It’s like déjà vu all over again

The baseball game has been over for approximately one hour, and I’ve been unable to type anything regarding what I just witnessed. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced so many different feelings within a 3 hour and 14 minute period. I don’t even want to pull up stats.

 

The Twins struck first, scoring two runs in the top of the second. The first thought that went through my head was “Well, we had a six-run lead last night and blew that, so two runs is nothing.” Mood: cautious optimism.

 

Sure enough, in the bottom of the third, Seattle scored four runs, highlighted by a Raul Ibanez three-run homer. This guy is killing us, with 11 RBI in the two games that have been played. Mood: hoping for the unlikely.

 

The top of the 6th rolls around, with Jason Kubel leading off. On the sixth pitch of his at-bat, Kubel turned on an 85-mph fastball and unintentionally morphed the baseball into a weapon heading for beyond right field. Mood: proud, because my favorite player brings us within one run.

 

Bottom of the 6th, and Scott Baker takes the hill. To summarize the inning, Baker ends up loading the bases with one out and is removed in favor of Craig Breslow, who pitched in the previous game. A ground out and RBI single later, Breslow is gone with Jesse Crain jogging in from the bullpen. Five pitches and Crain gets the final out of the inning, and despite not pitching in the first game of the series, is done for the night. Mood: deflated, pessimistic; any chance at a victory was just squandered.

 

Fast forward to the 8th inning. Remember in yesterday’s post, how I said that the inning the Mariners scored ten runs in was literally the worst inning ever?

I retract that statement. The 8th inning of last night’s game takes the cake as the worst inning, ever. Justin Morneau doubles with one out, and yet again Jason Kubel turns white leather into a tooth-remover, hopefully not injuring any defenseless Washingtonian en route to his second homer of the night. A few batters later, Mike Lamb pinch-hits for Carlos Gomez. A questionable move at best, as Gomez has two hits in the game. After watching two fastballs come by outside of the strike zone, Lamb smokes the third consecutive fastball into right-center field to tie the game. Denard Span would strike out to end the threat, and inning. Mood: surprised the Twins could put together an inning like that.

 

Let’s transition into the bottom of the 8th, and what makes it the worst inning ever. An overused Matt Guerrier starts the inning by allowing two singles while recording just one out. He threw just five pitches but they were all mid-90′s fastballs. Bring on Joe Nathan, the self-proclaimed “door-closer“. At this point in the game, you have Brian Bass, who pitched in the last game, or Nathan as pitching options. FYI, Dennys Reyes is apparently sick with food poisoning and is out for an undetermined amount of time. It was an easy choice to go with Joe and hope he could get a quick double play since runners are on first and second and there’s an out already on the board. It took 12 pitches for things to get out of hand. A 5-pitch at-bat retired Adrian Beltre for the second out of the inning. 6 pitches into the next at-bat and the count is full. All of a sudden, the screen goes black and shakes a little bit. Color returns us to a screen showing the two team names and their respective records, with a picture of Safeco Field. Literally, the video feed cut out for viewers everywhere. The only thing we had was Dick Bremer‘s voice slightly cracking as he said “Poked to left field and DOWN for a hit, and Seattle has retaken the lead.” Mood: disbelief, shock, awe, anger, frustration, etc.

 

The 2-3-4 hitters are scheduled to hit in the top of the 9th. If anyone will win the game, it’s gotta be a combination of these guys. Nick Punto and Joe Mauer both strike out swinging. Great, our best hitter up in the clutchiest of situations. Morneau draws a walk to climactically bring up Kubel yet again. On a 2-2 pitch, Kubel goes opposite field on a 97-mph fastball for a double. Mood: believing the impossible might actually happen. Morneau was correctly held at third base. Folks, he’s easily the slowest runner on the team, and the ball was on its way in from the outfield when Morneau was touching third, so please don’t get upset that he wasn’t sent. For once in his life Scott Ullger made a wise decision. Delmon Young is intentionally walked to bring up Adam Everett. Another easy decision by Gardy is to pinch-hit for Everett. Who he chose could be questioned, as Mike Redmond saddled up in the batter’s box while rook Randy Ruiz saddled up on the bench. All we needed was a classic Redmond bloop single into right field and we would’ve retaken the lead, hopefully for good.

