A rare thing happened at Target Field in Minnesota on Wednesday night: Joe Mauer was booed by the home fans.
This was an unusual occurrence for two reasons. One, Mauer usually doesn’t play poorly enough to deserve boos. Two, he’s a hometown kid from Minnesota and the fans really like him.
But Mauer hasn’t produced like usual this season. After he struck out with a runner on third in the seventh inning in a 1-0 loss to the Texas Rangers, the fans booed him. Mauer took the collar in the loss and went 0-for-4 with the one strikeout.
In Thursday’s loss to Texas, Mauer went 1-for-5. He’s batting .276/.353/.352 this season — which isn’t terrible — but surely isn’t up to his standards. And the slugging percentage being lower than his OBP indicates he’s not hitting for much power this season; he has 6 doubles, a triple and 2 home runs.
When asked after Wednesday’s game about the boos, Mauer focused on what he isn’t doing.
“I don’t even really have a comment for that,” Mauer said via the Pioneer Press. “Just a tough night. Runs were at a premium. I’m probably a lot more frustrated than those people that were booing.”
Though many people couldn’t recall Mauer previously being booed at home, he said it wasn’t the first time that had happened.
Both Mauer and manager Ron Gardenhire believe there is some bad luck working for the former AL MVP. They say he is hitting the ball hard but just not getting much to show for it. That seems to have been the case lately, so fans shouldn’t get too alarmed. What more could you want from a guy than to see him hit the ball hard? Eventually the results will start to change. Plus, playing in a big park certainly doesn’t help his efforts.
H/T Eye on Baseball
