MVN - Most Valuable Network

Mauer and Morneau symbolize Twins’ failures at NY

The Twins were swept by the Yankees Wednesday afternoon. They are now 3-19 at Yankee Stadium since 2002.

There is a reason for this. Their star players failed to perform in a big stage. When Torii Hunter was the Twins’ star, he was horrible. Now, Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer are the Twins’ stars. They have had the task to end the drought at Yankee Stadium.

No mas. Those two never had a great moment there so far, and they were no better in this series.

Don’t blame Ron Gardenhire, Carlos Gomez, Alexi Casilla and the pitchers for what happened in this sweep. Blame it on Mauer and Morneau.

Baseball is no different than any other sport. Superstars need to carry the players on their backs. The Yankees won championships in the late nineties because Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera led the way. The Red Sox have become the new Yankees because of Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. When the Twins won championships in 1987 and 1991, it was the late Kirby Puckett that led the way.

The Twins haven’t had that type of player since Puck retired. Hunter failed at that role, and right now, Mauer and Morneau are not faring better.

This has to change if the Twins want to be a championship team. It shouldn’t be the job of the role players to carry a team. It has to be their stars.

Morneau’s best moment at the Stadium was winning the Home Run Derby. It’s too bad that he could not signify that feat by leading the Twins to a win against the Yankees. He only had 1 hit in that series. That’s just not going to cut it whatsoever especially against the Bronx Bombers.

To be fair to Morneau, his hand has been hurting in recent days, but there’s no guarantee that he was going to do well if his hand was fine. His history at the Bronx has been nothing to write home about prior to this series.

As for Mauer, it was disgusting that he did not even play in Wednesday afternoon’s game. Gardenhire rarely uses Mauer on a day game after a night game. With that said, the Twins are off tomorrow. What exactly is the harm of him not playing today’s game? He could have been the designated hitter on Wednesday.

Mauer should have went up to Gardy’s face and demanded that he played. It’s hard to believe Gardenhire would not change his mind. It shouldn’t be the manager telling a star player when to play or when not to play. A star player should demand to play in big series.

The Twins were coming off losing two games to the Yankees. Shouldn’t Mauer play a role in not having the team get swept? He could have been the desginated hitter

Maybe Mauer may not have done much today, but at least, he would be credited for wanting to play.

As for Mauer’s impact in this series, it was nothing at best. There were too many groundouts. Did he even hit the ball to an outfielder?

One would think that the both of them would learn some lessons against the Yankees by now, but it clearly did not sink in for those two. It just seems that those two are dazed and confused.

How can the rest of the team follow the lead of those two when they struggle in big games? When a superstar does his thing, the rest of the players follow.

Mauer and Morneau have been productive in their time with the Twins, but if they want to validate their reputation as stars, they need to step up in big games at New York and at Boston.

Too often, they fail.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 10:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.