But it was not to be. Red Dog lined the third pitch into right field, an easy catch for the speedy Ichiro.

 

 

There’s a few things that can be learned from these first two games:

1. Our bullpen is overworked and unreliable without Pat Neshek. Either the starters need to pitch above the 100 pitch mark or the team needs to make something happen. Call up Bobby Korecky, who was serviceable while pitching in the Majors earlier in the season, and ship Bass to whoever will take him. I’m convinced that Bass should staple a white flag to the inside of his hat so that whenever he takes the mound, the opposing team knows they can add a W to their season totals.
2. Every starter in the rotation is vulnerable at any moment and nobody is a sure win anymore. It’s times like these that make a fan miss the Johan Santanas of the world.
3. Joe Mauer pulls the ball to the second baseman way too much. Seriously, if you’re going to ground out, at least try hitting it to the 3B so you might be able to beat out the throw. Mauer is also 8th in all of baseball in double plays grounded into, a pretty awful stat for a number 3 hitter. This is where Gardy should be doing more hit-and-runs, or attempted steals, because chances are it’s either Span or Punto (formerly Gomez or Alexi Casilla) on first so you know they have some speed. Try something to help Mauer out.
4. Lastly, I can reiterate my point that I do not believe Gardenhire is a capable manager. He throws Crain for five pitches but nothing more, not to mention he’s a huge fan of these 1-out appearances for pitchers. Seriously, who does he expect to pitch if the game goes into extra innings? It would’ve had to be a starting pitcher for crying out loud. Maybe you can’t pin that all on him, because he doesn’t have the power to sign another reliever. But he can manage the bullpen better than getting just one out from both Breslow and Crain.

 

Today’s game starts at 3:40 and I don’t know if I will be able to watch.

 

And oh yeah, the Tigers scored two runs in the top of the 14th to get an 8-6 lead over the White Sox. But, um, Chicago scored four runs in the bottom of the inning to win the game and get sole ownership of first place in the division.

 

Heartbrea…ugl…embarrassi…I don’t know what to call it

The team scored six runs in the first four innings, knocking Seattle’s starter out of the game after he pitched just 3+. Glen Perkins had a shutout through five innings. Things are looking good, right? Yeah, they looked good at that point. A half hour later the Twins watched as the Mariners put up 10 runs in the bottom of the 7th inning, with something like 13 batters coming to the plate. The Twins needed three relief pitchers to record three outs, and honestly I think Brian Bass pretty much sealed the loss. Well, technically he did get the loss but he threw 9 pitches, allowed two hits and two runs; the tying and go-ahead. Craig Breslow relieved him, getting the second out of the inning on a pop up, but Craig threw ten pitches and only three of them went for strikes. The batter that he walked would eventually score when Matt Guerrier came in to pitch. In fact, Guerrier inherited a runner from Bass to that would score. But it didn’t end there. Our “best” reliever, with Pat Neshek out (please come back, Pat! We need you now more than ever), gave up three hits, two walks, and allowed three of his own runs to score.

 

It was literally the worst inning of baseball, ever.

 

I have to say though, I’m surprised all the runs were earned; Denard Span fielding what would become a two-run single and came up firing towards home plate. The ball was close to catcher Joe Mauer but it was just out of his reach, heading towards the backstop. Had the throw been on-target, it appeared that the runner would’ve been tagged out by quite a bit and that would’ve ended the inning.

Brendan Harris also got an error, throwing a one-hopper to Justin Morneau who couldn’t dig it up. The ball skipped past him to the fence, allowing two runs to score.

 

It’s sickening how lackluster the offense was after the fourth inning. They tallied four hits and four walks against the second pitcher that Seattle put out there, but received nothing to show for it. Then they didn’t even get a baserunner in the final three innings, when they needed runs the most.

 

Things were bad for the team as a whole, too. Mauer allowed two past balls (he had just one all season coming into the game), the aforementioned two errors, Morneau got thrown out at home plate, and Nick Punto hit a home run.

Wait, that last one wasn’t bad for the team, it’s just funny because he’s probably the smallest guy on the team.

