With Twins outfielder Wilkin Ramirez out on paternity leave for several days the ballclub needed to make a move and the move they made was to bring up one of their top prospects, outfielder Oswaldo Arcia. Arcia played in New Britain last season and has just 9 games of AAA experience under his belt but so far he is pounding AAA pitching to the tune of a .414 batting average in 34 plate appearances with 8 runs scored, 3 home runs and 8 RBI’s. Hopefully the Twins did not bring Arcia up to warm the bench for a couple of days so I think it will be fun to watch this young man get his first shot at the big leagues. Arcia is more of a corner outfielder but he has played centerfield in the minors so I would not be shocked if Gardy had him playing in center for at least one game. He can’t play Arcia in center much more than that because you can’t have Hicks sitting on the bench either, they both need to play. I heard Gardy on his Sunday morning radio show state that it might be time to move Hicks out of the leadoff spot and I couldn’t agree more. It is not good to see your lead-off hitter strike out as much as Hicks does but what bothers me about Hicks striking out is that he takes so many called third strikes. At least take a hack at the ball, who knows, you might hit it. It is easy to be down on Hicks now with him hitting .047 and leading the league in whiffs and he may have to be sent down for a while to regain his confidence but the man is going to be a solid big league player, just give him a little time.
The poor start by Hicks has taken the spotlight off 2B Brian Dozier to a large degree but Dozier needs to turn it around and turn it around soon. Dozier is playing a decent 2B but hitting .161 will not cut it, particularly when you have young Eduardo Escobar scratching at Gardy’s door for more playing time. I think you are going to start seeing Gardy start to make some changes in his line-up and batting order soon, he can’t afford to sit back and watch this team flail away and say that good pitching stops good hitting, not every pitcher the Twins faced this year is an all-star. It would be nice to see what the Twins might look like playing in some decent weather for a change but if you look at the Twins schedule it might not happen for some time.