gladden described the pitch Jones hit for a double as "a big slow curve ball." MLB.com's pitch reader said it was a slider at the same velocity as most Liriano sliders (around 85 mph).  I can't say that I've ever heard of Liriano throwing a curve, so I'm inclined to think it was the slider — maybe a hanging slider.

Meanwhile, Charter and FSN came to an agreement, and the game was carried by Mankato's dominant  cable service. I'm sure Hickory Tech, which ran an ad in Thursday's Free Press touting "all the Twins games," is disappointed at losing that bit of competitive advantage.

The alienable right to baseball on TV

The Declaration of Independence asserts that the "pursuit of happiness" is an unalienable right. Watching baseball makes me happy, but despite that I doubt that I have any true right to have it funneled into my television.

Which doesn't make the current squabble between Fox Sports North and a number of carriers any more palatable to the fans caught between them.

I did a quickie post Tuesday night when it became clear that Charter Communications (the dominant cable company in Mankato-North Mankato) was not carrying that night's Twins-Yankees game. I didn't have much time — I was supposed to be working on the front page — and avoided going into detail. Since then there have been comments that suggest some confusion about what's going on.

So let's backtrack a bit.

In recent seasons, the Twins broadcasts have been divvied up between FSN (which has generally carried something in the vicinity of 105 games) and WFTC, aka My29 (which carried games on Sunday afternoons), a total of something in the vicinity of 130 games. Weekday games were generally not carried by either, which accounts for the missing 30 or so games.

Both FSN and WFTC are part of the News Corp. empire. During the offseason, it was announced that the Twins games this year would be strictly on FSN — no more over-the-air broadcasts, strictly cable. (Reading between the lines of the announcement, I inferred that this was News Corp's idea more than that of the Twins, but I doubt the Twins put up much of a fight.) Also,  the number of day games broadcast would be increased. In all, FSN is to carry 150 games. About two dozen of the added games would have been WFTC's under the old system, the rest games that previously would be without TV coverage.

More games meant more money. FSN paid the Twins more and went to its carriers, satellite and cable, for the cash.

And some —  most notably, for the Mankato area, Charter and Dish Network — balked.

As of right now, Thursday's game, which is to be carried by FSN, will not be on Charter,  nor will Saturday's. I haven't the slightest notion how they determined which games are among the 45 in question. FSN lists six April games whose carriage is in dispute; that leaves 38 others scattered through the remaining months of the season.

That's the FSN website statement on the dispute. I tried to find something on Charter's site, but with no success. (Off my previous experiences with Charter, this is not a surprise.) The Twins, who are not directly a party to this dispute but probably aren't thrilled to have about a third of their TV audience cut off, also have nothing on their site.

An example of why I don't take Charter cable anymore

As I write this from work, the Twins game is on -- or at least available -- on FSN at my home, which has Hickory Tech cable. Here at the Free Press, however, the Charter service is showing poker.

Charter (and, I understand, some other carriers) are arguing with FSN over the "extra" 45 games that in recent years had been carried by WFTC. Charter's regional HQ in Rochester sent the Free Press an email saying, in essence, that FSN is asking too much and we're still negotiating.

I've no doubt FSN is Greedy with a capital G and I've no doubt Charter is too. Somehow, however, the issue isn't a problem for Hickory Tech.