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I was sitting in the dentist’s office the other day with the dental hygienist. I always have believed that the dentist - like the President, or the British Monarchy - is really more symbolic than anything else. Now, granted, if your tooth is jammed into your gum-line, or rips into your pallet through some freak kitchen accident, the dental hygienist cannot help you.

But on most occasions it is the hygienist who straps on the plastic gloves and jams her hands - armed with a hook spike - into your mouth and deals with the blood from months of neglect to the build up of plaque rooting into the cementum.

Anyway, the hygienist, Mary, was working me over quite well. I was actually on time for a six-month checkup and she commended me, “Remember last time you were here, it had been 20 months.”

I gurgled out some noise to acknowledge and apologize, again, for this fact. I remember, after about 45 minutes of that original long-delayed visit that the woman’s hands looked like she had just closed up my corroded artery. Still, I had no cavities, I was blessed with strong teeth.

She was rooting about, having me suck out the water she sprayed into my mouth with a little device that reminded me of liposuction, when she asked me, “Well, what do you think about the Twins this year.”

Let me first acknowledge that I was not wearing any Twins paraphernalia, nor can I recall ever talking about the Twins with my hygienist at any-point in my life, so this was spontaneous, apparently.

I said, “They’re really great,” even though my mind was filled with so much more.

I always consider the moment that strangers ask you about anything concrete - that is anything outside of, “How are you?” or “What do you do?” or “Can you hurry the fuc- up please?” - the moment that a happening is reaching critical mass. Politics and religion are always at critical mass. Britney Spears has been there for about six years, Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson had their moments, Facebook is getting there, as is the iPhone. The RNC will be this weeks topic, but at this point in the late summer in Minnesota, the Twins have reached critical mass, people believe that they can just bring them up at any moment and you should have an opinion.

She then began applying the candy-coated protective layer on my teeth. “That Michael Phelps too, he’s been amazing.”

This was around week two of the Olympics.

I tried to mutter something about the 4×100 relay but couldn’t muster it, she smiled at me though and continued, “he’s like a man-fish, or fish-man.” She pulled the sealant device out of my mouth and I rinsed, “No, no, I agree he reminds me of those first fish that grew legs and washed up on the shore.”

She nodded, but told me she didn’t really agree with some of the tenants of evolution. “It’s just, really, how do you go from one little cell to having birds and lions and humans, really?”

I thought about this for a second.

“Well, how do you explain the Twins? They were expected to be awful but they’ve got a real shot. Evolution, God, baseball, it all works in mysterious ways.”

She agreed, she told me she liked Carlos Gomez and the new outfield (at this point she was back in my mouth with the spinner so I tried to say, “Span,” but it didn’t come across).

It was funny to me, this kindly woman talking to me about the one subject I had relative expert knowledge on but I couldn’t say much. I just had to mutter acknowledgments and glib responses. She talked and talked and talked about how surprised her husband was and how surprised her son was and how surprised she was.

The discussion followed some trace of this: Gomez, Span, Mauer, new stadium, how the standings work (”I mean they are in first place, but they never stay there”), how the team was supposed to be in last place, the White Sox as a general opponent and adversary, Joe Nathan, Ron Gardenhire (extended time on this topic including his mannerisms, his commercials with his wife, his grandfatherly appearance, and how the team is so young that it is making his hair grey (I agreed with this)), and Torii Hunter.

All this time she just spoke and spoke and spoke, and her knowledge was not expansive but it was rudimentary in all aspects; she had the grasp. When she finished the dentist came in.

He was a sturdy, grey haired and strong-jawed man with a cavernous face that reeked of self-awareness and personal direction, his eyes were sunken in and his cheeks poofed out only slightly, but enough to make him appear jolly. I imagined him with a tumbler, his wife unbuttoning his top-button and rubbing the tip of his chest when he came home. He gripped my hand firmly.

“So, Mary got you all set up.”

I nodded.

He pulled out an X-ray and showed me where my wisdom teeth were impacting along my jaw.

“Now, we don’t have to remove them, but if you want you should go see a surgeon and decide from there.”

It was then that I wanted to ask him what exactly it was that he did. I considered this and decided that he was a facilitator of sorts, a yes man to me, a man who made me feel good because, whatever the circumstance, he was in control. I doubted that he was right all the time, but he managed.

