The easiest and most obvious reaction to last nights loss against the Yankees is to blame Sidney Ponson for a poor pitching performance. If you looked only at the box score, Ponson would look horrible. How could you not be upset when you see numbers like:
8 runs, 10 hits, 3 walks, 2 strikeouts all in only 5.2. innings pitched.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I wish that he would have fared better. He didn’t do well but I think that his numbers were somewhat skewed (especially his runs and hits). During the first two innings he gave up 5 runs (3 runs could have been prevented and 3 of the hits were “gifts” from the Baseball Gods…). The bottom line is this: The Twins (as a team) came out flat last night. They made horrible mistakes on the basepaths. They made errors in the field. They didn’t hit Carl Pavano (who hasn’t won a game in over a year).
Many of the usual sports radio hosts around town are ripping Ponson and calling for Garza from Triple-A. While that might be the eventual move, I think that judging a player based on one outing (when the rest of your team stunk) isn’t exactly a good reason to make a change.
2 comments so far
So are you saying it’s better to wait till Ponson has four or five bad starts before pulling the plug? My fear is that he’ll pitch well against Tampa Bay this weekend and earn himself another month here, no matter how bad he gets. It’s better to bring Garza up now if he’s going to end up here in a month anyway.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, since Gardenhire has proven himself to be the Marty Schottenheimer of baseball — great regular season coach, clueless about how to coach in the playoffs.
I understand what you are saying… The problem with brining up Garza is simple: Playing Time.
If Ponson continues to pitch poorly he will soon be the 5th starter in the rotation (where as now he’s 4). Right now, Gardy could bring up Garza and drop Ponson. The problem is that Garza would be the 5th guy in the rotation and he would get few starts since there are many times during the season that his start would be skipped.
If Garza (who has great talent) sticks around in AAA, he’ll get a ton of experience that he desperately needs. Remember that this guy started in “A” ball last year and really hasn’t even seen much action.
In my opinion, i’d rather have Garza develop into a better pitcher by actually getting to pitch than to pull the plug on Ponson just because he had a bad night.
In retrospect, he did better than Boof so maybe that game is not a good indicator of talent.
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