Lament for a Ballclub

With apologies to Michael Ignatieff's uncle. If you get that, you know your academics way too well.

The Mississauga Twins were massacred – absolutely annihilated – by the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight. The third edition of the Battle of the GTA was settled by a score of 22-2, and, well, at this point there is probably a broader story here than the game itself.

Needless to say, I won’t be providing many details of the various – and there were a lot of them – scoring plays. The highlights will go into my game story (I’m behind on three of them – they’ll likely all get done at once on Monday or so; I’ve been overwhelmingly busy with all day driver’s ed for the next three days and a bunch of academic research to do for tomorrow night) but I do want to go over two fairly telling statistics that span the Twins’ past four games. Two of the games were against Toronto; two were against Barrie.

Over the course of those games, the Twins have been outscored by a combined total of 63-18. In eight of their past eighteen innings (so, the Friday night blowout to Barrie and tonight’s blowout to the Leafs) they have given up four or more runs.

Needless to say, if you come within one four-run inning of giving up four runs every other inning (which is what nine over two games would be), you’re having some big problems and you won’t be winning much.

Some people – well, probably not anyone, but let’s just entertain the argument – might try to argue that those games came against the first and third place teams, and that might sort of deflect the 0-4 record, what with the whole expansion franchise thing and everything.

Fact is, a competitive – even a semi-competitive team – isn’t going to lose games like those by margins like that, to anyone. Period.

The outlook for the Twins shifts from a day to day one (‘how do we break this losing streak?’) to an existential one (‘what kind of tem are we, really?’). There are, as far as I can see, four issues/questions that go into sorting this thing out:

i) Were pre-season expectations set too high for an expansion club? I know it’s not an excuse anyone around the club will dare uttering on record, but sometimes reality is reality and an expansion club is an expansion club. Maybe middle of the pack – which was everyone’s overt pre-season goal – is just too much to ask of a first year team in a league where most teams have been together for a long time.

ii) Are the Twins just scuffling right now, and badly? I think this is definitely part of it – there’s just no way I’m sold on the idea that they’re this bad as a group. That said, what has gone on over the past month or so is a lot more than a bit of scuffling. There are deeper-rooted explanations, which, in reality, are likely a mish-mash of everything I’m bringing up, but a self-compounding (but nonetheless natural, happens-to-every-club kind of thing) nasty skid certainly plays a role in what we have been seeing here.

iii) Is the team too young? This extends from points i) and ii), and it’s certainly not a knock on management – young, homegrown talent was the right way to go, and the players they have right now are good enough that once they grow up a bit and play together for a while they will gel and be as good as any other veteran team in the league. But in the context of this specific season and what’s going wrong, their collective youth is something that a lot of people, on and off the record, have mentioned to me, and I think considering the opposing teams and how long some of them have been together – and the veteran make-up of many of them – it is a fair point to raise is assessing what’s currently going wrong.

iv) Is the right personnel in place, and is it being used correctly? This point is perhaps more interconnected with the other 3 than anything else. It’s no secret around the team that there is some disappointment with the players’ attendance and commitment. They haven’t had a full roster in ages, if ever, and tonight they were very, very short – one reporter told me he only saw 12 or 13 guys dressed, and while I didn’t get a chance to count and verify it myself, it wouldn’t surprise me. Even if it’s anything close to that – 15, 15, 17, even 18 19 or 20, it’s still far too low for a ballclub playing at this level. The consequences have been glaring and profound: players playing positions that they’re not used to (including pitchers playing positions and logging multiple at-bats in different games); call-ups being forced into action, like poor Kyle Crawford, who is younger and probably smaller than me and was lit up like the 4th of July ten times over for an inning tonight.

The second part of that question – is personnel being used correctly? – is a bit dicier. The coaching staff haven’t been playing with a full deck much at all this year, so it’s tough to delve into too much detail here. If I were the one filling out the line-up, things would look a bit different – especially in terms of which starters line up to face which teams, at least as far as it’s gone to this point – but on the whole, I’m not sure that personnel use and in-game strategy (which I suppose are one and the same) is enough to be a big – or even a tangible – reason behind the debacle we’ve witnessed so far.

Anyways, that’s my four pointed lament. They’re in Hamilton tomorrow, and if they drop that game, well, I was going to write that things will get pretty ugly, but they’re already quite ugly, and then I was going to write that they’ll get even uglier, but that’s a self-evident statement. You guys all probably know what I mean, though.

Tonight was the first time this season that the beat reporters didn't meet with coach Calcagni after the game. There wasn't much he could have told us, and I can't imagine he'd have been thrilled if we'd asked him to dissect this one. I tried to hang around and grab a player after, but they all dispersed pretty quickly. Henry Duke has always been very friendly to me and I imagine he would have had something of substance to say -- although a lot of my conversation with him probably would have been off the record, due to the nature of the things I want to know right about now -- but I'm sure he wouldn't really want to talk about the game, or even the team, too much after this one either, and I can't say I blame him.

I’m off the beat for a little bit – I’ll be up north for a week as of a few days from now, and then I’m going out west for a week. I think I’ll probably squeeze a game, or possibly two, in between those trips, and I know I’ll be back for the end of the regular season and the playoffs.

I’ll do my best to blog whatever happens while I’m away, and I’ll certainly post about it if there are any major shake-ups or changes!