Blocked by Morneau

Tragic number as of Tuesday morning: 20, unchanged from Monday. Twins won, Tigers didn't play. The Twins need to keep that number locked in place for a while.

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Garrett Jones (above) has made quite the impression in Pittsburgh since the Pirates brought him up from Triple A at the start of July. Eighteen homers in 231 at-bats? A .303 batting average? .606 slugging percentage?

The man spent six years in the Twins organization and had some 20-homer seasons in the minors, but there was never a time when one could have reasonably expected this sort of sustained production.

The Twins gave him 80-some major league plate appearances in 2007, in which he hit .200 with five extra-base hits, and let him go. They had Justin Morneau at first, and Jason Kubel to DH, and Jones wasn't — and probably isn't — much of an outfielder. He didn't get much of a chance with the Twins, and he really didn't merit one.

I was hanging around the Twins minor league complex in spring training 2008 the day the Twins outrighted Jones to the Rochester club. While the bulk of the team was working on fielding drills, the manager — Stan Cliburn — and Jones were off to the side, Cliburn talking and Jones looking over his shoulder in the direction of the major-league camp with a thousand-yard stare. Looking at his future, I thought, and he can't like what he sees.

He's 28 now, getting a sustained chance with the Pirates and doing something with it. Right now he's splitting time at first base with Steven Pearce, another minor league slugger who is aging out of the prospect label, and in right field with people like Brandon Moss, but it's Peace and Moss who sit. Jones is in the lineup every day.

Pearce and Moss are both 26; it's going to be tough for Pittsburgh to build anything if they're just stuffing their power positions with late-20s Triple A guys. They're just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Right now, Jones is sticking. Good for him.

Meanwhile back in Minnesota ... The Twins called up Justin Huber, age 26, from Triple A, another minor league hitter with limited defensive skills. Huber was signed out of Australia with the Mets, dealt to Kansas City, and basically shafted by the Royals. His major league numbers here; his minor league numbers here.

Huber is a good case study in why the Royals are such a pathetic operation. He's been a productive hitter in the minors — a line-drive hitter, some power but more attuned to hitting for average. Different shape to his numbers than Jones. But they wouldn't let him play in the majors, and unlike the Twins, it wasn't because they had obviously better options.

Consider 2005, when Huber was 23. He split the season between Double A and Triple A, and combined hit .326 with 23 homers and a .417 on-base percentage, .560 slugging. But K.C. kept tossing Matt Stairs out there. Stairs was 37.

The next year, it was Doug Mientkiewicz, age 32; then it was Ross Gload, age 31. Huber's minor league numbers weren't eye-popping, but he had to be a better option than Gload. (Now Huber's role as young hitter blocked by a recycled major leaguer has been taken by Kila Ka'aihue. The role of the recycled major leaguer is played by Mike Jacobs. They never learn.)

Huber started out as a catcher, injured his knee, switched to first base, and now sees some time in the outfield. Basically, he's a bat — and the Twins still have Morneau and Kubel, so this isn't the best place for him.

And that's the thing about first base. If Jones or Huber moved well enough to play the outfield competently, they'd have played in the majors, or at least gotten real shots, long before this. If they could play shortstop — or catch — and hit as they have in the minors, they'd be All-Stars.

But at the first base/DH end of the defensive spectrum, it's tough for people like them to get opportunities.

Seven out and sinking

The Twins tragic number — the total of Minnesota losses and Detroit wins needed to eliminate the Twins from the AL Central title — as of Monday morning: 20.

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A couple of items worthy of comment:

*Ron Gardenhire, at least for public consumption, has been critical of Jose Morales' receiving skills. But the manager did have something good to say about his pitch calling.

The Twins catching hierarchy is fairly obvious: Joe Mauer catches as many games as he can. If the Twins are carrying two catchers, Mike Redmond is the wise choice as the number 2 guy because A) he has an extensive track record that says he can handle the job and B) the Twins can't send him to the minors without exposing his to waivers. Jose Morales has options, so the Twins could (and did) demote him while retaining him.