I saw Ron Gardenhire in him, and I felt a knowing surge of happiness in seeing the way that the universe runs parallel with the ballgame. I wondered what that made Mary, and what that made me. I wondered where we were going, and who was taking us there. I wondered if our expectations for ourselves were too great, or too shallow. Perhaps all of our failings would rear their head tomorrow - perhaps we would be better than we imagined.

This man was just a dentist, but was a leader of sorts, and I could use him to gain something necessary for myself, but he could not save me anymore than the Twins could. And I could not give him anything to make his life more full. What did that mean about our relationship? Was it just money? Did he expect something more of me, should I have expected more from him?

It is not hard to break the expectations of others, to let someone down, to make them proud. It is instead the dutiful nature of understanding how it is, that we, as individuals, make that happen that creates anxiety and stress in the mind and heart.

It is not our job to predict where others are going, or what their role will be. Each man controls only himself. He can harm others, he can please others, but it is he who makes that decision, not us.

I decided then, while the dentist smiled at me, gave me that feeling of warmth, and said goodbye, that I would allow Delmon Young to simply be. I would allow all the bullpen to simply be. I would try to enjoy the simplicity of the game and the enjoyment of knowing how far we as humans can go on the dreams and works of others.

But I also decided that, of course, we ultimately have to get off, and go ourselves, alone, out there somewhere in September.

Jose Says Hello To His Fans

A BRIEF GLIMPSE INTO THE PAST

After the whole world (including Stephen A. Smith in this week’s podcast) began to take notice that Joe Nathan was on pace to pitch over 50 innings (most likely 62 or so) with an ERA under 1.00, Nathan promptly blows his second save in as many opportunities against the Seattle Mariners, moving his ERA back up to a gigantic 1.12. What was more depressing was the Twins lackluster effort against a sub-par starter in Miguel Batista.

There has been only one other occasion this season where Batista went five innings or more and gave up one or fewer runs: that was a 7.2 inning shutout of the Angels on April 20. Following that start teams watched some video and promptly beat the living hell out of Batista for a month and a half (he posted a 1-5 record with 7.08 ERA from April 25-June 7). He started a few games here and there since, was sent to the bullpen, was brought back out, then he faced the Twins and gave up one run on six hits.

I hate Seattle.

Speaking of 50+ innings of sub-1.00 ERA’s lets take another look at other-worldly Anthony Slama who recently had his ERA inflated after giving up four earned runs in his last 10 appearances (12 innings). Slama’s ERA is still a freakish 1.06 over 68 innings.

Joe Mauer had his 16-game hitting streak snapped on Monday as well. During that streak Mauer hit .349 (22-77), with one home run, 10 RBI, and 12 runs scored. Nick Punto also lost his 12-game hitting streak, he had hit .423 (22-55), with three RBI and 10 runs during a run where he boosted his batting average from .257 to .293.

It was a shame to see Delmon Young’s near game-winning RBI single go to waste as the bullpen blew another lead. It was the second time this month that Young has provided dramatics to put the Twins back into a crucial game, only to have it forgotten by late-inning mishaps (Yankees three-run home run off of Rivera anyone?). Just in case anyone has forgotten from my previous rants about the misdirected hatred of Young, he is still hitting .304 with 8 home runs, 42 RBI, and 33 runs scored in 68 games since June 1. Game winning hits go a long way to getting on the good side of fans, and Young could certainly use some good will. He would have been a welcomed hero along with Francisco Liriano and Eddie Guardado if it wasn’t for Adrian Beltre and the Twins bullpen/late-inning defense.

I hate Seattle.

I also hate A.J. Pierzynski. Now let it be noted that I pretty much hated A.J. when he was a Twin and welcomed his departure in 2003. But what I really hate about A.J. is how broadcasters and commentators (I’m talking to you John Kruk, who praised Piersynski for being a brilliant base-runner after his escape from a run down, even though A.J. committed the original sin of base-running by running towards third on a ball hit to his right with one out in the bottom of the 10th) continue to compliment A.J. as being a smart ball-player, and crafty, when he pulls off the kind of non-sense that he did in Chicago this weekend against Tampa Bay. I know the game is all about winning and however you need to do that you should, but A.J. reminds me of a 6-year-old playing a 12-year-old’s game - he is petulant and irrational and determined to entice pity in the umpires and loathing in his opponents.

