[tenthreeleader]

There was a reason Corcino was playing, and suffering, every day.

Rob had eleven position players. That was it. As he watched the players take BP back on friendly soil, he tried to be philosophical.

“S**t,” Rob smiled, spitting a sunflower seed onto the field with a practiced flick of his tongue. The major, and minor, league crackdown on smokeless tobacco had meant Rob was reduced to eating seeds. He liked the kind that tasted like ranch dressing.

He had been looking for a reason to quit chewing anyway, and the rule change turned out to be that reason. But he had other fish to fry.

“Look at this team,” he told his pitching coach, the Venezuelan Ivan Ortega. “I’ve got one bench move and a spare catcher. That’s it. You know that. Cave’s out. Gordon’s gone and thank God for Molina or we’d be completely hosed.”

It was like the old game of Ker-Plunk, where you’d put straws through holes in a plastic tube and throw marbles on top. Then you’d take turns pulling out the straws one by one, trying to figure out how many straws you could pull before everything went to crap. Most marbles in your tray at the end of the game loses.

But Rob was about to lose his marbles, which was both good and bad.

The Ker-Plunk analogy described was his starting lineup. Navaretto and Perez were the only bench moves – after that it would be pitchers playing in the field.

“Falvine takes a lot more than he gives, but that’s the minors,” Rob added. “He has a job to do, but we still have to keep it real down here and not let it all go to pieces.”

He paused. “Look at Corcina. The kid tries hard, God love him, but he’s literally and objectively oh-for-May and I can’t give him a day off that he probably needs.”

“Thad’s had bad press,” Arteaga said. The major league roster and the major league front office were more important, as is always the case in organized ball, but “Falvine” had fallen upon tough times.

As such, the Venezuelan was right. After signing Logan Morrison to a contract, the Twins had almost immediately shipped him off to the National League, trading him to the Cardinals. Jake Odorizzi, who Levine had traded to get, was in Rochester.

And, most disturbingly to Rob, Gordon had just been traded. With his Lookouts teammates in need of position players, on May 7 he was packaged along with outfielder Robbie Grossman to Houston for pitcher Charlie Morton and about three million dollars.

As promising as Gordon is, the presence of first overall draft pick Royce Lewis in the Twins’ system meant that Gordon might well be overshadowed – making him trade bait. That’s part of the business.

But Levine had taken some abuse in the press for trading Morrison and a young prospect before the season was even two months old. Despite a 3.63 ERA, Morton had lost three of his four starts for the World Champions and was winless.

Worst yet was the Twins trading for cash. The argument had long been that the Pohlad family was tight with a nickel despite taxpayers building them the 81-date ATM known as Target Field, and getting three million in cash didn’t look very good.

And Gordon? Well, the kid who was hitting .324 at Chattanooga this year and who played in 122 games for them last year was sent to the Dominican Rookie League by the Astros.

“That sucks,” Arteaga sighed. “He deserves better than that.”

“Maybe they’re waiting for a roster spot to open up,” Rob suggested. “Damn, baseball can be cruel.”

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