It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
- G.S. Patton -
Just a momentary reminder of what today is. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
There's already been a lot of news following this afternoon's loss to the Tigers, so I wanted to wrap it all up here since none of the items would give me enough for an individual post. We'll touch on a couple of injuries and the bullpen. Oh, and an update on the umpires blowing the call today and not accepting responsibility. We'll hit that first, actually.
Wrong Call
I'll push two Tweets from Joe C. together:
3B ump Gary Darling said he had fan interference on guy in orange shirt and umps felt Peralta would have scored. Twins thought it should have been called a ground-rule double, and if it was fan interference, they felt Peralta wouldn't have scored.
Of course Darling's interpretation of events just isn't accurate. Either it's a ground-rule double or it's not, and if it's not the ball is dead. And it really wasn't even close here: Peralta was, at most, three steps around second base. And it's not like he's Austin Jackson. Peralta could have tried to score, but I very much doubt he would have made it.
Umpires make mistakes. They're human. And until baseball finds a way to work in replays or a call to an official review booth, nothing will change that. I don't blame them for making mistakes. I blame them for being able to see and review the evidence after the game, and still refusing to accept accountability. If you're following Joe on Twitter, you'll also now see that the umpire saw the second interference (guy in orange shirt) reach onto the field of play. Which, of course, wouldn't even matter if he did because he didn't touch the ball after it bounced off him (or, perhaps, off his kid).
But, one more time: it's the baseball gods. I'm running with that the rest of the year.
Jason Kubel
Kubel is having a boot fitted, and will be re-evaluated tomorrow. Hopefully he just misses a couple of games, but if this becomes something even moderately serious I'm sure we'll see him on the disabled list. Which would precipitate the return of Ben Revere, who hit his first home run of the season today for Rochester.
Our best hitter now hurt, too? Baseball gods.
Francisco Liriano Down
As expected, Liriano is hitting the disabled list after reporting pain during his bullpen session. Baseball gods?
Baseball gods.
It means that Anthony Swarzak will continue to start in Liriano's spot in the rotation, which means we'll see him go on Thursday. I still want to go back and look at Swarzak's start. Hopefully I can get to that this week.
Anthony Slama Up
I think a few of us have been waiting for this to happen for some time. Slama has a 3.70 ERA in 24.1 innings for the Red Wings this year, having struck out 24 while walking 11 and allowing just 19 hits. He has nothing left to prove in the minors, and the Twins could really use a shot in the collective arm of the bullpen.
If you're wondering, and I wouldn't blame you, your current Twins bullpen is: Matt Capps, Jose Mijares, Alex Burnett, Phil Dumatrait, Jim Hoey, Chuck James, and Slama.