Dear Twins, Why are you so frustrating?

After watching Boof start the game with his all too familiar first inning "shenanigans" I actually started to miss the Radke days of giving up just one first inning home run to start the game. Much of what I am about to say ties directly to what both BG and Howard Sinker have recently posted but here goes.

1. In Boof I have no trust -
I texted a friend who attends 20 + games a year if he has ever seen a 'Bonser' jersey in the stands. He said they do sell "Boof" t-shirts at Nick's Sports World. Who owns one of them? I'm guessing a couple girls from the Apple Valley area who think he's hot. His line from last night was the all too familiar: 6 innings, 5 hits, 5 runs (all earned), 1 HR (a grand salami), 3k's, 3 walks, for an ERA of 7.5 and WHIP of 1.33. If you're scoring at home put a check mark in the "sucks" column next to his name. We've discussed Bonser earlier on this blog where we made some excuses for him in our hopes that with a shaky rotation he was a solid #3 guy. He makes me miss Silva. Last night's loss drops him to 2 and 5 on the year with a 5.37 ERA. When Baker and Liriano (hopefully) come back does Boof get an apartment in Rochester?

2. Can someone play a little defense please?
The Twins were once a squad that was solid on fundamentals, made the right throws, and played the game "the right way" (whatever that means.) The Twinkies have committed 28 errors, tied for 8th overall in MLB and 4th in the AL, our Defense Efficiency Rate (divide the total number of hits in play allowed by the total number of defensive opportunities hit into play - I love baseball stats) is .7031 and 21st in MLB - does this remotely smell like a Twins team? Every game seems to increasingly have some knucklehead move, like last night when Crain had Rolen dead-to-rights and biffed the play allowing a costly run. For some reason I give Go-Go a little more leeway in the field because he looks like he is playing hard, but guys like Delmon, despite his great arm, need to step it up.

3. Plug and play is no longer working
I get it, we've got a lot of injuries - to our rotation & our defense - but in years past Gardy would pick up the phone, call Rochester and whoever answered the call would "answer the call." I like Tolbert a lot but the Fort Myers Miracle are missing a short stop and his name is Alexi Casilla (0-3 with 2k's last night); when are those open tryouts again? I miss Nick Punto.

Other quick notes -
While I'm not one to argue balls and strikes, wait a second, that's not true, I am one to argue balls and strikes. Last night's game was a joke. Sinker's blog touched on this, Brian Runge the home plate ump was brutal. Morneau struck out looking on a ball that was 3 inches off the plate, how about a little respect for the eye of an MVP? And Nathan threw a belly button high strike that was inexplicably called a ball. I kept waiting for Gardy to get his ejection, I get it you can't argue balls and strikes but seriously.

Did I mention that I hate Alexi Casilla?

Right now, this is a .500 ball club. Nothing more, maybe less.

Oh yeah, day game today, get Gamecast fired up.