DETROIT -- There aren't many times when Twins manager Ron Gardenhire is glad Joe Mauer isn't in his lineup, but the moment Kansas City infielder Mark Teahen put his head down Sunday and slammed his body into Jose Morales at home plate might have been one of them.
"I never like collisions," Gardenhire said. "That's all I need, to get someone beat up and hurt when you're limited on players already." The Twins rarely use the "contact" play, when a runner on third breaks for the plate the moment the ball is hit, because of it. "Those collisions can be brutal," he said.
But there is no avoiding them; in fact, Morales had another hard collision last Tuesday, tagging out Tampa Bay's Willy Aybar. The Twins would hate to lose Mauer again after he missed all of April with lower-back soreness, but "it's part of the job," Mauer said. "They're going to happen. Sometimes they happen in bunches, and sometimes you go (without one) for a while."
Morales' technique was correct, Mauer analyzed, saving him any injury. In both cases, he set himself with the ball, then gave way when contact was made, falling backward after making the tag. "If you do that instead of standing your ground, you usually come out OK," Mauer said.
So, is Mauer going to try to avoid any close plays at the plate? "No," he said. "Nothing you can do about them."
Even Gardenhire agreed with that. Play the game the right way, he said. "Joe's a big guy," he said. "Not too many guys want to go in there and run into Joe."
Another injury: A Twin was on crutches after the game, vowing that his injury wouldn't cost him a game. First-base coach Jerry White, hit on the foot by a Joe Crede line drive in the eighth inning, lay on the ground for a couple of minutes before being helped off the field. The injury was painful, he said, but nothing was broken.
"The hardest thing was, I know my mom (Rena) was watching on TV" back in the San Francisco Bay Area, White said. "As soon as I sat down in here, someone came in to say, 'Hey, your mom is trying to get a hold of you.' "
White, who was replaced by hitting coach Joe Vavra for the game's final two innings, said he expects to be back at his post today.
Briefly: Crede was back in the Twins' lineup after having Sunday off. Gardenhire said the Metrodome's facilities might limit Crede's pinch-hitting opportunities when he doesn't play, at least at home. "I'm a little leery of using him as a pinch hitter unless he has a place where he can really go get loose. The Metrodome's really not perfect for that," Gardenhire said of Crede, who has been limited by back problems the past two seasons. "As we go on, as he sits out some games, maybe I'll feel a little bit more comfortable and be able to stick him in there."
