Musings on another late game day

Baseball is a lot like surfing. You catch your wave and ride it, till it breaks at the shore. Successful teams have been able to catch and ride hot streaks from people who would not necessary be in their plans in the beginning of the season. Point in case Buscher and Casilla (and Tolbert earlier) this year with the Twins. Glad to see that Gardenhire has not been making major changes in the lineup this week with Punto up, letting Harris and Buscher who are both swinging hot bats to play. I wouldn't even question benching Young (.343/.395/.429 the last 2 weeks) for Kubel (.342/.395/.658 the last 2 weeks). Wave riding is fine and fun and Gardy seems to be a decent surfer, but sometimes you got to take care of your surfboard too. The situation with Lamb and Monroe has to be resolved. You cannot simply let them rot on the bench. Either use them or trade them. They do have value as pinch hitters, but Gardy has never utilized pinch hitters appropriately in AL games (like e.g. pinch hitting for a light hitting infielder Tolbert/Punto/Harris/Casilla and substituting with another on the field at the next inning.) and he still insists on having an extra light hitting infielder on the bench instead of someone like McDonald or Ruiz who can actually hit the ball out of the park. The team is doing fine and is riding a 7 game wave. Still there are 2 pitchers (Bass and Bonser) who are practically dead weight. That situation has to be resolved also. You can keep one for the blow out games, as the baseball wisdom might suggest, but wouldn't it be better to get a prospect up instead, who can test his stuff at the major league level and actually develop without hurting the outcome of the game more than Boof or Bass? The Rincon booting was a good thing. The previous management team would not have done that. I am glad that Bill Smith did it and I hope that he does a few more small things to keep the team going.

On another note, a current Twin minor leaguer (Ben Revere) and a former Twin (Terry Tiffee) are the only players who are hitting above .400 in professional ball (the young rookie seasons aside.) The Ted Williams watch has started.