Nightly Notes: Game #57

Sorry folks -- same deal as last night, with me needing to get to bed before the game is actually over. This is going to be a very short post:

1.) Scott Baker wasn't actually that bad in tonight's start, looking very little like the guy who got shelled against the White Sox 6 days ago. Still, he had a pretty flat fastball -- and one of them got nailed by Casey Kotchman into the right field seats. Baker's biggest undoing tonight, however, was the lack of offense that his team gave him, which brings us to . . .

2.) The offense was once again punchless, with the only exception tonight being Torii Hunter's homer. Part of the reason is that the A's and Angels have some pretty darned good pitchers -- but that's not all of it. Unfortunately, a team with Luis Rodriguez and Chris Heintz in the lineup is already going to be offensively challenged -- and Jason Tyner, Jason Bartlett, and Jason Kubel aren't exactly tearing it up either (although Kubel had been a bit better of late). I don't have a solution, except to get through the week and get back to the Dome on Friday, when Joe Mauer should rejoin the team. Hopefully that, along with some home cookin', will spark the offense.

3.) Carmen Cali had a solid 2 batter performance tonight, and with Jason Miller's disastrous outing last night, Cali is probably on the short list to stick around for awhile.

4.) That's all I've got tonight -- sorry about the short post! However, tomorrow (time allowing), I'm going to post a few thoughts on the draft, which comes up on Thursday. I'm not going to make any predictions or anything -- from what I've heard this year, that's a fool's errand -- but I will be discussing a bit about what kinds of players I think the Twins should go after in the first few rounds. Also, sometime in the next week I'd like to talk about the future of the Twins free agent players, since it's now June and we're less than 2 months away from decision time on whether to trade players like Luis Castillo and Torii Hunter. Finally, I'd also still like to do an All-Star vote analysis. These are things that I want to do -- whether I'll get the time is another story. Here's hoping!