But it is becoming increasingly certain that Morales is now a better player than Redmond. With September's wins and losses becoming meaningless in terms of making the playoffs, Gardenhire is likely to continue to uphold the fiction that Redmond's the No. 2 and Morales the No 3, but the reality is the reality.

* Glen Perkins apparently won't be recalled this month. Leaving him in the minors is likely to cost him arbitration eligibility, which has led to talk of him filing a grievance.

Perkins has an ERA this season of 5.89 and an career ERA of 4.93. He's been on the disabled list twice, this after a 2007 that saw him spend most of the season idle with a shoulder injury that supposedly would take a couple of weeks to heal.

Perkins' major league future may now hinge less on his potential than on his price tag. He has a real chance of pricing himself out of the game. Pushing for super two status would be a mistake.

* Jesse Crain has shaved 2.33 runs off his ERA since returning from the minor leagues in late July. It's still an ugly ERA — 5.82 — but he's re-establishing himself as a relief option.

Which would give the Twins four usable arms in front of Joe Nathan: Matt Guerrier, Jose Mijares, Jon Rauch and Crain. If Pat Nesheck can come back next year, they figure to have real depth in the pen in 2010 for the first time since the 2006 season.

If they hadn't bungled the Craig Breslow situation this spring ...

A couple of countdowns

Ernie Harwell, the legendary radio voice of the Detroit Tigers, revealed last week that he has an inoperable cancer. He's 91, and he's lived a rich and rewarded life, and from his public statements he's at peace with the reality that that life is nearly over.

Every once in a while somebody asks: Why are you so hard on John Gordon? Mind you, not everybody asks me that. Sometimes they ask my editor, with the hint that he tell me to knock it off.

And the answer, folks, is that I've heard Vin Scully broadcast baseball games, and I've heard Ernie Harwell. And Bob Uecker, and Bob Prince, and Harry Caray. Not game in, game out, night after night, but enough to know that the game can be described on the radio with grace and wit and style and accuracy. Herb Carneal — for one year an on-air partner of Harwell's — did it for decades, and Halsey Hall.

We Twins fans don't have that. Maybe it's not all Gordon's fault; possibly Scully himself couldn't do a Twins game smoothly with all the promo copy required of Gordo and Gladden. Maybe. But the promo copy doesn't mean they can't tell us where the baserunners are.

———

The Twins tragic number (Twins losses and Tigers wins needed to eliminate Minnesota): 22.

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Poll results: On the question of which team will win the AL Central, we had 14 votes. Nine (64 percent) said Detroit; four (28 percent) said Minnesota; 1 (7 percent) said the White Sox.

New poll up

A mountain ahead

The Detroit Tigers, as of this morning, are 73-61. The Minnesota Twins are 67-67.

What a six-game deficit with 28 games left on the schedule means to the Twins:

* Detroit's magic number — the combination of Tigers wins and Twins losses needed to eliminate the Twins — is 23.

The Twins magic number — the combination of Twins wins and Tigers losses needed to eliminate Detroit — is 35.

* If Detroit goes 14-14 the rest of the way, the Twins need to go 20-8 just to force another play-in game.

* Minnesota does have seven games left with the Tigers. At this point, they are virtually all elimination games.

The bad loss blues

It was one of Tom Kelly's managerial mantras: Momentum is tomorrow's starting pitcher.

In their first game after Wednesday's ninth-inning implosion, the Twins had Carl Pavano (above). Momentum was not on their side.

The game stories all duly note that the third-inning error, a key play in the game, was charged to Orlando Cabrera, but the stone-cold fact of the matter was that Cabrera's throw was where it was supposed to be. It was Pavano who wasn't there because he stood on the mound admiring the ground ball too long. (It is simple justice that the runs were charged as earned.)

And as far as holding runners on — forget it. Pavano led the AL in stolen bases allowed (29) coming into the game; Cleveland stole another Friday. I think I've seen Joe Mauer attempt one throw with Pavano pitching; as Bill Freehan, the Tigers' standout catcher of the 1960s, once said of baserunners running wild with Mickey Lolich pitching, "There's not a hell of a lot I can do without the baseball."

