Thursday, June 5, 2008

Well... I Didn't See That One Coming...

SloweyWTF

For the record, Kevin Slowey is a pitcher (a starting pitcher, at that).

No, that isn't an all too common "Gameday Typo", that is the direct result of carrying THIRTEEN pitchers on your major league roster. Here's the situation.

Mike Redmond (the Twins backup catcher, for the uninitiated) gets a single with one out in the 8th inning. The Twins are down by a run at this point, and Redmond is not known for his blazing speed, so Gardy puts in Kevin Slowey (again... a starting pitcher) as a pinch runner. The fact that Slowey was recently injured doesn't seem to factor into this equation. They pinch hit for Craig Monroe with Jason Kubel. They then pinch hit for Delmon Young with Joe Mauer, who ends the inning without getting the run in. After all is said and done, Kubel takes over in left field, Mauer takes over catching, and Jessie Crain comes in to pitch. Because of the shenanigans, we almost had ANOTHER pitcher batting in an AL game (this coming just a couple weeks after Bobby Korecky had the Twins' first hit by a pitcher in an AL game in, like 30 years).

So, the question I have is this - how many more times do we have to see pitchers roaming the basepaths in American League games before the Twins get fed up and DFA Juan Rincon? We can't keep doing this, it makes games interesting, I'll give it that, but it's not a great way to win a ball game. I thought that the whole reason we kept 3 catchers up last year (a horrible decision, btw) was so that this would never happen.

I'm confused and somewhat horrified. Hopefully this doesn't come up again.

2 comments:

  1. Bronson Arroyo is a regular pinch-runner for the Reds. Especially with Griffey. I've seen other teams do such things before... and why not? Some pitchers have average speed, versus a guy like Mike Redmond, or some other Cecil Fielder-esque runner. Would you rather have Mo Vaughn running 3rd to home or some skinny pitcher? Then again, do pitchers know how to slide? LOL. Who knows!

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  2. so uh, Slowey... 2-4, a double 2 ribis and a run scored. maybe he should Ankiel himself into the outfield...lol..

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