Twins finally win
Last night's win pulled the Twins back to within a game of .500, at 8-9. The bats were alive enough to score 5 runs, and it would have been quite a bit more if Cuddyer hadn't struck out with the bases loaded and two outs.
The real story of the game was Blackburn, who went 7 IP and only gave up one run. Jose Morales has been doing a better and better job of calling games behind the plate, and is coming into his own.
“He can hit. We know that,” Manager Ron Gardenhire said. “The catching is something he’s learning, and this is a tough place to learn, but he’s handling himself real nice. He studies the teams. We talked about a couple of situations with lefthanders up there, not giving in and using all your pitches, and he understands that a little bit better.”
I'm always amused that whenever Gardy is asked about Morales, he says "He can hit. We know he can hit." But Ron ... you're comparing him to Joe Mauer, who ... you know ... can really hit.
I'm glad Morales is doing well and I'm happy that he's not a complete black hole in the lineup and I'm thrilled that he's learned enough about the pitchers to guide them through a game. But when Mauer comes back, Morales is out.
For the rest of the year, anyway. Assuming this is Redmond's last season, Morales may be a perfect replacement as backup catcher, continuing the Twins' recent tradition of having the best catching tandem in the league.
* Trying something out with this post, sending it from the Mail client on my Mac. Hopefully the formatting looks good. It looks terrible when I do it from Gmail, so maybe this will be an improvement. We'll see.
