More Managerial Wisdom

"Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said recently that he would not use a platoon for the club's designated hitter spot. Instead, he would rotate left-handed hitter Jason Kubel and right-handed hitter Craig Monroe based on matchups and other factors."

That quote is from Kelly Theiser ( you may remember her from such references to Johan Santana's phallus as "hardwood - or should I say, hard wood"). Now, I am no scientist, but I'm pretty sure that a platoon in baseball is generally a situation in which two hitters, one right-handed and the other left-handed, share starts depending on who is pitching. So his quote tells me one of two things. Either Kelly Theiser does not know what a platoon is, and she should lose her job as a baseball writer, or Ron Gardenhire does not know what a platoon is, and he should lose his job as Manager. I would be happy with either, or both.

Anyhow, untrue to his word, last night Ron Gardenhire started the elderly, bad at baseball, right-handed Craig Monroe against the right-handed pitcher. Gardenhire justified this decision in a couple of ways.

1) "It was a gut thing."

That's a quote from Gardy. This of course means that Craig Monroe went 0-3 with a strikeout, stranding 3 runners. To be fair, he did hit a ball well and Torii Hunter made a pretty nice catch. Gardenhire's gut might consider that to be a success.

2) "Another reason for the move was that Gardenhire likes the idea of having an extra left-handed bat with power on the bench in Kubel."

That's a quote from Kelly. I find this to be really amazing. Here is a short list of things that are better than having a left-handed bat with power on the bench: having a left-handed bat with power in the starting lineup against a right-handed starting pitcher.

Thankfully, the players and assistant coaches were able to talk Gardy out of going with his gut and starting Mike Redmond at catcher in order to have an extra left-handed bat on the bench in Joe Mauer.