Ron Gardenhire rips Aaron Hicks for lack of preparation

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire appears to be running out of patience with young center fielder Aaron Hicks. Gardenhire has now moved from the “keeping it in-house” stage of his frustration to the “ripping the player in public” stage. That’s usually a sign that a manager is about fed up.

“We had a long talk, just about baseball, about picking it up, numbers,” Gardenhire said per the Star Tribune’s La Velle E. Neal. “This game, no matter how we try to say it, developing at the major league level, whatever you want to try to do here, it is still about numbers. To hit .160, .170, those don’t last in the big leagues.

“He needs to start studying the game a little more, studying the pitchers a little bit more, a little extra work in the outfield, doing drills and everything. Your whole game, the way you come to the ballpark and your approach to the game.”

Hicks is currently hitting .167/.311/.238 with one homer and 7 RBI. Not exactly what you’re looking for from someone who at 24 should be growing into a star player for your team.

Gardenhire sounds like he has a lot of work to do before molding Hicks into the kind of fundamentally sound slap-hitting good-on-base guy the Twins want him to be. Hicks should listen to Gardenhire unless he wants to wind up on the street like that David Ortiz fellow. What ever happened to him anyway?

Follow Dan Zinski on Twitter
Subscribe to the Fansided Daily Newsletter. Sports news all up in your inbox.