I Dislike Your Favorite Team

The Twins are inching ever forward towards respectability, winning their last two series, against the formerly mighty Brewers and never particularly mighty Rangers. This was after a spell where nothing was going right. Morneau and Torii "'Gates of Shinto aka 'THunt'" Hunter have been hitting dingers, but the pitching has been a letdown, to be sure. Of late, though, the guys who were supposed to come through have. Boof Bonser has been good to dominant in his last few starts, and it appears that Johan Santana is about to start his annual "Holy Shit, Is This Guy Cheating or What?" 2/3rds of a season.

But what of Luis Castillo? Part of the Florida Marlin Diaspora, having played on their first World Series team, somehow avoiding the axe, and then batting second behind Juan Pierre on the second World Series team, Luis has been toiling in obscurity in this most remote of markets, the Twin Cities. Fans of the National League will be forgiven for thinking that Castillo retired, due to bad knees and sketchy work ethic.

But I'm here to say that Castillo has actively courted questions about his knees and his work ethic. I don't know if there is anyone better in the quiet mental game of baseball as Luis. He's borderline nutty, and he's got National Broadcasters (ESPN) convinced that his knees might blow up at any second, and that's he super slow playing in an indoor stadium.

And yet...

Castillo is currently hitting .319. This is at least in part due to the fact that he is amongst the league leaders in infield hits. His on-base percentage is over .360 and he has struck out all of 8 times so far this year. These are prototypical leadoff man numbers, I think.

And yet, again...

The man still kind of covers ground defensively, too...

Quoth the MLB:

Luis Castillo continues to be a major part of the Twins defensive prowess. Entering Tuesday, the second baseman had not committed an error since May 29, 2006 -- a stretch of 130 games. That is a Major League record for the position. During the span, Castillo had turned 67 double plays and recorded 354 assists and 240 putouts in 594 total chances.

Emphasis mine. Simply put, Castillo is on one of the best defensive stretches in the history of the modern game at 2nd base (and yes, it helps to be surrounded by fellow defensive-minded players, like Morneau?) and he's still hitting over .300 and he's still making bunts into base hits.

So, again, I ask--where's the love for the old (younger than me), slow (actually fast) and somewhat squirrely (quite odd, really) Dominican second baseman doing everything right? Breaking records defensively; getting on base in the lead off position. I don't like playing the game of "If so and so did this or that in this location, then this would happen.", but--If Derek Jeter breaks the record for errorless games at shortstop, it will lead SportsCenter.



photo: Star Tribune