Day Games vs. Night Games

One thing that I think is being looked over is the way Gardy divides playing time. If you look at the team's record on day games compared to night games you will see a big difference. The team is 41-34 in night games compared to 15-27 in day games. If the Twins were just .500 on day games (21-21), they would be tied for first in the division. Yesterday's game was the first time in a long time that the Twins actually fielded a respectable lineup for a day game. Throughout the first half of the season, Gardy continued to trot out a lineup with a combination of these players for day games: Buscher/Redmond/Punto/Gomez/Casilla/Tolbert. Those players have a combined average of .213. For whatever reason, Gardy will not DH Mauer on a night game and have Redmond catch the night game or have Crede sit the night game before the day game. The most obvious situation was a couple weeks back when the Twins faced two left-handed starters in the first two games (night games) in a Cleveland series and then faced Fausto Carmona in the third game (day game). All Gardy would have needed to do is have Mauer DH against the left-hander on the night game and have Redmond catch so that he can face a LHP (which he is hitting .405 against). Sure if the top of the lineup does their job, then the Twins do not need to worry about the bottom. As a player, it is difficult to hit when the bottom 4 or 5 hitters are continuously getting out, and 4 or 5 players need to do all the producing.

For those of you who say what about the pitching staff on day games? Well, obviously Blackburn was awful yesterday, but if you look at his last day game start he went 6.1 IP and gave up 2 R. The rotation has an ERA better on day games (4.67) compared to night games (4.71). It's basically the same on day vs. night games and the biggest difference is the team batting average. The team average on day games is .255 compared to .280 average during night games. It seems pretty cut and dry that the offense is pretty bad on day games due to Gardy putting his "B" team out there and hoping they product. I think that if he would have mixed in guys like Buscher and Redmond during the week, then the offense would not have been so bad on day games. It would be a lot different if the team had Gomez and Punto hitting 8-9 on one night and then Redmond-Punto the next and then Buscher Gomez the next. Instead of having 4-5 automatic outs on the day games, the Twins would just have 1-2 (maybe 3 every once in a while) automatic outs a night. With that said, hopefully Bill Smith can actually do his job this coming offseason and give Gardy some options, so that there are only 1-2 automatic outs on the entire team and actually have a bench to use. All this team needed to do was go .500 on the day games and they would be in first place.