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Ed Thoma

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September 20, 2009

Desperate times call for desperate lineups

Edward Thoma

This is the baseball equivalent of a machine held together with paper clips and chewing gum.

Barring further injury, it appears that this will be the Twins’ starting lineup until the AL Central Division is settled:



Denard Span CF

Orlando Cabrera SS

Joe Mauer C

Jason Kubel RF

Michael Cuddyer 1B

Delmon Young LF

Jose Morales DH

Matt Tolbert 3B

Nick Punto 2B



Oh, there’ll be a game or two when Mauer DHs and Morales catches, and Kubel and Cuddyer may flip-flip in the four- and five-holes, and occsionally there’ll be a matchup manger Ron Gardenhire wants to exploit, as was the case at third base Saturday and at DH Sunday.

But this is it — the lineup the Twins expect will make up for five-and-a-half months of missed opportunities.

What’s odd about it? Almost everything:

Two of the nine are September call-ups. The first baseman is out of position. It is the worst defensive outfield available from the roster (using a legit center fielder). The OPS — that’s On-base percentage Plus Slugging percentage — of four of the nine is under .700, which is awful. There are two catchers and three shortstops.

And that’s not counting the two pure rookies — with a total of 10 major league starts between them — filling out the September starting rotation.

It’s a bizarre flight of imagination by Gardenhire — imagination and desperation.

The desperation comes from the season-ending back miseries of Justin Morneau and Joe Crede. The imagination probably comes from a lot of sleepless nights.

A few thoughts:

1) Flip-flop Kubel and Cuddyer, and the lineup marches left-right-left-right until it hits the three switch-hitters at the bottom. It’s balanced, at least from the platoon perspective.

2) My belief is that the best way to improve a shaky pitching staff is with outfield speed. This, Gardenhire isn’t doing.

He’s trying to shore up the pitching with an infield of shortstops. It’s difficult to see that Tolbert at third makes up for Kubel and Young in the outfield.

3) Jose Morales — .317 in more than 860 Triple A plate appearances, .384 in his brief major league career entering the weekend — might be establishing himself as too valuable to be a backup catcher.

It will be interesting to see what happens this winter. Assuming, as I do, that the Twins re-sign Mauer during the offseason, Morales might be very valuable trade bait as the team tries to find long-term infield solutions.

4) My blog’s weekly poll — which closed early this morning — asked which one of the Twins current collection of middle infielders was the best pick to use in 2010.

The two least favored by the participants: Cabrera and Punto — the two Gardenhire has settled on to be his double-play combo down the stretch.



Edward Thoma is a Free Press staff writer. He is at 344-6377 or at ethoma@mankatofreepress.com. He also has a baseball blog at www.mankatofreepress.com/ethomabaseball

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Ed Thoma