Mauer to the DL

It hasn't been made officially official yet, but it's as close as it can be -- Joe Mauer is headed to the Disabled List with a strained left quad, further depleting an offense that has been unable to put much of anything significant together. Chris Heintz will be rejoining the Twins, and should get a chance to start a few games while he's up. The Twins have to hope that Mauer recovers quickly and is able to return to the lineup when his 15 day are up, because removing him from the lineup (even in place of Redmond, who at least last year hit for a decent average) makes the Twins a significantly worse team.

The really interesting question will be what Gardy does with the lineup once Cuddyer comes back in (and all signs are that that will be on Tuesday). Torii Hunter fits in that 3rd spot well, in my opinion, and I would like to Justin Morneau slot into the cleanup spot, Michael Cuddyer in the five hole, and Jason Kubel in the 6 in order to give a solid R-L-R-L attack. Also, Morneau has been struggling -- so why not give him the protection of having Cuddyer hitting behind him? This makes a lot more sense to me than going R-R-L-L -- but we'll have to see what the Twins end up thinking.

Incidentally, while there's never a good time to lose a player like Mauer to the DL, this might be the worst possible time -- the Twins have a horrific schedule in May, and this is going to make it just that much harder to sneak by with a few good wins. It could be a long couple of weeks, with the Twins needing to rely even more than normal on their pitching.