Official Twins Road trip Game Thread.

[porterhouse]

Who is Cuddy?

[Scott K]

Who is Cuddy?

Cuddy is the one you all will be crying for when one of our outfielders get injured or goes into a slump!

[SledNeck]

Id cry for Kubel first

[Wookiee]

I agree.

[Gary Crichton]

Kubel is a streak hitter with good defense.

Gomez has good defense, but is having a real struggle at the plate. Way to many strikeouts.

Young is still up in the air. His defense is slowly and I mean slowly coming around. Some good plays, but a Flyball to left and if he has to move, it scares me. His offense is fair as I think he should take a few more pitches and quit swinging at the first pitch.

Span has been solid since coming up. Great offense and good range in the field.

Cuddy has already shown what he can do. Again another streak hitter, but his arm is # 1 quality. I would not try to run on him.

Just my .02 worth.

I am still sticking with a 9-5 road trip

G.C.

[UdeLakeTom]

Other than Cuddy being hurt, why do supposed fans pick on him so much?? He will not be a hall of famer, but he is an above average servicable outfielder. I must be watching different ballgames then some of the rest of you.

And the glass is 3/4 full at this time.

[Jim Uran]

Lets think positive 9-5 on this road trip.

Leechbait you gave up early....You realize it is a no win situation huh.

G.C.

Definitely a no win situation believe me. But I respect a good argument. I'm paying the price this morning for staying up and watching that good game last night.

As for tonight.... GO DEVIL RAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Gary Crichton]

Leechbait you are correct, a no win situation. It has been a sore spot with me for quite a while, and I do have a tough time letting it be.

dude Lake Tom, Cuddy is a middle of the road guy, but the chemistry with the club is great and leadership in the clubhouse is a key factor, that not many people see. We could have a lot less of a player in his place.

After watching a few players play half a$$, I am happy the Twins are always playing hard and always give good efforts.

G.C.

[SledNeck]

Young is better now than Cuddy at the plate. In 5 years he will be WAYYYYY better.

[colonel42]

Punto with another awesome game!!! To bad he is so under rated. He plays ball like he enjoys playing ball not like some who are so deep into playing for the money. Twins pitching was great. Nice to see the bullpen come in and have confidence to out dual the big line up of the Angels. One game down!!! Keep it up Twins!!! You know the game was only 2 hrs 30 minutes long until they went into extra innings. Fast pace!! and entertaining.

[Gary Crichton]

I think the Jury is still out on him. He can't handle the breaking stuff. His defense is shakey at best. He will need time, just like everyone else starting out.

G.C.

[Scott K]

A couple game notes from last night, Punto's double, from 1st to second, wow that guy can run!

Young made that late inning pop up look real bad, but he did catch it.

Why did we have so many lefties in the line up? Lefties were batting like 190 against Lacky for the season, and our lefties were swinging at balls that bounced of the plate.

Span is a stud!

[Gary Crichton]

Punto is the Charlie hustle of the Twins. Always a 100% effort.

The statement lefties are hitting 196. That stat doesn't include many Twins stats as we haven't played them but 1 time opening weekend. Our lefties can hit Lefties.

G.C.

[walleyecaber]

There off to a great start lets hope they will keep it together and like i said 10-4 on this road trip could happen just need the pitching we know we got the bats.

[DonBo]

Young is better now than Cuddy at the plate. In 5 years he will be WAYYYYY better.

Not even close. Yet. Did you see him last night, TWICE, strike out on pitches up in his eyes during key at bats? His strike zone is WAY too big right now to take him too seriously at the plate. Cuddy will at least give you good at bats most of the time with a shot at some power. We have not seen much of that from Young yet.

When (if) Cuddy comes back this season it should be at the expense of Go Go.

[PierBridge]

Can't win them all unless you win the first one!....

Nice win, thought we blew it when we didn't score in the 8th.

My 3 stars.

1...Baker

2...Guerrier

3...Tori Hunter... thanks bud you make that play in a Twins Uni!