 

The real killer is that the White Sox didn’t play yesterday, so the Twins could’ve gained another .5 game. Instead, we’re tied atop the AL Central standings.

 

Scott Baker looks to get the team back on track tonight, and it’ll be another late game, unfortunately.

 

Twins lose final game against Orioles

Scott Baker actually had a pretty good game, allowing just 2 runs through 5 innings. He gave up 5 hits which included two doubles and the biggest hit, a two-run homer in the third inning. He walked one and struck out 3 and needed 99 pitches to do so. 72 of them were strikes, though, which indicates that he had decent-to-good command.

 

Remember how I said whenever Brian Bass or Juan Rincon come into the game, the small lead an opposing team has seems to get larger because of them? Well, Bass relieved Baker and, to his credit, had a scoreless inning (the 6th) before giving up a solo homer in the 7th. That run would prove to be the winning run because the final was 3-2. But he’s out of options and the team doesn’t want to risk losing a pitcher with a career 4.32 ERA in 843 and 1/3 minor league innings. God forbid they let Bobby Korecky actually pitch on a regular basis. Actually, screw that idea. It’d be better if they risked losing Rincon through waivers because of his salary which, he were picked up from waivers, would have to be paid by the team selecting him and taking the Twins off the hook for (give or take) $2 million. And we all know how much owner Carl Pohlad loves to pinch his pennies.

 

Alright, enough about fish (get it? Bass?), pitching and pinching. Onto highlights from yesterday’s game:

• Mike Redmond, predictably starting the day game after a night game, collected 3 hits including an RBI double. That was just his 10th start of the season yet his 4th double and his 4th RBI.
• Alexi Casilla picked up Carlos Gomez‘s 1-5 day with three hits of his own, including his 5th double of the year. He scored once and also drove in a run.
• Nick Punto was 2-3 with his third and fourth doubles of the year, while drawing a walk and also scoring. The bad news is that after the game he was put back on the Disabled List with a strained hamstring. Just one day after being sent down to make room for Baker, Matt Macri was called back up. There’s a rumor floating around that Macri was actually flying back to Rochester on a Pohlad-owned airline and Ron Gardenhire just had Ol’ Carl tell the pilot to turn the plane around and head for Minnesota, but nobody has confirmed it yet.
• Gardy had to get creative in the 8th inning, pinch-running for Redmond after he got his final hit. But it was Kevin Slowey to come in and run, not one of the other hitters on the bench. Why? Well, Jason Kubel pinch-hit for Craig Monroe who got the start at DH (and Kubel got a single, by the way) while Joe Mauer pinch-hit for Delmon Young. That leaves just Brendan Harris on the bench and Gardy knew that if the game went into extras and Harris had already pinch-ran, the team might get screwed pretty badly with no bench players left.
• One of the rules I hate is the pinch-hitting for the DH spot rules. Mind you, I don’t know the specifics of it, but let me outline the situation in the game for you. Kubel pinch-hit as a DH for Monroe, but Mauer batted for Delmon, the left fielder. And Red Dog was pinch-hit for, leaving the catcher’s spot open. Obviously Mauer shifts to catcher while Kubel goes to left because Young is out of the game now. Why can’t the manager bring in somebody to play DH? That is illegal but Kubel could’ve stayed as the DH and Harris could have played left and that would be totally fine.
• Those situations are another reason why carrying 13 pitchers is irrational. As bad as Rincon and Bass are, Craig Breslow has been really solid (getting two outs in yesterday’s game with 12 pitches) and although Dennys Reyes doesn’t pitch that much, he’s been reliable when he’s on the mound. Jesse Crain‘s ERA is 3.28 and it’s possible that he’s finally regained his pre-injury form. Joe Nathan rarely pitches in games that aren’t save opportunities and he’s never thrown more than 26 pitches in an outing this year (and coupled with that, he hasn’t even gone more than an inning yet.) Matt Guerrier has slid into Pat Neshek‘s “shut-’em-down” role very well and Boof Bonser is our new long reliever. The way I see it is, Reyes can go more than an out at a time, even if he does have to face one or two righties. Breslow’s gone more than an inning in two of his three appearances with the team this year, and even went two innings back in April while still with the Indians. Guerrier can go an inning, if not more, and Boof should be able to go 2-3 innings every three days or 1-2 innings every other day, if not more. Am I the only Twins fan that thinks the team would be just fine with 12 pitchers? Please comment to let me know whether or not I’m going insane here.

