Thursday, September 29, 2005

Romero's Done

I almost want to say finally or thank god. J.C. Romero is almost certainly done being a Twin and done hurting this team for the rest of the season, although its come far too late. Romero pitch 2/3 of an inning last night, but his usual lack of any control killed his outing, as he hit two Kansas City hitters. The result was, of course, his removal. But as Gardenhire came out of the dugout to get the ball, JC came out the mound himself and gave the ball to Gardy as he stormed away into the dugout, leaving Gardy with his usual glare for unliked players. Of course, the temper tantrum didn't stop there. The television coverage later caught Romero throwing his cap and glove against a wall in the dugout before exiting to the clubhouse. And further reports show the Romero had a shouting match with the usual calm bench coach Steve Little.

"That was wrong. We talked about it," Gardenhire said. "We'll get that straightened out. That's in-house stuff. We all know what happened. You saw it in the dugout. We'll get that taken care of expeditiously. It was unacceptable." That's true, but I'll tell you what this reminds of what is even more unacceptible: that this guy wasn't of this team quicker. He's a known clubhouse cancer who has walked 39 batters, nearly equivalent to his innings pitched, and has allowed 19 of 42 inherited runners to score. He had fluke season in 2002 with the 1.89 ERA and everything still thinks he can be great. Even the Red Sox did. We had a chance to get rid of this guy and Mays and Lohse for some decent veteran hitters and we squandered it. All because we are such "nice guys" in Minnesota. If anything, it exposes the glaring failure of Terry Ryan and his inability to do anything at the trade deadline. It killed the Twins season and now none of these guys have very much value at all. And it shows that, as Lohse and Romero have clearly been bad for the clubhouse, how much the Twins chemistry has lost out and just how much that affected the club. Remember when we had those overachieving Twins, who all came up together in the minors, who had a great time playing? That seems so long ago. Romero clearly isn't helping that picture.

"I guess the whole frustration from the whole year just came out. I'm human," Romero said. "I'm the product of my mistakes." Nope. Your the product of the Twins many mistakes, mainly in deciding to keep you around for far too many years. Hopefully you are still worth spare parts on the market, because I don't know about any other Twins fan, but as sure don't want to see number 33 on the field in a Twins uniform ever again.