Twins stuff

A couple quick Twins' related notes following the 27-2 stomping at the hands of the Tigers.

- Was in the car and heard Henry Lake and some dude discussing who was the better pitcher, Johan Santana or Nick Blackburn, based on Blackburn's 3.55 ERA vs. Santana's 3.36. Well, first off, Santana's ERA is better, so I don't understand where this discussion is coming from. Secondly, although I get the whole thing like how this is a homer rationalization thing to make the loss of Santana feel better, but stop being so stupid. Nobody should be allowed to talk about the Twins on that station because they are all idiots. I'm going to start my own show. For the record

ERA: 3.36 to 3.55, Santana
WHIP: 1.18 to 1.41, Santana
OAVG: .253 to .304, Santana
K/9: 7.8 to 4.8, Santana
Wins: 5 to 4, Santana
BB/9: 1.6 to 2.0, Blackburn
HR/9: 0.57 to 1.48, Blackburn

Not really even close to being close.

- If you were like me yesterday, you were like, "Who the hell are Howie Clark and Matt Macri?" So I looked.

Clark was drafted in 1992 by the Orioles (yes, 1992) and took ten years in the minors before getting his first call up by the O's. Since then he's bounced around in the O's and Blue Jays systems, spending the majority of his time in the minors with a call up here and there, topping out with 115 ABs in 2004 with the Jays. He was signed to a minor league deal by the Twins this offseason, and was cited in the Mitchell Report as a steroid user. So the Twins called up a 33 year old career minor leaguer who could only muster a career minor league OPS of .761 while on Steroids. Even better, he's the dude who let a popup drop last season after A-Rod yelled "Mine" while running the bases. The Twins are clearly moving in the right direction. At least his middle name is Roddy.

Last night was Macri's debut after coming over from the Rockies last season. He was the dude the Twins picked up for Ramon Oriz, so any production out of him would be a bonus. He was originally a fifth round draft pick, so he has some potential, and was a pretty solid minor league bat in his five minor league seasons, usually hitting close to .300 with a good batting eye and some decent pop. I'm much more optimistic about his chances as the utility infielder than Punto's.