Are injuries part of the game? Nah, let's complain anyway.

Nice disabled list management, Twins.

First, J.J. Hardy injures his wrist sliding into third base on May 4th, after which he was placed on the DL on May 6th. He finally came back onto the roster on May 25th. In his brief time between DL stints, Hardy hit just 5-for-38 with two RBI. After a cortisone shot and watching his batting average tumble from .250 to .217, Hardy returned to the DL. He hasn't swung a bat in weeks.

Adding to the problem is Orlando Hudson's wrist that was injured when he banged into Denard Span on May 30th. The Twins thought he'd be good to go a couple days later in Seattle. But he wasn't instead. Finally, finally, he was placed on the DL on Tuesday, June 8th, a full nine days from when he was injured.

Which is fine, except that everyone not named Delmon Young has been scuffling lately. Re-enforcements from triple-A aren't doing much. Plouffe, Valencia and Tolbert can't hit second in the batting order. They're like 3-for-40 hitting in that spot, or some other made-up statistics that illustrates futility. Indeed, the call-ups from Rochester are making Twins fans wish for Alexi Casilla, but he quietly landed on the DL a couple weeks ago.

I blame the nurses strike.

UPDATE:

From LaVelle's blog:

Hudson can hit righthanded but is unable to hit lefthanded and it's not clear when he'll be able to. There is a chance that he won't be ready to play in time for the three-game series in Philadelphia this weekend. So second base might continued to be manned by Matt Tolbert and Nick Punto until further notice. Trevor Plouffe remains with the club, and no roster move has been announced. Danny Valencia is in the starting lineup. J.J. Hardy said his left wrist felt a little better, but he's not yet ready to swing a bat.

Alright. Closed circuit to Twins GM Billy Smith: Update your trade deadline NEED list to include a shortstop and a second baseman.