By David Palmer
As the workers put the final steel beam into place on the Twins new ballpark last weekend, the team was capping off a 10 inning win against the Mariners. It signified a new leaf being turned over for both: the final piece of infrastructure for Target Field, and an important ROAD win to pull the club back to .500, and to within 1.5 games of first in the AL Central.
Unfortunately, that high didn’t last long, they decided to go ahead and lose the next three games. I hope this doesn’t mean that Target Field is going to collapse also. We are now 4 games out of first, but still in second place. Playing in a crappy division has its perks, but right now Detroit has been the cream of the crap.
Last weekend’s series against Seattle started a 10 game, three city roadie that ends with a trip to Loserville (Wrigley Field). This is important because we have the second worst road record in the majors, just behind the Nats. Being four games out, also means we have to start actually trying to win games on the road, as opposed to just getting away from the wife and kids for a few days. Right now we are at 21-12 at home, but 7-19 on the road. I have never seen a bigger discrepancy between home and road records. Did they scrap the charter flight for a Bull Durham type bus? Nuke LaLoosh apparently didn’t come with it either.
Michael Cuddyer came back from his 47th finger injury of his career on Saturday. I’m sure glad that injury could cool off his surprisingly hot bat before that. This also seems to be Cuddyer in a nutshell: slow start, get hot for a week or two, injure his fingers, come back, suck for about a month, have a feature in the paper about “getting his hands back,” start swinging ok, jam a different finger, day-to-day for a week, suck for the rest of the season. He seriously needs to start looking into bionic hands this offseason. I’m not kidding, check this out. He could use the “power grip” and maybe get a few more balls over the fence. Interestingly, he is making roughly six million dollars this season. Coincidence, I think not.
Nick Punto Update: Good news! His batting average can’t get any worse than its current .187 since he was placed on the DL on May 28th with a right groin strain. It must have been all that hustling out of the box to avoid double plays. Good to hear his left groin didn’t sustain any damage though. I was also unaware of contagiousness of groin pulls in the Twin Cities region. The Wild’s Marion Gaborik is becoming like the monkey in Outbreak. All groin pulls lead back to him. If you are a fledgling groin specialist I suggest Minneapolis as your destination for a new practice.
Now is the time of year I wish we could watch some outdoor baseball already. Reports of Target Field’s new Budweiser Roof Deck has me as giddy as a little schoolgirl. The ‘Dome has a Miller sponsorship right now and are readily dumping them in favor of Anheuser-Busch starting next season. This sounds like a direct eff-you to Miller Park and the Brewers, and can only fuel their burgeoning rivalry. The roof deck features 150 bleacher seats plus standing room. It’s complete with a large bar, a fire pit, and a lot of sweet Budweiser signs. I am picturing myself falling into the fire or off the roof after about 5 hours of solid drinking, and I can’t wait.
Obviously, if we can’t start winning games on the road we are in serious trouble. We need to stop pressing so much and have Crash Davis get us a rainout.