Morneau's broken nose adds to woes

[Outdoors Junkie]

I would like to add, that Justin Morneau played the next day with his broken nose and help the Twins beat the Tigers by going 3-5.


First baseman takes a bad hop Saturday afternoon


MINNEAPOLIS -- The American League Central dynasty is in trouble, again. Minnesota's fortress is under siege, again. The moat around the Metrodome is again infested with predators -- and they aren't piranhas, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen's description of those pesky hitters in the Twins' lineup.
They've slumbered all week, and it didn't get any better on Saturday, which shouldn't have come as a surprise. Sidney Ponson has never been mistaken for an alarm clock. So after his four innings of pitching out of the stretch against the Tigers, the Twins remained tucked in.

The 8-2 loss to Detroit dropped the Twins' record to 17-19. They are one rung out of the cellar, and 6 1/2 games out of first. They look listless, sometimes hapless -- always powerless.

But guess what? After 36 games last season, the Twins had the identical record and were still going down, and still recovered to hoist their fourth division title in five years. So their current predicament may as well be a salute to 2006. Officially, the Twins are staging a season-long commemoration of their 1987 World Series winners; maybe some marketing types decided to throw in 2006, too.

Except ...

"I've been saying that too much, that we also struggled last season. I'm tired of saying it. Even that's old news," said Torii Hunter.

And ...

Saturday's loss gave the Twins their second four-loss streak of this ongoing homestand. Only once all last season did they lose more than two consecutive home games.

Finally ...

The shortcomings of early last season were identifiable, and fixable. The team had sprung obvious leaks, so the problems were more tangible than they are now.

"Last year, we weren't pitching well early, and we had trouble catching the ball on the left side of the infield," noted Twins manager Ron Gardenhire. "Now, our starting pitching has been pretty good, and our bullpen has really given us a chance to win. But the offense has been inconsistent."

Saturday's focus was narrower. In his four innings, Ponson faced 21 batters; 11 of them reached base, six of them reached home plate.

"Even he's been giving us opportunities to win," Gardenhire noted. "Not today. He had a bad day."

So, instead of the Twins breaking their losing streak, all they broke was Justin Morneau's nose. The freaky eighth-inning play symbolized the Twins' predicament:

Brandon Inge lined out to third baseman Nick Punto and Morneau stood on first awaiting the throw for a possible double play when Craig Monroe, high-stepping back to the bag, got in the way of his vision.

The ball short-hopped off Morneau's proboscis. And the point is, the Tigers aren't about to get out of the Twins' way any time soon.

Minnesota will have to make them move, which is a difficult task now, when the Twins can't even move their own baserunners. They'll either have to start getting more hits to make their station-to-station game click, or start hitting balls over the fence.

And they aren't about to grow muscles and uppercuts overnight. The Twins lead the AL in infield hits, but are last in homers, with 19. Collectively, their DHs are the only ones in the league yet to homer -- but even last season, they ranked last with a total of nine long balls.

So that's not their game. The days of the 4-H Club (Hubert H. Humphrey Homerdome) are long gone.

"We have to show our character more, show what we're made of offensively," Gardenhire said. "We're not going to hit three-run homers. When we have an opportunity to score, we have to put the ball in play and run the bases smart."

And, please, everyone stop citing 2006 as a precedent. It is a good memory, but a bad model.

"It's over and done with," Gardenhire said. "It's a good memory, how we turned that season around. Now we have to figure out how to turn around this year. These are different people."

Gardenhire's suffering is different, too. He hasn't been seen in the dugout since midway through Thursday's game, when plate umpire Derryl Cousins thumbed him out following a brief, heated argument.

Unleashing some pent-up frustration, Gardenhire had essentially asked Cousins to eject him. Gardenhire has also been asking his players to play sharper baseball, but they haven't been as compliant.

Nursing his left knee back from a Friday morning operation to relieve a long-standing condition, Gardenhire has spent the last two games in his office -- which he probably wished had padded walls.

"The guys are frustrated. I'm sure the fans are frustrated," he said. "I'm certain we'll work our way to right this thing. We're having a little rough time now."

Pause.

"Nah ... a lot rough time."

It hasn't been smoothed over by a media whose criticism even got the attention of Detroit manager Jim Leyland, who came to his opposition's defense the other day. Leyland thinks the Twins organization and Gardenhire deserve much better than a shortsighted view of their current lull.

If Gardenhire were to have a comparable knee-jerk reaction to his team's slide, obviously it would have to be the right one.

[rchaze60]

I know i saw it on TV and said ouch but you have to give him props though for coming back and playing just shows that he loves the game  :rock: :rock: :rock: