LaBombo

My first job was in third grade, mowing the grass of a rental property my dad owned (see illustration below). http://i596.photobucket.com/albums/tt47/Lovecartoons1/Cartoons/BadDog.jpg The three primary differences were that my dad was infinitely better at being patient and supportive than the man in the cartoon, I was somewhat worse at mowing than the dog in the cartoon, and to the inevitable delight of anyone good at visualizing, the lawn mower was, in real life, a rider.

I'm going to guess that it's because it wasn't that long ago that Dozier was practically the only reason to watch this team. That's neither a defense of keeping him at the top of the order or a knock against it. I think that's just where they still are as an organization. Even so, it can't go on much longer like this.

I agree with the rest of this too, but decided to quote just that part to make up for my intention to violate unwritten TD policy against incorporating an image into a non-Game Thread post. Off the top of my head, it seems like the hitting coach's job is somewhere between half and a tenth as critical as a pitching coach's. Pitching is much more complex mechanically than batting, the consequences of poor mechanics are faaaaar greater (ineffectiveness and/or injury for pitching, ineffectiveness only for batting), and a pitching coach gets a fraction of the cycles of opportunity that a hitting coach gets to watch his charges in action, determine what's wrong, make suggestions, and see the results. That being said, it seems like hitting coaches get blamed disproportionately for bad results, both compared to pitching coaches, and for negative hitting outcomes vs. positive ones. Think about it. Plenty of fans probably call for Brunansky's scalp when Sano swings and misses so hard on a high 0-2 pitch that a stand of Norway pines outside Grand Marais blows down. But when he launches a bomb to the second deck of left field at Target, how many fans are like "wwwWW00000000t! Bruno, my man! Way to coach Sano to go deep!" For that reason alone, it's probably a good thing that Brunansky is a beloved former player associated with the Twins' first championship. With this group of mostly young players, a new hitting coach and a new approach at the plate just 25 games into the season doesn't sound to me like a good idea, and Brunansky's place in Twins history as a player should help him weather the storm, at least for a while. Or, to paraphrase Unforgiven's English Bob, advising Terry Ryan: 'If you were to consider firing Tom Brunansky in midseason, the sight of Twins royalty would cause you to forget all thoughts of dismissal, and you would stand... how shall I put it? In awe. Now, Joe Vavra.... [chuckles to himself] Well, why not fire Joe Vavra?' http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ETmjia-RdyA/TTVNh9dqTeI/AAAAAAAAAUI/wGJFxI13lMc/s1600/English+Bob+-+Pose.png

It's almost always fun to for us to look back on crazy outlier seasons by Twins players, because we're baseball nerds and wired/weird that way. But in the case of Joe Mays, it's a little more sad for me than fun. His 2001 season pitching line looks like the kind you'd choose in order to illustrate the absolute folly of evaluating pitching performance primarily on the strength of ERA and wins. Unsustainably low opponent batting average on balls in play? Check. Suspiciously good strand and home run rates? Check and check. Strikeout and walk rates chugging toward nearly meeting up at a golden spike ceremony in the neighborhood of a ghastly 3 per 9 innings? Check. Virtually every red flag was there in 2001 to warn the Twins of Mays' looming future of 5+ ERA's, demotion to bullpen mop up two years later, and an exit from the league at just 31 years of age. Infinitely more importantly, one could have hoped that the cautionary tale of Joe Mays would have shaken to the core the way in which the Twins applied statistical analysis to player scouting. Instead, even after having eyebrow-singing front row seats to Mays' predictable implosion, a decade later the Twins still managed to trademark the phrase "pitch to contact", make hapless journeyman and Joe Mays carbon copy Nick Blackburn a multimillionaire, and place a pretty large chunk of front office responsibility in the hands of an assistant GM who thinks BABIP is a Sinclair Lewis novel.

And a microwave box for the tipout win.

One of my favorite Styx songs. http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/611ImBXgJdL.jpg

"Maaaaahm! brian's picking on Thrillhouse again!" Seriously, I am sooo telling a moderator on y... Oh. yeah.

Never know when you'll need to give up a long ball to a lefty on short notice...

Wrong!!! Take that, filthy hippies. Here it is, straight from the classified section of Crabapple Aficionado magazine: http://orig06.deviantart.net/a5a3/f/2011/351/c/e/steampunk_phone_by_tmc_deluxe-d4jdpoe.jpg

Ok, but you have to promise not to take the corks off the 'forks until after the fishing opener. I don't want to miss a minute of this uprising.

That's why the other single on the 45 was 'Good Times Bad Times'... http://www.7inchrecords.com/Discography/LedZeppelin/SgoodtimesSW.jpg And maybe some ' Dazed and Confused' thrown in for good measure.

Tom Kelly didn't invent the idea of letting young players he didn't want around flail in the quicksand of prolonged on-field struggles, thereby accelerating their disappearance into the muck, but he may have perfected it. So just think of the manager going 'burnt offering to futility' on a young player as a quaint Twins tradition. And isn't tradition one of the things that makes the game great?

He's still trading on the 3000th hit coming in a Twins uniform, I see.

That seems a little generous. Triscuits are like mithril after 3 days out in the wild. But yeah, he kinda started to look like he needed a hug or something. On the plus side of the ledger, the Fox postgame crew's round of 'Find a gentler synonym for 'suck' to describe Hughes's night' was a rousing success, I thought.

You had me at "band name generator".

So far my three favorite things about his managing are tripling for his 3000th hit, his covert plan to abuse the bunt so badly that MLB bans it forever, and his not being Gardenhire. Now that the novelty of watching someone besides Gardenhire #*@% things up is wearing off, there's not a lot to hang your hat on.

Suggested gear for start vs. Astros: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71DAWyNQh0L._SY355_.jpg Not pictured: third hand.

I kinda did before the trade, so, bonus.

And make sure they have those units on the south ridge repaired by midday, too.

You were kind of right, in the sense that at least a few people who staid up late probably feel had. But the Crunch Berry Kid showed flashes of that excellent repertoire of pitches, and the offense continues its slow ascent toward mediocrity and hopefully beyond, so overall it wasn't a bad night. If nothing else, it beat the crap out of two hours of FSN rain delay/postponement filler about where Target Field's infield dirt comes from.

I hear Absolut/ Pepto smoothies are the bomb for that. Not sure if good kind of bomb, though.

Sorry, man, best I could do for ya. Have a good night, all.

'Indians broadcast team's expectations hopelessly lowered by nearly 70 year championship drought.'

Heartburn it is. Dang, you had me goin' for a minute or two.

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