Lost in the Kansas City Royals’ Yuniesky Betancourt-fueled 5-3 extra-innings win over the Cardinals yesterday was that Alex Gordon tied his franchise record with five walks in a single game. Yeah, I’m as furious as the rest of you that this was overlooked. But hey, at least this time he at least scored a run. When Gordon originally set the record (as I am sure you all remember) back on July 30, 2008 against Oakland, he did not score once. (I remember that game well, as not long before that I had an argument with someone who said that Jose Guillen was the Royals’ only “feared” hitter, unlike that loser Gordon. Guillen hit right behind Gordon in this game. FEAR.)

It was an amazing feat, in a way, but not nearly the most times on base without scoring. In fact, since 1918, there have been 73 players who have gotten on base six or more times without scoring in regular season games. What follows is a look at the most extreme cases.

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Francisco Liriano turned some heads with his May 30th start against Oakland, in which he tossed six shutout innings with nine strikeouts. It was Oakland, though, and that leaves an obvious question heading into Tuesday night’s start against Kansas City: was it the lineup, or did Liriano actually turn a corner?

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If you hadn’t guessed from my first piece on Midwest League prospects, the league is simply loaded with talent. Taking that statement one step further, few would argue it was the best prospect league in all of minor league baseball at present. In this installment, seven more prospects ranging from the relative unknowns to household names (if there is such a thing when it comes to prospects).

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The Minnesota Twins have not had many bright spots this season, but one seems to be the return of Joe Mauer’s bat. After an injury-plagued disaster of a 2011 seasons, Joe Mauer is hitting like his old self again. After his 2-4 with a home run and a walk peformance in yesterday’s losing effort against the White Sox, Mauer now has a classic, Mauer-esque .301/.414/.423 (138 wRC+) line on the season.

One of the biggest concerns for the Twins going into the season was that they would not only be terrible (which has happened), but that if they needed to move one of their big contracts (Mauer and Morneau) for rebuilding purposes, that neither player would hit well enough to bring back much in trade given what they are owed. This is not to say that the Twins “have” to trade Mauer any time soon — if and when they should consider it is another discussion. The two-part question here a whether Mauer’s bat is really back after the mess that was 2011, and also whether he will be worth his sizable contract going forward.

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Yesterday, it took Los Angeles Dodgers manager Clint Hurdle Don Mattingly* approximately 40 seconds — depending on where you start and stop your timer — to argue The Worst Call of the Season. Meanwhile, in St. Louis, it took the umpiring crew about 2 minutes and 50 seconds to gather in the infield, discuss Carlos Beltran’s hit, reconvene in their underground video review chamber, and then return to announce a home run.

* All white guys look the same to me.

Getting the calls wrong in baseball takes time. Managers — depending on their personality, the game situation, and the offense — take different amounts of time arguing both bad and good calls. The arguing, for the most part, exists because of uncertainty. My lip-reading skills inform me most arguments follow this general pattern:

Manager: “Did you really see X event?”

Umpire: “Most certainly did I see X event.”

Manager: “That statement you just made right there is tantamount to the excrement of bovines.”

Umpire: “You are ejected.”

Recent evidence suggests, however, that despite these conflicts resulting from close calls, instant replays still take more time than good ol’ fashioned shout-spittin’ matches.

Evidence furthermore suggests that in the time it takes to get in a healthy workout, a normal person could empty approximately ten Squeeze Cheese cans directly into his or her porcine gullet.

Which is to say: Quicker is not always better.

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You may have noticed that the Minnesota Twins are not good. They are certainly a long way from 2010, when they won the American League Central for the second year in a row. That meant it was time for certain writers to start talking (again) about how Ron Gardenhire was maybe The Best Manager in Baseball, because, hey, someone had to be making the Twins win against all odds (supposedly). It was “Gardy Time,” as Joe Posnanski liked to declare.

So, given last year’s 99-loss season and this season’s continuing fiasco, the Twin have to seriously consider firing Gardenhire, right?

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When the Twins signed 30-year-old right-hander Jared Burton to a minor league contract this winter, it was little more than a blip on the offseason radar. He managed to rack up 1.3 WAR in 161 relief innings for a Reds from 2007-2009 after being taken from the Athletics in the Rule 5 Draft, but hyperthyroidism and shoulder surgery limited him to just eight big league innings in 2010 and 2011. Relievers get hurt and drop off the baseball radar, it’s what they do.

Burton appears to have avoided that fate, at least for the time being. He had a strong Spring Training and made Minnesota’s bullpen with an assist to Scott Baker’s elbow injury. Through five innings across six appearances, he’s struck out six batters and walked zero. He did surrender two solo homers in his first game, so it’s going to take some time for him to work off that 5.40 ERA and 6.32 FIP. Burton has allowed just one baserunner (a single) since that first game.

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Right-hander Scott Baker was set to undergo surgery on his elbow for a cleanup of his flexor pronator tendon earlier this week. Any elbow surgeries can result in complications for a big league pitcher, but considering the alternatives, Baker appeared to be rather lucky in terms of his diagnosis. As he said:

[The team doctor] said this is something that’s not going to repair itself. It’s not going to cure itself. It’s something that needs to be taken care of. Fortunately, he said the (UCL) ligament looked great, so I guess in a way, as bad as this is, the flexor pronator tendon is what needs to be repaired.

However, when the team doctor, Dr. Altchek, opened up the elbow, he determined that the UCL was damaged to the point that it needed repair. The MRI testing done prior to the surgery completely missed the UCL damage. Now, instead of missing only six months of the 2011 season, Scott Baker will not pitch again for approximately 12-18 months.

The good new for Baker is that the success rate for Tommy John surgery is now upward of 85-92 percent. The likelihood of returning to the big leagues in some capacity appears overwhelmingly positive. Most likely, though, his next big league job will not be with the Minnesota Twins. Baker has a $9.25M club option for the 2013 season, but there is almost no conceivable way Terry Ryan and the Twins exercise that option at this point.

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The Twins announced Wednesday that their top starter, Scott Baker, would miss the rest of the season after upcoming surgery to clear scar tissue from his right flexor pronator tendon. While this procedure has a shorter rehab time than Tommy John surgery, the rehab process is expected to take around six months, leaving Baker unavailable until late October at the earliest. The good news for Baker is that his ulnar collateral ligament was not damaged, so he will be able to go through a normal offseason work program and should be ready for spring training. The bad news for the Twins is that their already thin rotation just lost their captain. Read the rest of this entry »

After three games, five teams — the Braves, Giants, Red Sox, Twins and Yankees — are 0-3. You can hear the hair pulling and consternation all over the land. Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine poured a tanker of gasoline on to the “Daniel Bard going back to the bullpen” story, and Giants manager Bruce Bochy is already benching Brandon Belt, using the old “we haven’t won a game yet” rationale as his reasoning. But even in a weekend of seeming disasters, positives abound for each squad.

Several hitters with question marks had good weekends. None were more encouraging perhaps, than Justin Morneau. After posting just a 69 wRC+ in a second-straight injury shortened campaign in 2011, it was an open question as to whether or not Morneau would ever be right at the plate again. Now, three games against the Orioles are not going to erase doubts, but Morneau showed positive signs. He tallied a hit in all three games, including a double each on Saturday and Sunday. Down in Atlanta, Jason Heyward didn’t collect a hit in all three games himself, but he made his two hits count, as both went for extra bases. Heyward also drew two walks, and looked very much like the guy Atlanta needs him to be this season.

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