There seems to be a perception among the most-devoted bashers of Joe Mauer that he continues to hit third for the Twins because manager Paul Molitor doesn't want to hurt Joe's feelings.
There's not a day when I fail to receive an e-mail or a Twitter response stating that Mauer should be hitting seventh for the Twins.
If Molitor had a lineup as do the Toronto Blue Jays, the Detroit Tigers or the L.A. Dodgers, Mauer might be hitting seventh (although, probably second). What Molitor has instead is a lineup so limited that a slump-ridden Kurt Suzuki was hitting fifth regularly not long ago.
Molitor has Mauer hitting third most every night, because even with Joe's long-term lack of power and his overall decline, he's still tougher to pitch to than most of his teammates.
The Twins have been issued 20 intentional walks this season and nine have gone to Mauer. Trevor Plouffe is a threat behind Mauer, and yet rival managers are of a mind to walk Joe – sometimes to set up the double play (obviously), sometimes because it's a situation where a single or double can beat them.
Rival managers aren't doing this because of nostalgia over Mauer's former greatness as a hitter. They are doing it to win ballgames.
Mauer has started 75 of the Twins' 79 games, so the old knocks about fragility and ducking out of the lineup do not apply. And the idea that because he's 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds, and because he's making $23 million per season, that he should be able to flip a switch and start hitting home runs … it's silly to keep repeating that.
He's not the hitter he was, and it seems like the anti-Mauer crowd wants to believe that's a strategy that he has adopted.