Tonight's matchup.

Perkins 10-3 vs Saunders 14-5!

[Cicada]

Take Young's stats and extend them to a full season. We are 78% through the regular season.

.................AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO AVE

Young to date 453 62 129 21 4 7 53 26 78 .285

Young projected 580 79 165 29 5 9 68 33 100 .285

Cuddyer 2006 557 102 158 41 5 24 109 62 130 .284

I chose 2006 becasue it was the first year Cuddyer went to right field and because the whole team hit poorly last year. This year they are in about the same point in the standings as they were in 2006. It is important to have support around you in a lineup. I'd say Cuddyer holds his own in the Twins lineup. Ya, a lot more strikeouts, but a lot more walks, rbi's, homeruns, doubles, and runs scored. There's a lot more to contributing to a team's offense than average and homers.

Defensively, I have no problem with Cuddyer in right field. He handles the baggie well and has a gun for an arm. How many guys lose a base because they know it would be a bad idea to challenge his arm? If I remember correctly, his only errors this year werre when they had him giving Morneau a day off at first base. Young is a little shaky too, but he is in a new postion too, I believe. The ball off the top of Cuddyer's head keeps coming up like it is the norm. Ok, it was a low line drive. Could it have been in the lights? Could it have been knuckling? We don't know and if you say that you do know, I will call you a liar. What is always failed to be mentioned when it comes up is that he DID CATCH THE BALL. So what is the problem.

The other thing Cuddyer brings to this team is veteran leadership. He is not just some dumb jock that shoots his mouth off. He leads by his examples on the field, in the clubhouse, and in the community. More teams need players that can contribute in so many ways.

And with that, I have to get back to work, so here endeth the lesson.

[PierBridge]

Lets face it the Anti-Cuddy crowd doesn't want to hear this stuff.....

[UdeLakeTom]

Nice Pier!!!!ROFLMAO!!!!!

You hit the nail right on.

[Jim Uran]

I agree with cicada we are a better team with in the lineup.

[fishyguy]

Lets not forget these stats either....

OBP% Slg%

.344 .442 Cuddy

.323 .410 Young

Those are career stats. The OBP really shows why Young needs to learn have more professional AB's. On a team like the Twins that rely on stringing hits together, moving runners over and playing small ball OBP is more important that batting average. I would rather have guy bat .270 but gets on base at a .340 clip than a guy batting .290 and getting on base at a .320 clip. Cuddyer walked 64 times in 547 AB last year. Young walked 26 times in 645 ABs.

This isn't to say that Young won't outdo these someday but it is why Cuddy should get back in the lineup when he is healthy. By the way, Kubel's #'s are .325 and .444. Both will offer more protection to Morneau than Young will ever dream about without changing his approach.

[soldoncass]

Now there are some Cuddy coments that MAKE SENSE.

Some of the comments I've read before haven't been to "brilliant", or followed the common sense, analysis.

The one time I saw Cuddy have the ball bounce out of his glove, hit on top of his head, and then he didn't panic... just caught it on the rebound. Using that one incident to analyse his abilities, and get rid of him..... would be like not taking another person fishing anymore, because they lost a fish once. (GET OUT OF MY BOAT)

Several good , sensible comments on here lately..... good refreshing change from some of the past "bashing" I've read. Great job!

[Scott K]

Soldoncass, us glass half full guys just need to post more and defend our team from the non fans!

[Scott K]

This series is looking good so far!

[SledNeck]

Originally Posted By: SledNeck

Young is better now than Cuddy at the plate. In 5 years he will be WAYYYYY better.

Not even close. Yet. Did you see him last night, TWICE, strike out on pitches up in his eyes during key at bats? His strike zone is WAY too big right now to take him too seriously at the plate. Cuddy will at least give you good at bats most of the time with a shot at some power. We have not seen much of that from Young yet.

Twins are a better team with Young and Span in the line-up.

Cuddy is not durable enough to play a full season anymore. The injuries are adding up.