 

The team is now in Chicago for a 4-game series with start times of (all in Central) 7:11, 6:05, 1:05, and 1:05.

 

Also make note that the MLB draft (well, the first part anyway) was held yesterday with the Twins making 3 selections in the first 31 picks. The second half continues today and either later on tonight or coupled with tomorrow’s recap of tonight’s game, you’ll see some information on a few of the newest Minnesota Twins.

 

Twins drop first two games against Yankees

*note: I wasn’t able to watch either game so I’m going strictly off the boxscores

Glen Perkins was disappointing in the first game, lasting just 4 innings while giving up 5 runs on 10 hits, including 2 doubles and 2 triples. He walked 2 and didn’t strike anybody out, and only threw 78 pitches.

 

Justin Morneau hit a solo homer in the 8th inning to make it 6-5 but that’s where the rally stopped.

 

Michael Cuddyer had two outfield assists, both at second base. I wonder when teams will learn to not run on our OF.

 

The team also turned 3 double plays. Perkins picked off rumored-to-almost-be-a-Twin Melky Cabrera, too.

 

The second game was a little more intense, lasting 12 innings. In quite possibly Boof Bonser‘s last start, he allowed 5 runs in 5 innings (only 2 were earned though; a Nick Punto fielding error didn’t help him). He walked 3 and struck out 2 and needed 103 pitches to do so.

 

There were a total of 4 bases stolen from the Yankees, 3 off of Bonser and Joe Mauer and one with Dennys Reyes and Mauer. Kind of odd to see, considering Mauer is, well, considered, one of the best in the game at throwing runners out. To be fair, he did throw out A-Rod at third base.

Also to be fair, the Twins stole 3 bases of their own, including a double steal by Punto and Delmon Young.

 

Young and Mike Lamb had the best games, each collecting three hits in 6 at-bats. Delmon had a double and scored twice while Lamb had a double and a triple but did not touch home and didn’t drive in anybody in, either. Jason Kubel was the only Twin to not get a hit, he went 0-for-6.

 

New Twin Craig Breslow was the story of the game (until the loss), tossing 1 and 2/3 innings of hitless ball. He struck out 3 and threw 26 pitches, 20 of them for strikes. Matt Guerrier came in to finish the inning, throwing 3 pitches and recording the out. He was then pulled, en route to Juan Rincon eventually giving up 3 hits and the game-winning run in 1 and 2/3 innings of work. It’s times like these where Pat Neshek would be great for us.

 

The third game in the 4-game set is today at 1:10 at the Dome.

 

Gomez hits for cycle, first Twin since Puckett in ’86 to do so

When the Twins first traded for Carlos Gomez and defended him by saying he could single-handedly change a ball game with just his speed, I don’t think even they could’ve expected his night last night. Because of a rain delay I didn’t watch much, but when I woke up to see that he had 4 hits in 6 at-bats, even I couldn’t have predicted the damage he did. A lead off homer in the first in which the successive run around the bases took all of 10 seconds, probably. He ran like he had a mission, maybe fearful he would get in trouble for showboating if he took his time jogging around them instead. He hustled to third on a triple in the 5th inning, got a double and advanced to third on an error after that, and hit an infield single to the shortstop in the 9th to finish things off. So basically his triple would’ve been a double and single would’ve been an out had it been anyone but Gomez. Here’s a link to a video, I can’t embed it right onto my blog so you have to check out ESPN to see it.

 

I woke up to see the final score of 13-1 and knowing Gomez had the lead off home run I figured “ok, I bet Justin Morneau or Michael Cuddyer jacked one out.” Morneau had 2 singles and no RBI while Cuddy had a single and a double and drove in Gomez in the 9th. In fact, nobody else had a home run; Nick Punto had a double and a triple and drove in 5 (wow!), Mike Redmond hit his second double of the year en route to driving in 3 runs, but the rest of the team’s 16 hits were singles.

 

Brendan Harris was the only hitless Twin, although he had 2 walks and he did score once.

