FORT MYERS, Fla. — It was a warm August day in Kansas City last season, a good opportunity for Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire to get overworked All-Star Justin Morneau a little breather.
Gardenhire sent Mike Lamb out to play first base for the afternoon and made Morneau his designated hitter for just the eighth time all year.
The quiet leader sat on the bench with his teeth grinding and green eyes smoldering while Lamb bungled in the field, contributing to a 5-4 loss to the Royals that would cost the Twins dearly down the stretch.
That settled that. No more “rest days” for Morneau.
“I think he saw in Kansas City, with another guy at first base, an ex-Twin at first base, that he needed to be out there because it was one of the ugliest things he’s ever seen,” Gardenhire said. “He told me that. ‘Won’t do that and will keep playing.’
“I said, ‘All right. I agree.’”
Morneau played in all 163 games for the Twins last season, including 155 at first base. But the workload appeared to take a toll on his broad Canadian shoulders at the end of the year.
Even so, Morneau knows how important he is to the team’s success and doesn’t want to take a few days off here and there this season to keep his battery charged.
Starting pitchers take days off. Bankers take days off. All-Star first basemen getting paid $80 million over six years by a small-market club do NOT take days off.
“Would it really make a difference if I played 157 or 158 games from 162?” Morneau said. “If I’m healthy, I want to somehow help our team, help our lineup be a little deeper. If I’m hurt, definitely I shouldn’t be in there, but if I’m healthy enough to play, I should be in there. I feel we’re a better team if I do that.”
There is no arguing that point.
Morneau is the one consistent power threat on this light-hitting team that had the fewest home runs in the AL last season. He knows that if he sits, it changes the entire complexion of the Twins’ lineup.
So he plays. Every day. No questions asked.
“I offered it to him plenty of times,” Gardenhire said of sprinkling more DH days in to give Morneau’s body a break. “He said, ‘If I’m going to play, I’m going to play.’
“Well you want to sit? ‘Nope.’”
End of discussion.
It is also hard to argue, though Morneau gives it his best shot, that all those innings in the field didn’t contribute to a late-season slump as the Twins tried to chase down the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central.
In July, Morneau hit .360 with six homers, a .708 slugging percentage and outlasted the Rangers’ Josh Hamilton to win the Home Run Derby during the All-Star break.
His numbers in August dipped to .282, with three homers and a .473 slugging mark before he really hit the wall in September.
With a sore back no doubt brought on at least in part by playing every day, Morneau hit .243 with two homers and a .398 slugging percentage in the final month. He didn’t hit a home run in his final 19 games and finished with one hit in his last 22 at-bats, including going 0-for-3 with a strikeout in a 1-0 playoff loss to the Sox.
“I feel like looking back, he’d never tell you this, but I’m sure he would have probably taken a couple days (off) and gotten a little breather,” shortstop Nick Punto said. “He looked a little bit tired.”
Punto was right. Morneau would never tell anyone that. Too proud to admit to being tired, he shrugs off late-season fatigue as something every player goes through, and plays through.
“If I’m healthy enough to play every day this year, I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t run out there. If we’re in a pennant race in September, I don’t see any reason to take a day off,” Morneau said. “Those days off when you’re going to take them, they’re going to be in April, May or June, and you feel good then anyway. When it starts coming down to a playoff chase, you’re not really going to take those days off anyway.”
Born and raised in New Westminster, British Columbia, Morneau watched his school teacher mother and his father, who also served as his hitting coach, get up for work every day, sick, sore or otherwise.
They showed up. So their son does, too.
“He’s a leader. He doesn’t want to come out of that lineup,” general manager Bill Smith said. “He’s the guy we’re building around over there.”
And Morneau knows it.
He may not be as vocal as Torii Hunter was, so his talking comes in the form of being the first to show up at the ballpark in the morning and often the last to leave.
“He works as hard as anybody, almost to a fault,” right fielder Michael Cuddyer said. “He works so hard that he gets tired at the end of the season.
“I think this year he’s come in a little heavier, a little more muscle. He started working out a little more, a little harder. That right there just shows you his commitment in wanting to take this team to the next level.”
His home run totals have declined over the last three seasons — from 34 in 2006 to 31 in 2007 to 23 last year.
After getting married this offseason, the 27-year-old Morneau launched into a more rigorous, but also more efficient, workout regimen in preparation for the World Baseball Classic and another long season with the Twins.
“The power numbers not being where I’d like them to be, I started to workout out a little bit heavier, a little bit earlier,” Morneau said. “And hopefully it makes a difference.”
Don’t let Morneau hear you say this, but an occasional day off could also help. With slugging third baseman Joe Crede joining the Twins last weekend, Gardenhire now has more options to spell Morneau than ever before.
Gardenhire knows it will be a warm day in New West, as the folks up in Morneau’s hometown call it, before his first baseman asks out of the lineup, so the manager may have to make the decision for him.
“This year I might just tell him you are going to sit today and go from there,” Gardenhire said. “When you’ve got extra hitters and batters where you think you can afford to give him a little blow, that would be great. You know, I think we will this year. I think we’ll have a little extra depth.”
There is no doubt it will take some convincing.
“We have fans that appreciate how the Minnesota Twins play baseball,” Morneau said. “I’m kind of a part of that, and I’m glad. I like to show that by showing up every day and doing my job and playing hard.”
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