Watch the video and notice (on the first replay) how former Twin Jason Bartlett immediately, and I mean immediately tries to point out to jack-ass umpire Doug Eddings what really happened. He knows what A.J. is.

A BRIEF GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE

Over the next six games the Twins will face these six pitchers:

Ryan Rowland-Smith: Left-handed pitcher who has made five starts for the Mariners this season. He has a 3.84 ERA over the course of 72.2 innings, and was shelled by the Twins on August 16, giving up five runs and 10 hits in five innings (a 6-5 loss).

Ryan Feierabend: Left-handed pitcher who has was terrible in a start against the Twins on August 17, giving up six runs on 10 hits in three innings. Feierabend did rebound with a very good outing against Oakland though giving up only one run in five innings.

Dana Eveland: Was recalled from AAA on August 21, after having struggled to a 7-8 record with a 4.46 ERA in 22 starts for Oakland. Eveland pitched seven strong innings against Seattle on Saturday giving up only one run over seven innings and striking out seven.

Dan Meyer: Another left-hander who has been just terrible in his last two appearances giving up nine runs in eight innings, his season ERA is 5.95 in 19.2 innings, his career ERA is worse.

Dallas Braden: Left-hander who the Twins beat on August 20 when Braden went 5.2 innings giving up three runs on six hits. Braden had an excellent start in Los Angeles yesterday though throwing seven innings while giving up one run on a solo homer. On the season he is 4-3 with a 4.13 ERA (that is really the best looking record and ERA of any pitcher the Twins will face during this stretch).

Greg Smith: Left-hander with a terrible record (6-12) and a good ERA (3.75) in 25 games started for the A’s in his first season at the majors. Smith faced the Twins in late April giving up two runs in seven innings in an 11-2 debacle where Liriano gave up six runs without getting out of the first inning. Remember those times? Bad times.

I bring up these names because outside of Smith they all suck and should be eaten alive by any team that is serious about contending. I don’t give a flying sh– if Raul Ibanez hits five home runs in the next two days and Jack Cust pulls The Natural’s bat out of his ass. This Twins team needs to step up and win the next six games.

I am done with this hanging around non-sense. After the White Sox get done sweeping the Orioles (that 14-inning restart doesn’t count here), they will travel to Boston for three games. At the end of those three games the Twins need to have their first lead in the loss-column of the Central Division since May. Is that asking too much?

Well the Twins lose 5-3 as the bullpen kind of implodes and the offense quiets down. Facing an all-star like Ervin Santana meant that the Twins hitters would have to be on their game, and one of them - Justin Morneau - certainly was. It also meant that the Twins pitchers would have to remain steady against a formidable Angels lineup, and one of them - Kevin Slowey - certainly was.

Unfortunately baseball is about more than one pitcher and one hitter, it is about Carlos Gomez playing like an amateur in center field. It is about the relief staff consistently falling behind hitters and giving pitches to hit. It is about Gardenhire making some questionable decisions (removing Slowey with one out and runners at second and third after 6.1, leaving Reyes in to pitch to Texiera who promptly ripped a double). But most of all it is about 162 games and needing to be one game better than the team in second place on October 1.

That is why baseball is the game of attrition and the Twins are now in the midst of a new war that they cannot shake free from.

Earlier this year we documented the almost absurd meanderings of the Twins record as it stayed right around .500 and never once reached more than three games over .500 or three games under .500. Well, now, they are in a battle with the White Sox to claim first place, and they cannot (either team) shake free of the other.

At the all-star break the Twins were 1.5 games behind the Sox. When the Sox came to town on July 28 the Twins were 2.5 games back.

Here is what the Twins game-back position has looked like since then.

1.5, 0.5, 1.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, +0.5, tied, 1.0, 1.0, 0.5, +0.5, 0.5, +0.5, 0.5, 0.5, tied, tied, tied, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.5, +0.5, +0.5, 0.5.

