Mauled Again

It's cold and dreary in Minneapolis, and today's 6-4 loss to the Tigers has not exactly helped to improve my mood. Brad Radke has been lousy this season, there's no two ways about it. I'm really getting fed up with his ridiculous first inning woes. Today, he got ripped for 3 runs on two homers in the first inning. It's all well and good that the guy is able to pull it together and pitch well usually for the rest of the game, but he's been getting clobbered in the first inning for his entire career. To me, when you're being paid this much money and when you have been playing this long, you have got to make some kind of adjustment to learn how to get out of the first inning without giving up 2-3 runs. Although he settled down after the first inning today, he still pitched what I would call a bad game overall, allowing 11 hits in 6.1 innings and allowing 4 earned runs. He is now boasting a bloated 5.08 ERA and has allowed an MLB-most seven home runs in 33 innings. Still, the Twins could've won the game if not for the two-headed middle relief monster of Juan Rincon and JC Romero. The guys were invincible the first two weeks of the season, but are suddenly starting to look very mistake-prone, a bad trait in a reliever. In a game last week, both of them had balks. Today, Rincon sent a pickoff throw to second sailing into center-field, moving two runners into scoring position.

Outside of Justin Morneau, this team simply can't drive in runs. It's embarrassing. Morneau had 3 RBI, while Michael Cuddyer continued with his abysmal play, going 0-4 to lower his average to .203 on the year and leaving four men on base in the process. This guy should not be starting in the Major Leagues, plain and simple. How long will it take the Twins to wake up and realize this?

The White Sox are sizzling and the Twins are fizzling. Hopefully we can get things turned around in our upcoming three game series in Kansas City, which starts tomorrow night with a pitching rematch of last Wednesday's game at the Dome as Johan Santana faces off against Jose Lima.