This has already been mentioned, but I figured this deserved its own post. Twins announced that Justin Morneau is done for the season after a fracture in his back was discovered. Apparently, he's been hurting for about a month, which goes a long ways to explaining his second-half collapse. Add in his inner ear infection and he hasn't been healthy since July.
This begs the question as to why he hasn't had more days off? Gardy has gone out of his way to make sure Mauer gets his days off even though Mauer has been healthy, or at least as healthy as a starting catcher is going to be this time of year. And yet, Morneau has not been healthy for six weeks and except for a few days when going to see an ear-nose-throat doctor, Morneau has been playing every day.
Gardy is a great players' manager, but he needs to exert more authority and sit guys when they need it. Especially when they're sucking as bad as Morneau has been. Gardy has been complaining about finding playing time for his outfielders. How about play Cuddyer at first and then you can keep Gomez in center?
Another thing that has me going hmmm is this quote:
"It's one of those things it was nagging for a while, and I just wanted to go in and see if it was anything different from last year,'' Morneau said. "I guess it was.''
So, it sounds like Morneau's back was hurting last year as well. I remember Gardy referring to Morneau's legs bothering him, but not anything about his back.
This injury is not good news for this season, but hopefully Morneau will recover completely and then maybe Gardy will realize he needs to be careful with Morneau and give him an occasional day off. Unfortunately, we may not be too far away from Morneau becoming a full-time DH, which would make his contract a lot less pallatible.
At least Morneau won't be playing more than a handful of games on turf anymore. That should help, even though I think the effects of the FieldTurf has been overstated somewhat.
although he said he'd been hurting for some time....
Punto should summarily be taken to the bowels of the Dome and put in front of a firing squad.
Although even without Punto, I think Morneau might have slid on that--he was definitely avoiding a tag and not just trying to get to the base quickly.
I didn't see it, so can't comment on the actual play. But I do agree with moss's sentiment whether Morneau slid or not.
True, Moss was sayin' that irrespective of Morneau's slide...
Strib Giy's caps lock key broke?
At least he went 0-7. Maybe there is some semblance of sense at the Strib website.
Will the media drop the pretenses finally, and concede that the Twins are done?
This does provide the media with a convenient "If only..." so as not to appear to be giving up, but rather a victim of circumstances.
I had noticed that his last (precious few) HRs didn't have the helicopter follow-through.
In some alternate universe, II is punching Punto again.
This begs the question as to why he hasn't had more days off?
Maybe because the line up only has a total of 5 legitimate MLB bats when he does play. Maybe because when he does take a day off we have to start both Gomez and Young. Mauer plays a position much more demanding physically and mentally. First base? Not really a demanding position. I don't feel he was handled improperly. He was DH'd enough to rest him IMO. We have plenty of other reasons to be fire up about Gardy.
Since Aug. 16, Morneau had a .429 OPS. Delmon in that same time has a .739 OPS. How is giving Morneau a day off vs. a lefty in favor of Delmon hurting the team? Morneau hasn't been a legitimate bat for a while now and it was obvious he needed to take a break now and then. I'm not saying getting a day off here or there would have prevented the injury, but it could have helped the Twins get a little more offense. Plus, with Morneau on the bench, you have a real big bat that you could use at any time. Worked great last night with Kubel.
Yeah, running Morneau so far into the ground that he is extremely sub-replacement-level by August is a lot worse than having a day every other week where a right-handed hitter gets a start against a lefty pitcher.
Consider, for instance:
.261/.308/.450 -- Justin Morneau, career vs. LHP
.305/.336/.461 -- Delmon Young, career vs. LHP
And that's even without considering the 20% hit that Morneau's overall numbers typically take in August and September.
I understand your line of thinking, if he is being ineffective, yes, sit him down. I am hearing a lot of people question putting him in the line up daily all year. Up until his recent slump, I saw no need to rest him, other than the occasional DH duty. He hasn't logged an unreasonable amount of innings in the field compared to other elite first baseman in the American League. I thought Gardy did start resting more often once he started to slip.
The big question is our training staff. How many times now have we seen production slip significantly, and seemingly weeks later we find out an injury was the cause. Is there any communication in the clubhouse, or is the ghost of Torii slowing our players from reporting injury?
Lastly, I didn't realize there was so much love for Delmon at the WGOM. :)
So, with this comment, I just realized that we won yesterday's game. I turned it off when Mahay came on and I just didn't check it again. Looks like I missed a good comeback.
I don't know much about these things, but a fracture in your back sounds like it would be very painful. I don't know how long he's had it, but it's kind of amazing to me that he's been able to play at all.
Torii must be so proud that his lessons have been learned.
'
But obviously his slump last year was just a mental block and nothing physical. [/nickbait]
The real problem is that Morneau just can't handle the weight on his shoulders of being an MVP candidate.