Twins Disappoint, Frustrate
I'm trying to not be one of those second-guessing fans, one of those arm-chair managers. When the Twins reached the bottom of the ninth inning ahead of the Yankees, though, it got really hard.
Through the game there were all kinds of arguable calls of balls and strikes for both sides. The pop-up strike-zone on TBS was just about as far off as little-league umpires might allow, but watching MLB Gameday showed that a lot of calls were indeed off of their "norm," and not just those edgy calls you want to go your way. Awful calls, both ways. One article the wife read points out the likely complaints by Twins fans about the "strike zone shaped like a broken pinata." I think both teams' fans can complain; of course, since the Yankees won, they'll complain less, but an honest look shows the calls were wonky for everyone.
Yeah, there was a run-losing base-running goof when Gomez slipped; shoulda-coulda-woulda...he fell, he's out, run doesn't score.
Sure, the Twins left runners on base in every inning, and have again failed to produce a single homerun in the park.
The kicker was all in their hands, another case of a blown lead.
Just before the Yankees stepped to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning, the good folk at TBS showed us that Nathan struggled against the first two batters due up, Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez, hitting .600 and .500 against him, respectively. They bantered about the struggle facing the Twins, and oozed a very not-objective Yankee vibe as they expected the Twins to crumble. Teixeira kept true to that prediction, reaching first on a sharp hit to right field, so now he's 7 for 13.
A-Rod brought the tying run to the plate, and you could tell that it was bothering Nathan. As Nathan showed obvious signs of distress, getting behind Rodriguez 3-0, I became that fan.
"Just walk him," I tried to psychically manage through the television. One quick outside pitch, take control of the inning and put him on because you want to. Get rid of the fear. Hold the runners, but focus on the batters and finish the game up two runs.
Instead, two pitches later A-Rod sends one over the fence tying the game. As expected, Nathan cleanly faced the next three batters, ending the inning with just the two damaging runs. But that was all it took.
Sure, it could have been the case that the next batters would have hit differently, or maybe even been substituted with pinch-hitters with runners on first and second instead. But had they batted the same as they did, the Yankees would have stranded two more, and the Twins would have had that very necessary win.
Whatever the blunders that followed would have mattered including any more crazy balls or strikes, the blown ground-rule double that could have put Joe Mauer on second instead of first, the loaded bases before any outs resulting in no Twins runs, or the walk-off home run by Teixeira.
The game was over in the ninth if only A-Rod walked to first instead of strutting around the bases.