July 14

For the last game of the year CC was going against a rookie who has not done well and we were playing a weak team.  This should be a win.  Instead it turned into a clinic of bad play.  Outside of a popup that should have been an out, a terrible throw by Nunez (I still don’t think he can play SS) and some terrible hitting discipline this became a blow out the wrong way.

I won’t go into the shoddy fielding that led to a 3 run HR that put the game out of reach, but it was some of the lack of discipline at the plate that got us in trouble.  Their rookie pitcher was struggling throwing strikes, but we helped him a lot.  Ichiro leading off has a 3-1 count on him when he swings at a low ball 4 and then hit a fly to CF.  The lack of OBP is extremely troubling.  Then in that first inning Almont gets a single.  After going 3-1 to Cano and missing pretty badly, Cano swings at a 3-1 breaking ball that almost hit him!  So instead of an easy walk, the next pitch on 3-2 they send Almonte and Cano lines to RF for an easy DP to end inning.  Shoot, we should have had bases loaded nobody out and instead Minnesota is getting up.

The 2^nd inning was equally as painful.  After Hafner hit a single on a 2-0 pitch, Vernon Wells swung at 3 straight pitches and struck out.  The last one was a breaking ball well out of the strike zone (the others were strikes I believe).  Overbay works a walk…notice a trend that the pitcher is struggling with strikes?  Nunez took two pitches and had a 1-1 count on him before swinging at a ball and then protecting on an 0-2 count flew out to CF.  He takes the 1-1 pitch and he would have been in the driver’s seat at 2-1.  But with all that, the pitcher still struggling walks Cruz to load the bases.  Stewart didn’t do anything wrong in terms of discipline but he weakly grounded out.

The next inning is when we gave them 3 unearned runs and the game was over.

The real question is what do we do?  Do we trade away players and pack it in or do we just hope the returning players give us a spark, or do we double down on the returning players and then go get a bat?

One thing is for sure, I don’t understand why we have so many right handed relievers in the pen and we have NOBODY pinch hitting for awful hitters late in the game?  That is absurd.  Why do we need so many righties in the pen?   Not having Brennen Boesch or someone else on the roster instead of another righty in the pen is ridiculous.  Makes you wonder why we didn’t keep Eric Chavez?

The other day our lineup had an average OPS of .633…that is the average!  For perspective, Chris Stewart had an OPS of .611 last year and .622 this year.  Or Jayson Nix has a career OPS of .645.  THAT IS A LINEUP OF NOTHING BUT Stewarts and Nix’s!  It is bad enough at the bottom of the lineup but that would be everywhere.  This was it the other day.  2/3 of the lineup with a sub .700 OPS.  YIKES!

Gardner, ..760
Ichiro, ..696
Cano, .915
Wells, .656
Overbay .732
Almonte .676
Cruz: .475
Gonzales .394
Romine .395

Average OPS:  .633

Enjoy the All Star Break and the most worst sporting time of the year (nothing going on)