Excuses and the Palooza.

Well, the excuses have started. Something to do with an inconsistant strike zone during Tuesday's game. Another rookie pitcher "making pitches when he had too" and dominating our squad as well as the Twins "no taking advantage of opportunites" (see 14 LOB last night). I was shining my shoes last night while watching the game, guess which activity was more fun?

Just so I can start talking about Garza sooner, I'm going to be brief. Blame Tuesday's game on another boot by our shortstop (sort of), but mostly on our inability to hit. Ditto that for last night. The strike zone did some inconsistant Tuesday, but at least it was inconsistant for both teams. Joe needs to be swinging on close pitches with 2 strikes. Garza's curveball to Ordonez that was a called strike 3 was too high. Cuddy took at least one pitch in the 6th that was right down the middle and called a ball. Don't blame the umps, sort of blame the defense but completely blame this squads inability to hit left hand pitching. Robertson isn't a terrible pitcher. I mean, he's no John Dank's, wait a minute ..... he is. Come on guys, just score a run or two. Oh, I understand Punto is a very good defensive player, but if you aren't going to hit (please see .209 batting average) then get a damn bunt down. Like I've said before, if Punto isn't going to hit in the .290-.300 area & steal some bases, he shouldn't be starting. I can live with the Punto of last year as our starter (can you say career year), but I can't live with the Punto from the other two years.

How much do we love Garza. I'm not going to start saying we've found our new "pitcher not to be named", but he has looked good. Granted it's two starts and let's see if he's still doing this good at start 5 and 6, but it gets me excited for our staff next year. The kid looks good out there. Seems to mix his pitches better. Now, can we trade someone for a thrid baseman? Six guys I can think of that might be interesting (and younger): Atkins, Chad Tracy, Ty Winnington, Mark Teahan, Bill Hall or Ed Encarnacion. Baker's been pitching well, Slowely wasn't terrible, Garza looks pretty good. I mean, really? They still want Perkins to be a starter so how many prospects can we have?

Happy day-late birthday to the namesake. 32 and still kicking ass. Hope I can still hit bombs in softball when I'm that old. Who am I kidding with that last statement.

Are We There Yet?

Well, the shelves are stocked with hope over here at the local Twin-E-Mart, and I for one am very excited for them to open up the doors so I can stock up on Twinkies (insert Sidney Ponson fat joke here). Why don't they sell Twinkies at the Dome anyway? Sanjib, the imaginary and racially-insensitive character I've just created to run this fictional convience store slash Twins analogy, is just about finished mopping and spit polishing, and will be open for business in less than a week.

The rotation is slowly solidifying -- a lot like bacon grease -- and I still am waiting for management to get so fed up that they can't help but go in the direction I suggested not long ago. Silva N' Gold had another horrible outing yesterday, bringing his ERA to such incalculable heights that I broke out my old multivariable calculus textbook last night and nearly won a Fields Medal coming up with an accurate number. How much longer must this charade continue? Can I get me some Garza already!? Granted that baseball is maybe the most unpredictable game there is in the short term, this side of hockey, but I'm feeling amazingly solid about Joheezy, Boof, and Garza right now, and just hoping for the bare minimum out of the others. Have you seen the Yankees or Soxs' (Soxeses'?) starting rotation lately? Yeah, that makes me feel better. Don't talk to me about the Tigers' though -- that's where nightmares come from. I'm already concocting brain-disabling heckles to shout from the home run porch at Joel Zumaya later.

The other good news of recent days is the (apparent) progress in stadium land negotiations. While I'm still not convinced that the currently prescribed location is the perfect spot for outdoor baseball (riverview, anyone?), I will admit that my condo/house searching for the near future has primarily centered around an 8-block radius from the aforementioned spot. Is that good? Next thing you know I'll be basing my stock market decisions on the effect of Mauer's OPS on t-shirt sales, and investing in Jimmy Johns and that Swing-Right thingy. Still, I can't imagine a much better scenario than an off-the-cuff walk across the Hennepin Avenue bridge for some Tuesday (With Torii) evening baseball in the heat of summers to come. Mmmm...outdoor baseball.

Hope on a Rope

At this time in the season, if it can be called a season officially at all (at this early point), the media-manager-player arc is selling a lot of hope in clubhouses and on dewy pitches, always in sunny climes located vaguely south of here, playing in cutely named leagues designated by the native produce of the surrounding area (kumquat league?). And normally, I try to maintain a healthy suspicion about these storylines. I mean, how can everyone improve from year to year? Unfortunately, the immutable laws of statistics and the central limit theorem dictate that some players mature and some rot. Some sink and some swim. Some rule and some just plain suck. (I'm looking in your direction Denny Hocking.)

There's one storyline this year, however, that I am buying into and it's about a nice little 23-yr old righty by the name of Garza, Matt. Have we let his average showing in the big league at the end of last year blind us to the fact that he was the Minor League Pitcher of the Year? I'm expecting big things from him this year -- Next Big Thing...er...things. Lavelle had a nice piece about him last week in his blog, and I love to hear about the kid wanting to win the job, fighting for it, and not becoming the Excusemaker 2300 Pitching Robot with defective sinker function. I'm so tired of you Carlos Silva that I almost went to see my doctor this weekend to medicate me for narcolepsy. I'm calling it now, and you heard it hear first....Garza will be the biggest suprise of this season, and will be the locked-in #2 starter by the end of June.

Speaking of Lavelle's blog, the Stribune has a nice little line-up of bloggers in place for the season, including Howard Sinker (with a Bat Girl pedigree) and Joe Christensen in addition to the aforementioned Wobble. Some seem more comfortable than others. Christensen not even being sure that "blog" is a verb til now is probably pretty indicative of his Luddite nature and/or the relative dip-your-toe-in-the-pool approach of big print media to the blogosphere. I look forward to following these three regularly.

Elsewhere on The Internets, two new Twins Territory ads are out. One involving Johan and Joe Nathan in a car where Yoheezy keeps changing speeds, as he is want to do. And the other involving the Piranhas. Good stuff. Kudos (again) to the Twins marketing staff. I look forward to the one about Lew Ford ironing himself (or performing arthroscopic surgery on himself?). Check 'em out...

And finally, it looks like Terry Ryan is finally rubbing off on other local major sport GMs. In very TRyan-like fashion, the Vikings signed two guys that no one has ever heard of, trying to fill gaps without spending Meche-ian money on crap, and relying on their farm syst...oh wait; they don't have a farm system. And Forbes magazine just named Kevin McHale the greatest manager in professional sports, utilizing an algorithm that is as asinine as it is stupid. No, I am not making this up and no, I am not auditioning for The Onion. This actually happened and, presumably, is completely and legitimately, 99/44/100 percent true love.

Terry Ryan finished 53rd.