Seattle Rains on Ruiz’s Parade
It was supposed to be a happy day for Randy Ruiz.
Ruiz was named the International League Rookie of the Year for his stellar performance at AAA this year, batting .320/.366/.536 with 17 HR, 33 2B, 68 RBI and 58 R in 111 games played. Pretty good numbers … though the concept of a 30 year old winning Rookie of the Year tickles me more than a little.
After finding this out, Ruiz went on to hit his first major league home run, an opposite field line drive. He soaked in the moment while rounding the bases, not showing too much emotion after the home run. (My thought: he was disappointed it was only a solo shot, after Morneau drove in a non-RBI with a double play with men on first and third right before Ruiz batted.)
But Ruiz didn’t get to celebrate much, because the Twins lost again, extending their ill-timed losing streak to four games, and assuring a series loss to the lowly Mariners. Baker claimed he had the best stuff he’s had in a while, though from where I sat it didn’t look like he had much command and the Mariners were belting line drives all over the field. Poor defense and a complete lack of hitting combined to waste Baker’s quality start, and the Twins fell, 3-2, to put a sour taste into the mouth of Ruiz and all of us fans.
I don’t know what to say about this, really. We’ve been barely managing to squeak out victories against the Mariners (when we do even manage to beat them), and when the Mariners go try to play the White Sox the game is over in the second after a 19 home run inning. Every game. Or so. The point is that good teams are supposed to absolutely clobber teams like the Mariners, and the White Sox have been doing a much better job of that than we have.
The Twins are going to have to pull themselves together if they want to avoid falling further than 2 games out of first. This is not the time for a slide.
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I got to thinking about our terrible road record last night. Why is it we are so terrible? I think it has a lot to do with how the coaches mentally prepare you for road games. Gardy always seems to be saying things like “just gotta play 500 ball on the road”. With that mindset things can get out of hand. Teams should be trying to win every game they play, not just “win 75% of home games, and just get by on the road”.
I don’t know if that’s a chicken-and-egg problem though; Gardy might be saying that because he knows we’ll do badly on the road and wants to lower expectations so the players and fans don’t go nuts while we keep losing on the road.
That said, you’re right. We should be trying to win all the games, even on the road. The way we’ve been swinging the bats lately, I don’t know what exactly we’re trying to do.