So OK, Pavano isn't particularly adept at those aspects of pitching. Man's 33 years old, and if he hasn't learned after 200-plus major league starts to hold runners and cover first base, he's not going to now.

The Twins as a whole weren't particularly adept at any aspect. Four errors and just six hits.

Meanwhile the Tigers won — just as he did last year for the Twins in September in Tampa Bay, Adam Everett had a big RBI base hit — so the Twins are six games out and sinking fast in the AL Central.

Back on July 19, the Twins — having won their first two games of a long post-All Star Game road trip — lost a 12-inning affair to Texas because knuckleballer R.A. Dickey decided to try to trick a good hitter with his fastball. The next day was the bizzare 14-13 loss in Oakland in which Nick Blackburn, with considerable help from Brian Duensing, Bobby Keppel and Jose Mijares, turned a 12-2 lead into a deficit and an out of position umpire blew a call from there to Seattle to end the game.

The Twins wound up going 3-7 on that road trip.

Back in May, the 15-17 to be precise, the Twins lost three straight one-run games in Yankee Stadium, two of them in extra innings. They then went to Chicago, where the starting pitchers put up three clunkers in a row, extending the losing streak to six. They went 1-6 on that road trip.

At least it's Scott Baker on Saturday.

Mike Redmond vs. Jose Morales

Some data points Ron Gardenhire either doesn't know or — more likely — doesn't believe enough to act on:

Twins' won-loss record in games started by Mike Redmond: 12-24, .333 winning percentage.

Twins' won-loss record in games started by Jose Morales: 9-6, .600 winning percentage.

Twins' won-loss record in games started by Joe Mauer: 46-36, .560 winning percentage.

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Twins ERA when Redmond catches: 5.54

Twins ERA when Morales catches: 4.59

Twins ERA when Mauer catches: 4.38

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Opposition stolen bases/caught stealing with Redmond catching: 30/5

Opposition stolen bases/caught stealing with Morales catching: 13/8

Opposition stolen bases/caught stealing with Mauer catching: 45/17

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And, of course, there are the hitting stats, which Gardy is certainly familiar with and which you can see by clicking on the linked names above.

I'm sure there are things Mike Redmond does better than Jose Morales. I can't find that they translate into results.

One strike away ...

and oh so far.

Tuesday's stunning collapse by Joe Nathan — in which a 2-0 lead with two outs and nobody on in the ninth inning and an 0-2 count on the batter somehow turned into a 4-2 defeat — seems, in retrospect, almost inevitable considering how difficult recent innings have been for Minnesota's ace closer.

Everybody, I supposes, has a theory on what's wrong with Nathan. Patrick Reusse thinks he's nibbling. Steve Stone — I watched that ninth-inning disaster on WGN — says it's a lack of command of the slider. Bert Blyleven has been talking about his lack of command of the fastball. Ron Gardenhire thinks his arm slot is too low. Nathan himself said Tuesday's troubles came from being "too predictable" with his pitches.

My notion is this: From July 29 to August 18 — almost three weeks — the Twins were utterly without save opportunities. During that time, he picked up four innings of mop-up work.

Since then, starting with his save on Aug. 18, he's pitched eight times. All have been save opportunities; he has blown two of those, and the Twins came back to win one of them. So Tuesday was the first time Nathan's struggles actually cost a game.

In those eight outings beginning Aug. 18, Nathan has had two 1-2-3 innings. Such crisp outings have been rare; he has had appearances in which he threw 53 pitches (the first blown save, against Kansas City); 31 (Tuesday), 29; and 22 pitches. The efficient innings just aren't coming.

For the season as a whole, he has allowed 17 walks; six have come in that stretch, a rate of 6.28 walks per nine innings. For the season, he's at 2.92 BB/9. (His numbers here)

My sense of it, then, is that his command in general dissipated during that long period of relative inactivity, when his teammates' inconsistency resulted in games that didn't fit the model for using him.

He's 34, and the radar guns no longer light up as they did when he got to Minnesota six seasons back. The 97s and 96s are gone, replaced by 91s and 92s. Which is sufficient — if it's efficient.

It hasn't been.