As a die-hard cry-hard Twins fan commiserator, Joe Mauer makes me teary-eyed. First things first - I don't hate him, I'm not mad that he's not a great first baseman, I'm not pissed that he hit the DL again this year... but I am sad that I don't have a real reason to care if he is "earning" his dollars. The team continues to lose and no single man, not even Joe Mauer, can change that alone.

Mauer, to me, resembled a tremendous opportunity for this team to reload. [heck, if we turned AJ into Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano, and the indomitable Boof Bonser, what could we get for Joe?] When I heard that Cherington wanted Mauer in Boston a couple years ago, I started salivating over trades.

Only problem was, how could the Twins ever get away with trading away the baby jesus? the hometown hero?

They couldn't. Even when Boston came knocking, we weren't interested. We never were. Trading Joe Mauer was never an option. So when the team started losing, the fans kept asking for more from the man who had never let them down before. But the desperation of losing has made us start asking Joe for things that Joe doesn't do. Be a vocal leader in the clubhouse, turn on the ball, hit for power, frame every so-so pitch into a strike, throw out every baserunner, move to first and don't miss a beat, stop missing games just because first base is less physically demanding, tell us the location of your secret cabin.

Losing is hard, but losing faith in the hometown ball club is even harder. It's easy to blame the guy with the biggest paycheck, but the Twins aren't bad because of Joe or his contract.

I don't want you to turn it all around by yourself, Joe, I just want a free pizza to drown my sorrows in. Thanks for providing the latter, TD.