Denard Span is away from the team to have his recent dizziness examined and Carlos Gomez is in manager Ron Gardenhire's doghouse, so the Twins are trotting out perhaps the worst defensive outfield that I've ever seen for this afternoon's game against the A's.
Michael Cuddyer is making his second career start in center field after spending the past four seasons displaying below-average range in right field. Jason Kubel is replacing Cuddyer in right field after spending most of the past three seasons at designated hitter because of his bad range and worse knees. And Delmon Young is in left field, where he's posted the worst Ultimate Zone Rating in baseball since the beginning of last year.
If there's been a worse defensive starting outfield during this decade that didn't involve someone literally dying on the field, I'd love to hear about it. In the meantime, I'll be saying a prayer for Twins starter Nick Blackburn.
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Does anyone need more proof that many pro managers don't understand defense at all?
Even if gomez were out there, it would still be a terrible outfield. Better, sure, but there is only so much that Gardenhire could do.
But he still did the worst he possibly could...seems to me like "there's only so much he could do" isn't much of a consolation in that situation.
good thing that we got rid of Tori Hunter...
I won't pray for Blackburn, but I will say this sucks for him. In a game where individual statistics are a huge factor when it comes to contracts, performance bonuses, awards, and recognition in general, a situation like this shows why statistics may be overrated, especially for pitchers. With an enormous number of variables affecting every game beyond the raw output on a pitch by pitch basis (I'm thinking of things like different ballparks, weather, defenses, opposing line-ups and so forth), it is simply impossible to get truly accurate statistics. Lifetime averages in various statistical categories reflect an element of truth, but that's the limit. Imagine the lifetime batting numbers for A-Rod if his whole career and half of his games were played in Petco field instead of in the now homer-happy stadium he's got in NY. I'm sure the difference would be statistically significant. Perhaps enough so that we might think of him as "top 5, or definitely at least top 10" hitters in baseball instead of top 5 for sure and perhaps #1 or 2 as we now do.
All of this just to say that it really sucks for Blackburn and if it were happening on a game to game basis he'd be paying for it in real dollars and real stats. Not good.
Wow. Into the seventh without giving up a run. This may be one of the top pitching performances of the season :-)
Ironically the outfield defense didn't hurt the Twins until Gomez came in in CF and Cuddyer moved back to RF to blow a play.