On the Grill

The Molten Core.

Twins (17-17) versus Tigers (21-12).

This really all you need to know about the Twins and the past six games of this nine game homestand. From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

“Twins manager Ron Gardenhire got a chuckle during spring training out of predictions that his team would finish in fourth place in the AL Central despite being the defending division champions.
After losing 3-0 Thursday to the White Sox, the Twins are at 17-17, after losing seven of their past 10 games.

That's good for ... fourth place.”

And even more agonizing:

Twins righthander Carlos Silva held the White Sox to three runs over six innings. Twins starters have a respectable 3.47 ERA through six games of the current nine-game homestand.

But the Twins are averaging 2.3 runs while batting .204 during the homestand and are batting .205 with runners in scoring position during that time.

Throw in the baserunning and fielding mistakes, and it smells a lot like a fourth-place team.

On the Grill
Perhaps I’m overreacting, but this team does not look like it’s going to be able to get out of its own way in 2007. While a lot of baseball wonks will tell you it’s still relatively early, the brain wizards over at the Sporting News are already writing that the only division race the Twins will have to worry about in ’07 is the race for third place versus the White Sox. With 34 games in the books, I'm starting fall in line with their way of thinking. For obvious reasons, this weekend, I’m putting the entire Twins organization “On the Grill”. Yes, it reeks of a cheap managerial ploy to motivate the club out of this funk but, any port in a storm, right?

What, Me Worry?
After an offseason where the majority of the mainstream press and the blogosphere agonized over the Twins’ rotation, openly mocking Twins’ GM Terry Ryan’s nine million dollar pitching trio of Ortiz, Ponson and Silva, suprisingly, at least at this juncture, the pitching staff has done its job well enough that the Twins, even with the injury problems should be better than a .500 club. The trouble is when you combine a feeble offense with a ton of mental errors, which have manifested themselves in all sorts of sloppy play, it' all-to easy see why the Twins are 4.5 games back of the Tigers.

All About Terry
I'm pretty sure after last year, the Twins' braintrust thought to themselves, "Hey - with the Timberwolves in complete disarray and with Brad Childress and Zygi Wilf running things for Minnesota's most popular sports team, we can OWN THIS TOWN! Seriously, a potent offense and a sound defense were not stomach-acid producing concerns. With a solid core - the Batting Champ, the MVP, Mike Cuddyer, Torii Hunter and some solid reinforcements a healthy Jason Kubel and Rondell White, this offense, even if they weren't quite as good as last year, should be able to score some runs, right? Not everyone was convinced though. In their innagural MLB Podast, ESPN's Steve Phillips, almost nails the Twins current struggles, right down to Joe Mauer's leg injury. (Note - the Twins audio starts about the 5:50 mark). In a nutshell -he thought the pitching might be a little less, the defense about the same and all the presssure was going to be on the offense. Phillips wasn't the only one not high on the Twins this year. None of the main ESPN wonks - Gammons, Neyer, Olney, Stark had the Twins as serious contenders -and had them winning on average about 86 games. Looking over several of the AL Central previews, including this one from the folks at Rotojunkie.com I think these guys might just be onto something.

Anyway, the AL MVP will be anchoring a lineup that surprised a heck of a lot of people in 2006. The emergence of Morneau and Mauer was expected, Torii Hunter was a known quantity, and even Michael Cuddyer’s career year wasn’t a big surprise. But across the board, almost every single player on Minnesota had a career year. Heck, even Nick Punto hit .290. I know that a lot of these guys are in their primes, but for every single player to do what they did…again? There are studs here, to be sure, and it’s still a very good lineup even if it performs at 90% of what it did last year. Just keep your head about you; there’s just no way every player duplicates what they did in 2006.

So far, the Twins simply have not been able to duplicate what they did last year, when they put lightening in a bottle and it's unlikey they will be able to do it again. In essense, everthing worked - the Pihranas were really Pihranas and the core of the line up finally performed as expected. Does a 10% slip in production equal a third or fouth place finish? I think it's all in Terry Ryan's hands now.

So, with the pitching staff seemingly stabilized, many in the fan base and media are calling for the Twins to do something - anything. Ubelmann and others were quick to point out, that despite all the accolades and fawning over Jim Rantz and Terry Ryan, the Twins have virtually no offensive depth in the high levels of the minor leagues to draw upon. The GM basically confirms it:

From this March 2007 Interview with the Bizofbaseball.com, Terry Ryan tells us all we need to know about the Twins' offensive depth in the minor leagues:

Ryan: We have offensive depth, but it is not at the AAA level. A lot of our better young hitters are down at A ball or AA maybe. If you look at a guy like [Denard] Span or a guy like [Alexi] Casilla, they are both players who are pretty good players that are on the verge of surfacing at the major leagues, even though Casilla has already been here. They just don’t have that back fence power that people equate into minor league prospects. I would tell you that Casilla and Span are pretty good players, they just don’t have a lot of power. We have some players down in A ball and a couple at AA with a couple of guys who will be surfacing at AAA this year. We have position players; they just are not talked about much. If you start equating them to the [Matt] Garzas and [Kevin] Sloweys of the world who are well thought of and have had a lot of ink written about them, you are not going to have the type of position players that are going to match up. Garza was the minor league pitcher of the year, but we feel pretty good about our offensive depth and think we have some prospects that are pretty good. If you read some of the bibles of the minor leagues, I am not sure we match up, but we are ok. There are probably some guys who will surface this year, but our pitching is definitely our strength.