Through those 26 game the Twins and White Sox have never been separated by more than 1.5 games in either direction, and for the last 23 they have remained within 1 game.

So, today the Twins lose, and the Sox win with the help of another A.J. Pierzynski, Doug Eddings production, and the Twins will trot back out there tomorrow. It is an aggravating and internally churning way to live, but it is also the dream of every baseball fan. A true pennant race. A true chance.

This is our 100th post here at Twinscast and to celebrate we will keep it short and sweet with a simple declaration:

Pinch me, I think we can win this thing.

Actually a few more things, Bryant and I are eternal optimists but we did not believe that we would be talking about anything meaningful in August and September. I remember back at some point when the Twins were continually hovering around .500, I wrote a post called, ‘The Twins that time forgot’ kind of a cheesy concept of picking out historical Twins and writing about their last days with the Twins. I believed that the bit would be necessary for maintaining content on a website devoted to a team going nowhere.

But, that isn’t necessary anymore. We’ve got more content than we could deal with. Last night I was locked out of my house so I sat in my car, in my garage and listened to the game while bugs flew near my face. The Twins bullpen was amazing, the night was amazing, there were few places I would have rather been at the time.

The Twins are going somewhere now, damn if it isn’t a hell of a ride.

August 22, 2008

AL Central

Chicago White Sox    73-53      -

Minnesota Twins       73-54     .5

AL Wild Card

Boston Red Sox          73-54      -

Minnesota Twins        73-54      -

“If it’s Delmon Young you’re bitching about at this point in the season, you’re too baseball stupid to be taken seriously.”

- quote from Rubechat user ‘The DFC Work’ on August 19.

I think that is going to be my new phrase that I utter to the lot of moronic simpletons who always seem to emerge in late August when they realize that the regular season for football is still a month away and the Twins are in the division hunt.

You’re too baseball stupid to be taken seriously.

Go follow the Vikings. Go follow a god damn sport that only requires the attention span of one game once a week. Do that, have fun. Scream from your spleen and enjoy the type of game that requires three hours of simplistic understanding and can be emotionally gripped on a week-to-week basis. But, please, for the love of God, ignore the sport that has 162 games over the course of six months. Please, do me a favor.

And this goes for every person I know who rips into Delmon, and there are plenty of them.

There was the jackass at the Twins-Yankees series (the first series) who sat in the lower level next to the bullpen and just screamed, “You suck Delmon” whenever the crowd got quiet. He wore two earrings, had glasses on, called me a “fu– stick” and flicked me off when I yelled out, “Yeah Delmon, you pathetic 22-year-old Major League Baseball player, get a life!”

It goes for the copy editor I work with who bitched about Delmon’s error in Sunday’s 10-8 win, and his 0-4 performance in that game as well. Ignoring the fact that Young’s emergence has made him just as important as any hitter in this lineup over the last two months.

It goes for every idiot who’s head must ache from knee-jerk reactions to a 22-year-old right-fielder hitting .288 with 53 RBI and seven home runs.

In the past two months Young is hitting .306 with six home runs and 31 RBI. Justin Morneau, hitting in front of Delmon for most of those two months, has done what in that same stretch? .305, eight home runs, 43 RBI.

Does he swing at the first pitch too often, maybe. But, some hitters believe that the first pitch is often when the pitcher is trying to get a fastball over to get ahead in the count. Sometimes I wonder why Mauer always, always takes the first pitch, but hey, he’s a great hitter, so let him be. Right?

Of course, at 22, Mauer hit .294 with nine home runs and 55 RBI.

Wow those numbers look eerily similar to someone else that continues to draw the ire of every whitebred idiot in a baby blue Hrbek jersey at the Dome..

Oh and Morneau, when he was 22, spent 44 games with the Twins - his numbers? .226 avg., 4 HR, 16 RBI. Morneau didn’t have a full season until he was 24, and he hit .239 with 22 home runs and 79 RBI, he struck out 94 times to 44 walks.

But of course that is all happenstance, right? They were young, inexperienced players right? They made the defensive plays - they didn’t run like they have a turd in their pants? Is that it?

So Delmon makes some errors in left-field, a notoriously difficult position to play at the Metrodome. He doesn’t get to some balls and he has a lot of balls get past him, often leaving fans just shaking their heads - me included.

