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Picture Pages-San Diego Padres
Who knew San Diego really does mean Whale's Vagina? Good God, Man...they're terrible. If you're a Padres fan, is there any reason to show-up to the ballpark? Oh...right. The sun. And the skorts. Right. Sorry, nevermind.
Speaking of elementary school...does everyone remember the "carnivals" you used to have in 5th and 6th grade? The school would fill the gym with make-shift booths for ring toss, face painting, pop-a-shot. The principal would sit in the dunk tank. The mild-mannered english teacher would show-up with her biker boyfriend wearing a sleeveless top showing off her "Bitches Gotta Ride" tattoo. The gym teacher would get drunk and make out with the new social studies teacher. This happened to everyone, right?
Well...if you didn't have all that...I KNOW you had a rope ladder. I think some of the more blasphemous amoung you probably called it a Jacob's Ladder. The point was to climb the thing and ring a bell at the top without falling off onto the thin blue mats that would later be velcroed back up on the gym wall. There were only like six steps, but the damn thing took a level of balance and coordination that just doesn't exist for those beginning puberty. Unless you were freakishly tall and you could jump up and ring the bell without actually having to achieve reasonable equilibrium.
It reminds me a bit of how the Twins have operated these last few years. Hamstrung by self-appointed financial restrictions, it seems they're always counting on that perfect balance to get them through the season. There is very little margin for error, and when the starting pitching goes south...so goes the team.
Inevitably, at those school carnivals someone's little brother or sister would want to give the rope ladder a try, and, to avoid abject failure, a parent would hold the ladder steady as they gingerly made their way toward heaven and prize tickets.
Not only are the Twins' starting pitchers keeping this team in every game, but it helps when the National League holds the ladder for awhile.
Tuesday:
Twins 3 Padres 1
Hold it. Hold it. HOLD IT. Now, SWING! Both Brendon Harris and Brian Buscher are "scared straight" by the Return of Nick Punto. They each hit solo home runs in the 9th to win it.
Wednesday:
Twins 9 Padres 3
Harris hits ANOTHER home run. Craig Monroe needs to learn that if he doesn't want to be a pinch hitter, he should stop hitting pinch hit home runs. Boof Bonser strikes out the side in the 9th inning. Umm...congratulations?
Thursday:
Twins 4 Padres 3
Justin Morneau getting hot for awhile (not that he's been playing poorly) makes me happy in all the right places. Twins win 9 games in a row over teams from the NL. Don't qualify it...just take it.
8 comments:
A quote pulled from Jayson Stark's column on espn.com:
• Naturalist of the week: Finally, Torii Hunter says he can't believe how much better his knees feel playing on grass than they used to feel on the lush Astro-concrete in the Metrodome.
"Hey, God knew what he was doing when He made grass," Hunter laughed. "When you start playing with nature and engineering grass, it's not really good for you. Just like organic food versus antibiotic food. Organic: Good for you. Anti-biotic: Not."
Yeah Namesake.
Skorts, nice.
As Clarence Carter would say, "Well let me ask you THIS." It is beyond question that the Twins have overachieved so far this year...each game above .500 qualifies as overachieving in my book. So anyway, I would argue that under Gardy and TRyan/Smith, the Twins have "overachieved" significantly more often than "underachieved", at least that's the way it feels. NOW...is that because they operate the way they do (ie. crappy veterans to fill gaps while never signing any legitimate free agents so expectations are always low) or because Gardy and Andy and the minor league philosophy are solid?
The team on the field has overachieved. The people putting together have underachieved.
You've just restated my point. My question is WHY? If you give credit to philosophy, than you have to shoot some of that credit to "the people putting it together" too...
When did I give credit to philosophy? I said that the Twins leave themselves with an incredibly thin margin of error, and that the team is currently playing within that margin.
I think the on-field staff knows how to get the most out of the roster. I think that ability has caused the off-field staff to make some poor decisions about players that really had no business being signed, but were overly hopeful of those players being "saved".
"If you give credit" = "If one gives credit"
I'm asking hypothetically...who gets credit for the overachievement? -or- Is it really an overachievement or just constantly lowered expectations because of the personnel moves?
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