 

The best part of the game, to me, is that Livan Hernandez was finally let loose. He pitched all 9 innings, giving up 9 hits but just 1 run (a solo homer in the 9th). He walked 1 and struck out 3, improving to 5-1 with a 3.83 ERA. It took him 121 pitches to finish the game, even though he threw just 49 through 5 innings. Even greater is that there are no complaints from him about being overworked. He says he feels really good this year, and frankly I think they should send him out there for 100-115 pitches every game. I was under the impression that he was acquired to give the bullpen a rest due to our young and inconsistent starting staff, so why not let him do his job?

 

Jason Kubel and Joe Mauer both didn’t play, Mauer because today’s game starts at 1:05 and they want him to play in it fully rested. Kubel was 0-for-2 with the team’s only RBI in the nearly no-hit game and gets benched the next day. I don’t understand why but I’m not going to get too upset because he’s played way more than I expected him to so far this year. And he’s playing below expectations, honestly. I know he’ll pick it up but when he does, hopefully Craig Monroe will be playing in left to give Delmon Young a break or anywhere else so that there’s a spot open for Kubes. By the way, I got my jersey. It was $165 but worth it in my opinion. I might take a picture of it and put it up here. It was funny because the first day I wore it to school, my friend wore his Pat Neshek jersey and Pat is #17 while Kubel is #16, so we went in order when we stood next to each other. Ok maybe it isn’t that funny but just kind of cool especially since I honestly didn’t even know Neshek’s number was 17.

 

And a fun fact: the Twins and Mets currently have the same record.

 

Twins sweep Tigers

In the 4-1 win, Scott Baker injured his groin and could only pitch 3 innings. He was doing incredibly well up to that point, having allowed just 1 hit while throwing 43 pitches. Brian Bass came in and pitched 4 scoreless innings to get his first ML win. It’s ironic that I was at his first game ever (second game of the season) and also at his first win. I wonder if he’ll pay me to start showing up regularly. The game was kind of a close one until Craig Monroe jacked his second homer of the year in the 7th inning, a two-run shot against his former team to give the Twins a 4-0 lead. Pat Neshek gave up a solo homer and could only record two outs before Jesse Crain came in and ended the inning with a fly ball out. Joe Nathan got to pitch, which was the only positive of Neshek’s homer allowed, and recorded his 10th save in as many tries. He did walk one but struck out 2. Baker is getting an MRI today and we’ll know if he needs time on the DL or not. Regardless, it’s been announced that Kevin Slowey will be done rehabbing and will start for us on Thursday against the White Sox.

 

 

Game 3 was much more interesting. Boof Bonser gave up 6 hits in the first inning alone, and mix that with a throwing error by Joe Mauer and a strikeout that went between Mauer’s legs and to the backstop and all of a sudden Bonser’s pitch count was at 45 and 6 runs were in, and it was just the first inning. He ended up striking out the side in the first and Bert, the ever-positive announcer, made sure to mention it when all was said and done. What’s more crazy is that he ended up pitching 6 innings, allowing just 2 hits after the first inning. In fact, he needed just 54 pitches to get from the 2nd inning to the end of the 6th. He could’ve pitched 10 or 11 solid innings with that great ratio for pitches/inning. He didn’t walk anybody and struck out 5 and most importantly didn’t get hung with an L.

 

Kenny “The Gambler” Rogers had a no-hitter going into the fourth inning before Mauer was able to hit the ball sharply to right and, with some hustle, slid safely into second for his 8th double of the year. Mauer would come up big in the 7th with a 2-run single, giving the Twins a 7-6 lead that would hold for the rest of the game. The lineup basically chipped away at the Tigers lead with everyone except Michael Cuddyer collecting a hit. Nick Punto got his first double of the year, a linedrive into right field that scored Delmon Young and Monroe. Matt Tolbert, playing 3B for the first time this year, got his 4th double, and Brendan Harris got his 6th two-bagger of the year. The key thing is that 5 of the team’s 7 runs scored with 2 outs in the inning.

 

Scott Ullger is now 3-0 as a manager. Hmm, maybe he knows something Ron Gardenhire doesn’t. After a 5-0 homestand, the team has an off day today and then travels to Chicago for a 3-game series before coming home again.