But I personally think that Delmon plays baseball hard and plays the game the right way. I think that his errors are mental but are not because of laziness, it’s just the breaks of a young man learning the game in his second season.

Could he be better? Sure, who couldn’t. But the fact that for some reason Delmon Young continues to get blamed for the problems of the Minnesota Twins offense or that people will continue to pinpoint his at-bats for reasons that the team lost, I just refuse to accept those notions.

He’s 22, there are ten players in all of baseball who are 22 or younger and have at least 100 at-bats this season. Young is leading all of them (including Evan Longoria, Billy Butler and Jay Bruce, and of course, Carlos Gomez) in batting average at .288. Only Gomez has more at-bats. His home run totals are off pace by a long shot but he is only behind Longoria (who has 60 fewer at-bats) in RBI’s.

He’s going to be a very, very good baseball player. There’s just no doubting that. He is in the kind of organization where players mature very effectively (see Morneau, Justin; Mauer, Joe; Kubel, Jason). He will learn and he will get better. But, to expect anything more at this point is just asinine.

Get some perspective, you idiots.

 (I think the guy on the right was fired already, am I wrong?)

I am not going to jump on some bandwagon bashing of Carlos Silvawho was absolutely terrible last night in his return to the Metrodome. I just want to consider everything that has happened to Silva since last September and what it all looked like at the time and how it looks now.

It is easy to mock and ridicule the Mariners signing of Silva, but lets consider a few things. His 2007 stats featured 202 innings and a 4.19 ERA, which is not terrible. Even if it is not good. The fact that the Mariners decided to sign him to such a ridiculous contract (4-years $48 million) was laughed at by Twins fans, but Silva was considered one of the best pitchers in the free agent market. Even if it was a very thin market.

Here are some quotes after Silva signed the four-year $48 million deal.

Silva: “It is wild. Everything is wild. Wild is having this life.”

Wild is having this life?

Silva sounds like Jeremy Piven after the first season of Entourage. I think that is the exact same statement uttered at the last Power-ball press conference. The amazing thing about that quote is it reeks of amazement. When you sign a career deal there is supposed to be a certain sense of entitlement, ‘I have worked hard for this…’ ‘this is the culmination…’ etc. There is none of that from Silva.

Bill Smith (on his offering Silav three-years, $18 million, as oppossed to the deal he signed): “I did have a conversation with his agent. It’s a tremendous thing for Carlos Silva.”

This quote is funny because of what is completely unstated, and that is Smith essentially saying, “Sweet Jesus Christ I can’t believe anyone would pay Carlos Silva $12 million dollars a year.”

After the trade it has become obvious that Silva made the 100 percent right choice in signing with Seattle. He is able to chew out his teammates in the locker room even though Silva himself has been awful. He can carry the guise of being a leader because of his contract, the lack of Erik Bedard, and the youth of King Felix, without actually being any kind of leader, or having any leadership ability. Silva chewing out his teammates for not trying hard enough is like George W. Bush calling out Donald Rumsfeld for mismanagement of the executive branch.

He has been godawful in every respect:

Silva in 2008: 4-14, 140 innings, 6.36 ERA, 59 K’s, 26 BB’s. There are any number of ways to break those statistics down into more amazing statistics but I think they can just sit there, and breathe.

From the Twins side of things there is very little to debate here. Silva was a pitcher in the Livan Hernandez mode. Occasionally he would throw a complete game one-run effort that would make you feel like he was revitalized, but he always reverted back to form. In fact Hernandez contract and season with the Twins should have the effect of making every Twins fan pleased (remember Hernandez recorded nine wins somehow) and every Mariners fan cringe. Pitchers like Silva are a dime a dozen, and certainly not worth $36 million over the next three years.

Still, you have to feel great for Carlos. He is a competitor, and always was. I still remember him chucking that ball into the upper deck after beating the Royals in a complete game. They called him the Big Chief and he believes in that. He believes that he has an important role in a major league clubhouse.

He didn’t earn the money he is making, but someone wanted to pay him $48,000,000 regardless of statistical data or common sense - and, if you’re Carlos Silva, there is nothing wrong with that.