Pioneer Press: Joe Mauer struggles at home, shines on the road

Ron Gardenhire and Bill James on the same page? I knew the Weepy-Voiced Killer of Minnesota site was getting kinda crowded!

“The first thing you have to learn in this game is sometimes you have to say, ‘No, hey, I can’t do this, I’ve got to get ready for tonight,’ ” Gardenhire said. “He’s such a nice guy, and he says yes to a lot of things. As he goes along he’s got to learn how to handle his time a little bit better and prepare to come here.

“He prepares very well, but we all have to learn to say no. He’s trying to do all the right things for the community and his family. There’s a lot of stress that comes with being the hometown guy, and he probably puts a little more pressure on himself, too.”

If there is a quantifiable reason, some piece of baseball logic, to explain the difference in Mauer at the Metrodome and Mauer everywhere else, the man who could find it is Bill James, the sabermetrician extraordinaire who can explain almost everything in baseball with numbers, equations and statistics.

Just not this.

“I couldn’t explain it. Maybe he puts pressure on himself to succeed in front of the home crowds,” James wrote in an e-mail. “Maybe it’s become a mental block for him. I really don’t know.”