It's Up to the Core
Clearly, since there's no calvary coming from within on the offensive side, it's going to be up the the core of Mauer, (when healthly), Morneau, Hunter and Cuddyer, to pull this thing together and keep the club from getting too far back. Will they do it? I'm not so sure. And frankly, it's a bit depressing. And, since Ryan did not get Nathan, Morneau or Santana taken care of contractually in the offseason, I just don't see any kind of trade happening in the short term. I think they are simply going to wait until the All-Star break and see how this first half plays out. And for that, at least for now, Mr. Ryan will be moving from indirect heat to right over the coals.

One the Grill - The Molten Core.

As weak of an ending as that was to the baseball analysis side of "On the Grill", as usual, I'm hoping to redeem myself in the second half. The inspiration for this week's installment comes from our own back yard, so to speak. As crucial as this core is (Mauer, Morneau, Hunter and Cuddyer) to the Twins' success in '07, the so-called "Molten-Core of cheese is to the famous "Jucy-Lucy".

For those not familar, I present from this lovingly written piece in the 1998 City Pages by award winning food critic Dara Moskowitz:

Now Juicy Lucys (in case you're mailing this to an out-of-town friend) are South Minneapolis's contribution to world cuisine, made by crimping two beef patties together around a hunk of cheese and grilling until the cheese melts. Served on a white, seed-free bun and usually topped with onions, grilled or raw, and a slice or two of pickle, the Juicy Lucy works on a couple of levels.

First, it keeps the meat inside near the cheese very moist. Second, keeping the cheese apart from the bread makes for a pleasant separation of meat and bread tastes and textures. Last but not least, the Jucy Lucy effectively separates members of the tribe from outsiders: Those in the know bide their time and wait for the cheese to cool, while rubes, hicks, New Yorkers, and other social misfits scald their tongues on the excruciatingly hot mixture of grease and cheese that pools inside the burger, poised to escape through any opening.

It's probably sacrilegious to share, that, while I'm a local, I have suffered the indignity of a 3rd degree facial burn. While there are a couple of ways to avoid the burn -- the dreaded "french fry poke" or just patience, there is only one way to avoid a dreaded blowout. (When the cheese escapes.)

A blowout at Matt's is a big deal and will result in the destruction of the burger. You can't have cheese mucking up the grill, ya know. That said, the key to successful execution of this recipe is the "cheese" stack, which is the process of stacking the cheese in a small pile atop one patty before sealing. This helps facilitate the best patty-on-patty action and helps the burger maker-attain a tight seal. See the photo below.

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds ground chuck (No leaner than 80%)

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

3/4 teaspoon garlic salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

4 slices American cheese (You can go all highbrow - but beware, it's not the same)

4 buns - Nothing fancy, no seeds.

Your favorite condiments and toppings - I like raw onion, pickles, Ketchup and Yellow Mustard

Instructions:

1. Place beef, Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt, and pepper in a bowl; mix well. Portion into eight even units. Shape each portion into a thin round patty that's slightly larger than the cheese slice.

2. Fold cheese slices in half twice so you have a little stack of quartered cheese slices. Place a folded cheese stack on 4 the patties, covering cheese with remaining 4 patties.

3. Tightly crimp the edges of the patties together to form a tight seal. No seriously, make tight seal. As the cheese melts, creates steam, and tries to find its way out.

4. Preheat a cast-iron skillet or heavy-bottomed pan to medium heat (or fire up a medium-hot bed of coals on your backyard grill), and cook burgers over heat 3 to 4 minutes on first side. Burger may puff up due to steam from melting cheese. This is normal.

6. Flip, and using toothpick, prick top of burger to allow for steam escape. Allow burger to cook 3 to 4 minutes on this side.

7. Remove patties from pan or grill. Bun 'em up. Slap some condiments on, and dig in.

When indulging in a Jucy Lucy, I like to dial back the beer selection to something a little more old-school, like a High-Life, a Grain Belt or a PBR. To each their own here. Maybe mix in some grilled potato wedges, a can of baked beans, some Old Dutch Rip-L Chips and you're set.

Enjoy the weekend.

My apologies to E-6 and Matt's Bar for misspelling Jucy Lucy. The error has been corrected.