Vikings Message Board.Com

purple guy wrote:Well, now we are behind Detroit and the Sox in the division. Impressive 3 weeks we have had lately. Trading for a guy like Cliff Lee wont really even help enough to matter IMO. Guardy is absolutely terrible. No lead is safe with our pitching. Frustrating. Guardy can never put a complete season together, we are either 6-10 games back at the break and come out on fire and catch up, or this season we had as much as a 4.5 game lead, only to squander it away in a couple weeks. He is not a good manager.

During the game last night when Gurrieur gave up the long double to the Toronto player, they said the batter had been sitting on fastballs all night. SO WHY DO YOU THROW HIM A FASTBALL RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE???

Christ Almighty.

Baker is looking GOOD tonight huh? WTF, this team is so frustrating.

purple guy wrote:Baker is looking GOOD tonight huh? WTF, this team is so frustrating.

It almost looks lik they need Lee AND Oswalt. They starters have been exposed. The bullpen is worn out. If Morneau or Mauer or Cuddyer sit, they can't hit or score.

I was one who believed Lee (or Oswalt) alone would make the difference. I do not believe that now, unless they could do a better job of coaching the current starters than the brilliant a-holes that are there now.

And why is Scott Baker pitching with Tendinitis? DUH... Don't try top be a hero, moron, you are hurting your team!!!

And now it sounds like the Yanks will get Cliff Lee. I wonder if we sill still go after Oswalt?

PurpleMustReign wrote:And now it sounds like the Yanks will get Cliff Lee. I wonder if we sill still go after Oswalt?

D a m n them! The Evil Empire does not need any more of the best players in the league. They need to learn to share.



Dawn

I dont think it would matter if we traded for Cliff Lee or not, unless he can start every other day, our starting rotation would still blow. We'll just have to score 5-8 runs per game to be able to eek out wins. Might get us to .500 for the regular season but will get us swept if we were to make the playoffs, which we wont. Im betting on the Sox winning the division and the wild card will be who ever finished second to the Yanks. IMO, our entire coaching staff needs to be gone.

Update, Cliff Lee was dealt to TEXAS?! Wow, the Rangers are looking like a team on a mission. I'm kinda jealous of them

Thank god the Yanks did not get Cliff Lee. That would of been some B.S.

Unbelievable.

I think we need the AL All Star pitching rotation to do anything. Im officially done watching until they do SOMETHING to attempt to get better. Fire Guardy, bring up some kids from the minors, trade for an actual MLB pitcher, something.

purple guy wrote:I think we need the AL All Star pitching rotation to do anything. Im officially done watching until they do SOMETHING to attempt to get better. Fire Guardy, bring up some kids from the minors, trade for an actual MLB pitcher, something.

Exactly, we have some pitchers in the minors, let's call them up and see wht they can do. They can't do a whole lot worse than what Baker Slowey have done lately.

the pitching started very mediocre and has since regressed to pretty awful. something has to give. pavano has our best era and even his is 3.58. lirianos is worse and baker and slowey are flirting with an era of 5! and don't even get me started on blackburn as last time i looked he was sitting around an era of 6. this is certainly not a rotation that is going to win us games in the playoffs. hell, this may be a rotation that throws us right out of the playoffs. although i will disagree with one poster calling for gardenhire to be fired. that guy manages his butt off and i'm always amazed at the style of ball we play despite lackluster pitching. i'm just hoping morneau gets healthy and the all star break is just the rest our rotation needs to get something going. i'd be lying if i said i was overly optimistic right now but i'll still watch every game...afterall, i'm a fan of minnesota sports. this is nothing i'm not used to.

vikeinmontana wrote:the pitching started very mediocre and has since regressed to pretty awful. something has to give. pavano has our best era and even his is 3.58. lirianos is worse and baker and slowey are flirting with an era of 5! and don't even get me started on blackburn as last time i looked he was sitting around an era of 6. this is certainly not a rotation that is going to win us games in the playoffs. hell, this may be a rotation that throws us right out of the playoffs. although i will disagree with one poster calling for gardenhire to be fired. that guy manages his butt off and i'm always amazed at the style of ball we play despite lackluster pitching. i'm just hoping morneau gets healthy and the all star break is just the rest our rotation needs to get something going. i'd be lying if i said i was overly optimistic right now but i'll still watch every game...afterall, i'm a fan of minnesota sports. this is nothing i'm not used to.

I'm a big Gardy fan, but I think he's had a terrible year. It's not just players that can stink up a season; managers can too. He continues to throw out guys like Blackburn for reasons that are beyond me (another "quality" start today, giving up 7 in 4, but at least he lasted more than twice as long as Liriano did last night). Earlier in the year, Gardy was inexplicably in love with the Buck Seventy Harris.

Ideally, Gardy would get a sabbatical and not fired, but it obviously doesn't work that way in sports. Right now, if I didn't know better, I'd swear that this franchise had no farm system at all.

vikeinmontana wrote:the pitching started very mediocre and has since regressed to pretty awful. something has to give. pavano has our best era and even his is 3.58. lirianos is worse and baker and slowey are flirting with an era of 5! and don't even get me started on blackburn as last time i looked he was sitting around an era of 6. this is certainly not a rotation that is going to win us games in the playoffs. hell, this may be a rotation that throws us right out of the playoffs. although i will disagree with one poster calling for gardenhire to be fired. that guy manages his butt off and i'm always amazed at the style of ball we play despite lackluster pitching. i'm just hoping morneau gets healthy and the all star break is just the rest our rotation needs to get something going. i'd be lying if i said i was overly optimistic right now but i'll still watch every game...afterall, i'm a fan of minnesota sports. this is nothing i'm not used to.

Gardenhire does have to go. So does Rick Anderson. Gardenhire's managing has cost us many games (the most recent example is the game against TB last weekend) because of his fear of pitching over (GASP) 100 pitches. There has never been any proof, nor any legitimate study done, that proves that 100 pitches is some sort of magic number. Liriano had TB on its heels, they were swinging wildly at pitches in the dirt, and more importatly, the Twins were winning 4-1. Then, Gardenhire in his infinite wisdom, took him out for an overused rookie (who has, admittedly pitched very well) and the first 3 batters crushed the ball. Then, he brings in a pitcher who, before the game, he was quoted as saying he wanted to gove one or two more games of rest because he was overused as well. Well lo and behold, a .178 hitter with 13 career HRs hits a grand slam to the deepest part of the ball park to put the Twins in a 8-4 hole. Had he left Liriano in, chances are the Twins would have won and split the very important series against probably the most comp[lete team in the AL.

Now, just about every game of this road trip thus far, his brilliant starters have given up at least 1 run in the first inning. Usually 2.
They need an entirely different rotation. I have faith in Liriano and Pavano, because the other three in the rotation are all the same, they are all Brad Radke's, only they can't hold Radke's jock right now. And that is frightening. Other teams have figures one out, and therefore all three (Baker, Slowey, Blackburn) and other teams only have to worry about scouting Liriano and as a result they have figured him out too. They have Swarzak in the minors, among others, that the worst that can happen is they do the same crap that the current rotation is.

Something has to be done, and I am sick of the Twins losing games the same way every day. Oh, and, when the Twins are down 13-3 in the 8th inning, Gardenhire will come out and argue some ticky-tack call and get ejected. That's real mature.