Never count out the Twins. But as a franchise, Minnesota is seeing more turbulence these days.
Johan Santana, a free agent after 2008, seemed to draw a line in the sand with his criticism of management for not adding parts before the July 31 trade deadline. He was at it again after the Sept. 3 loss to C.C. Sabathia, this time questioning the effort of some of his teammates.
“[The Indians] are playing good baseball,” Santana said. “They’re comfortable. They’re playing with confidence, and that’s how you win games. If you look around, we don’t have that. We’re going out there, and we’re not giving everything that we have. … We’re supposed to be one of the best teams on fundamentals; we’re not making those [plays].”
Santana took matters into his own hands Sunday, striking out 10 and giving up four hits and one run in a 5-2 victory over the White Sox to improve to 15-11.
Both manager Ron Gardenhire and general manager Terry Ryan were upset about speculation in the Minneapolis-St. Paul papers that Joe Mauer would be moving from catcher to third base in the near future. A return of the leg injuries that dogged him in 2004 and ’05 had limited Mauer to 96 games entering the weekend.
The Star Tribune’s Jim Souhan wrote, “Mauer’s reputation in the clubhouse had taken a hit,” while other teammates played through injuries and he “eased and iced his way back into the lineup.”
Mauer fired back.
“Guys in here know that I play hard and play hurt and play through all sorts of things,” he said. “You know, obviously if I need to switch positions, hopefully that’s later down the road.”
If you love a sleeper
The Colorado Rockies should be your team in September. Among those eight teams we’re saying are still alive, they entered the weekend in the worst shape — in fourth place in the West, five behind Arizona, and in fourth place in the wild-card race, four behind San Diego. But they’re more alive than you would think.
Twenty of the Rockies last 23 games are against the teams they trail — six against San Diego, four against Philadelphia, seven against Los Angeles and three against Arizona (to finish the season).
Colorado took two of three from San Diego over the weekend.
“These are the teams we need to beat,” said right fielder Brad Hawpe, who is climbing out of Larry Walker’s long shadow. “We don’t want to just make the playoffs. We want to keep on winning when we get there.”
Jeff Francis is solid at the front of Colorado’s rotation, but manager Clint Hurdle is having to improvise in three slots, which he’s filling with Ubaldo Jimenez, Franklin Morales and a combination of journeymen Elmer Dessens and Dan Serafini.
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progers@tribune.com