 

April Recap

 

Note that these stats do not include yesterday’s afternoon game.

 

Player	ABs	2B	R	HR	RBI	BB	SO	OPS
Carlos Gomez	102	6	14	1	7	2	25	.651
Brendan Harris	87	5	13	1	5	6	22	.716
Jason Kubel	97	2	11	4	16	3	20	.639
Mike Lamb	79	6	4	0	11	3	9	.502
Joe Mauer	88	6	16	0	10	9	7	.744
Craig Monroe	47	5	4	1	7	3	15	.726
Justin Morneau	97	4	12	6	22	11	16	.840
Denard Span	31	0	4	0	2	3	6	.582
Matt Tolbert	50	3	5	0	2	3	7	.700
Delmon Young	102	3	13	0	8	6	19	.619

 

 

Surprises: Young with 0 homers, Joe Mauer leading the team in runs, batting average, and tied for the lead in doubles, Lamb with 6 doubles and third on the team with 11 RBI but still having a .502 OPS, Kubel’s low OPS.

I knew Gomez had a bad K/BB ratio so it didn’t surprise me to see that it was 25/2. His 11 stolen bases really help, though. I honestly don’t think it’d help him any to ship him to Rochester.

 

Not on that list is Michael Cuddyer who, despite playing in just 8 games, already has a double, a homer, and 5 RBI. It seems like his injury didn’t really affect his hitting that much, which obviously helps because frankly Kubel hasn’t produced like he should be. Kubel’s 4 homers are nice but his average should be higher than the .239 it is and he should be hitting more doubles. But, things will all even out as the season grows older.

 

Player	Games started	W	IP	ER	BB	SO	ERA
Nick Blackburn	5	1	31.3	12	4	15	3.45
Boof Bonser	6	2	36	15	9	22	3.75
Scott Baker	5	2	30	15	5	27	4.50
Livan Hernandez	6	3	35.6	20	7	13	5.05
Francisco Liriano	3	0	10.3	13	13	7	11.32
Kevin Slowey	1	0	3.3	3	0	2	8.10

 

 

Note for innings pitched, a .3 means 1/3 and .6 stands for 2/3 of an inning pitched.

Blackburn has been the team’s “ace” thus far, but I really like Baker’s numbers and if Boof could get run support he could be 5-0. Livan had a few bogus starts and has come back to earth with his 5.05 ERA. Liriano obviously was disappointing but I never expected him to come back and blow everyone away this year. It’s going to be a rough year for him, there’s no doubt about it. He gave up 4 runs and walked more than he struck out in his most recent start, this one at AAA Rochester. Basically expect him to struggle wherever he pitches. Slowey hasn’t pitched enough to really judge.

 

Player	ERA	IP	ER	BB	SO	WHIP
Pat Neshek	3.97	11.3	5	3	11	1.06
Matt Guerrier	4.40	14.3	7	6	8	1.60
Juan Rincon	4.82	9.3	5	3	9	1.29
Jesse Crain	5.40	8.3	5	3	7	1.20
Dennys Reyes	0	8.6	0	2	4	.69
Bobby Korecky	3.38	2.6	1	3	1	1.88
Brian Bass	4.67	17.3	9	6	8	1.56
Joe Nathan	.82	11	1	2	11	1.00

 

 

To no surprise, Neshek is our most solid reliever thus far, aside from Nathan (who is 9-9 in save opportunities.) Reyes has also been really good, but nobody else really stands out. Bass has pitched better than his numbers show, in my opinion, as a long reliever/mop up option. Crain and Rincon should get better; their strikeout numbers are normal. Guerrier has been worse than expected, and his nearly even K/BB ratio is cause for a little concern.

 

The Twins are off today before hosting the Tigers on Friday. Hopefully I’ll have a minor league update post for tomorrow, I haven’t really decided yet.

 

Twins win first game in Oakland

Craig Monroe finally showed fans why the Twins are paying him $3,820,000 this season. He went 3-4 with 3 RBI and 2 runs scored, including his first homer of the year, to help the team score the 5 runs necessary to beat the A’s. Delmon Young and Jason Kubel helped too, Young collecting 2 hits and scoring a run while Kubel only had one hit but he scored a run and also had an RBI.

