The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: My Kingdom for a Clutch Hit

Games like today’s are all too familiar to many Twins fans, especially those who paid attention at the end of last year. The old adage “Get‘em on, get ‘em over, get ‘em in” reads like a checklist for the Twins offense.

Sometimes they struggle to even get runners on base. Today: check.

Sometimes they run themselves into outs, or hit into a lot of DPs, keeping runners out ofscoring position. Today: Just fine, check.

Sometimes they cannot seem to get that single timely hit, and end up stranding runners nearly every inning. Today: aha, we have our problem.

The Twins left a total of 10 runners on, several in scoring position. They just needed that one hit to get them back in the game, but they just couldn’t seem to get it. Delmon Young, Denard Span and Joe Mauer all had key opportunities with 2 outs to punch a run across, but no one could find the space.

Only Justin Morneau could break through, hitting a home run off of Royal’s reliever Ron Mahay, cutting the lead to 1, but that’s all the more theTwins could muster.

Boof Bonser pitched much better this time out than he did against the Angels, earning a QS (Quality Start) and generally keeping things close. He wasn’t steller, though he pitched well out of the trouble he made for himself. It then was only a question of when the trouble would bite him.

The second inning was by far his roughest inning and it could have been worse. He opened the inning by giving up a single, a double, and then a 2-run single off the bat of Alex Gordon. Gordon was thrown out at second on a nice play from Delmon Young, which helped Bonser by leaving the bases totally empty.

Gordon did the damage again in the 7th by leading off the inning with a double and moving to third on a Balk. He scored two batters later on a single by John Buck.

Bret Tomko and the rest of the KC staff was far from dominating. Tomko surrendered 7 baserunners in his 5 innings of work, but no runs. 6 Twins combined for 8 hits, including 2 doubles and Morneau’s home run, but the lack of a clutch hit doomed the team.

The Twins lost despite out hitting and out pitching the Royals, which is the worst way to lose.

The Good: Matt Tolbert, 2-4, 2B.

Tolbert has played well so far, much better than most expected. The better he plays, the less we see of Nick Punto and that’s probably for the best.

The Bad: Boof Bonser, 7IP, 8H, 3ER, 4Ks, QS.

Not a terrible day but the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Bonser put the lead off man on nearly every other inning, he also gave up 4 XBHs, 2 to Billy Butler, who went 3-4.

The Ugly: Anyone hitting with RISP (Runners In Scoring Position). More specifically, Delmon Young and Jason Kubel, collectively 1-8 with 4 Ks.

Yes, Kubel was robbed of extra bases by Joey Gathright, but 1-8 with 4Ks is an ugly day for the 5 and 6 hitters. Perhaps if they were David Ortiz and Adam Dunn they get a pass, but neither guy is looking like a 40-HR threat at this point. Until that happens, both need to be putting a ton of balls in play.