LaVell Neal, who covers the Twins for the Star Tribune, comments on the state of Minnesota Twins after All-Star Break. The team has lost eight games in a row and Manager Ron Gardenhire has his work cut out for him.
The Twins made it to the American League Championship Series last year with a young up-and-coming team and this year’s first half season woes are a huge disappointment.
SPEAKER 1: What a manager wants to see is his players take responsibility for what's going on and make the necessary adjustments and go on from there. A manager can do only so much.
In this case, Gardenhire is in a tough situation because he needs to be a little more out front with his players. He needs to either be very positive and very supportive, or he needs to be very demanding. So he's really stuck in the middle in how to go about doing this, but it's clear that something has to be done. The Twins still have a bunch of players who are 25, 26, 27 years old and still struggling with success for the first time.
So Gardenhire is really in a tough spot here because he's going to have to-- he's going to have to try to show a little calmness here and not panic, because that really gets everybody in the clubhouse nervous. At the same time, he does have to lean on them a little bit.
SPEAKER 2: one thing he did too-- did do was bench shortstop Cristian Guzman before the Anaheim series. What's the problem there?
SPEAKER 1: Cristian Guzman is a terrific, talented shortstop. Everybody remembers that he was an All-Star game in 2001, and then he injured his shoulder and has not been the same, seemingly. If you look at Guzman in 2003 compared to the 2001, then you see a player who seems not to hustle as much as he did two years ago. It seems like he's just short a lot of ground balls that he used to catch in 2001. He certainly is not hitting the ball like a lot of people expected him to do.
And in order to light a fire under Guzman, the club has decided to do this. This has been building for quite some time here. They were disappointed in how he started the season in the number two spot in the batting order, and recently it dropped him down to number 8 and hoping that he would wake up. But he hasn't wakened up. So that's issue to Twins fans, we've got the monitor here, because Guzman is a very talented player.
SPEAKER 2: Some people have to ask, well, how about a possible trade? What do you think will happen there, if anything?
SPEAKER 1: Well, the Twins have a lot of money wrapped up in their starting rotation. Frankie is making $8 million. Rick Reed is making $8 million. Jermaine, I believe, is making like three or four. Kenny Rogers will make it $2 million. And they've already demoted Mase from the starting rotation. It would be hard for them to continue to tinker with their rotation, unless they just flat out traded somebody.
They need to bring in a veteran offensive player who can come in, take good at bats, and take the pressure off the rest of the batting order. Because a lot of guys are putting pressure on themselves to hit three run homers or eight run homers, or do something superhuman, which they really can't do.
So they're really looking for a professional hitter right now. And it's going to be tough, because a lot of players have been traded recently, most notably Jeromy Burnitz, a player who the Twins did like, was traded from the Mets to the Dodgers yesterday.
SPEAKER 2: So do you see a trade or not?
SPEAKER 1: I think that the Twins will be active before the deadline on July 31. I think they'll try to package some prospects to a team and bring in a quality hitter.
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