 

Mike Lamb also went 3-4 and had an RBI, but his batting average is still just .186. I’m still a believer that he can be a successful and productive 3B for us, and truthfully his slump isn’t as bad as Carlos Gomez‘s. He did have that great diving catch a few days ago, but is 1-18 in his last 4 games. He also has 7 strikeouts and 0 walks in that span (in fact, only has 1 walk all season, and it came in the first game) and hasn’t stolen a base since April 16th. Gomez made his first error last night, too. But Denard Span hasn’t done much, either. Even though he stole his 3rd base of the season last night, he’s hitting .222 in his limited time up here, and all of his hits have been singles.

 

Speaking of stolen bases, Nick Punto picked up his 2nd of the year last night also. But, he also made a fielding error (which I didn’t see.)

 

Livan Hernandez, for lack of a better word, labored last night. He threw 109 pitches in just 6 innings, allowing 7 hits and 4 runs. He walked 2, struck out 3, and gave up a 2-run dinger in the 6th inning.

Luckily, Juan Rincon pitched better than he has and didn’t give up any runs while bridging the gap to Pat Neshek, who also pitched a scoreless inning (it took him just 7 pitches). Joe Nathan got 3 strikeouts to record his 7th save of the season. The team has just 10 wins and if this pace keeps up, Nathan is in line for a career year:

 

Team Wins	65	70	75	80	85
Saves Pace	45.5	49	52.5	56	59.5

 

Nathan has never saved more than 44 games in a season.

 

Notes from other things remotely involving the Twins-

DH Frank Thomas was released by the Blue Jays recently and some Twins fans think the team should make a move to sign him. I’m of the opinion that it’s a horrible idea, and here’s why:

• Let’s assume he’d be our DH; when Michael Cuddyer gets back, where does Kubel play? Delmon has LF locked up
• Thomas wants to play for a contender. I’m not saying the Twins suck, but I like to be realistic when thinking that it’d be a shock to everyone if we made the playoffs this year
• Thomas is on his way down, as far as careers go. The Twins are trying to build for 2010, i.e. the opening of the new ballpark

If anybody has reasons why the team should make a move to sign him, please feel free to put them into a comment.

 

Looking at the 2008 MLB draft, it’s encouraging to see the Twins with 3 picks in the first 31 selections of the draft. Although it’s almost a given they will select a lesser prospect higher than they should, simply due to money issues, it still gives them a chance to get a possible future star and a couple more legitimate ball players. Although I don’t believe I ever posted about it, I kind of liked the idea of not signing Craig Monroe (and still don’t, even after last night’s performance) and instead spending that $3,820,000 on additional draft budget, allowing the team to possibly sign more high-profile players.

 

Today is April 23rd, which just happens to be my birthday. Beyond that, I want to give thanks to the Star Tribune for the 4 following baseball facts:

• Ted Williams hit his first ML homer on April 23rd, 1939
• Hank Aaron hit his first ML homer on April 23rd, 1954
• Hoyt Wilhelm, the pitcher with a 2.52 ERA in 2,254 and 1/3 career innings pitched, hit the only home run of his career in his first ever at-bat
• Fernando Tatis, the only player ever to hit two grand slams in the same inning, did so on April 23rd, 1999

Needless to say, those are 4 stats I probably won’t ever forget. I also happen to know 3 other people with the same birthday as me: my dentist, my uncle, and a girl from my school (I’m only about 2 hours older than her.)

 

Twins lose the lead, and then the game, for second day in a row. 6-5 final

Scott Baker, although he didn’t get a W, pitched a great game. He lasted 7 innings and gave up just 3 runs, all coming on solo homers. Sound familiar? In his start before last night he lasted 5 innings and gave up 3 runs, all coming on solo homers. In 18 and 2/3 innings pitched he’s allowed 6 homers. In other words, he’s on pace to give up exactly 60 home runs this season, going off of how much he’s pitched thus far and stretching it out over 30 starts. Now, obviously it’s pretty unlikely he actually will give up that many, but it shows that he maybe has been watching Johan Santana (4 HR given up in 20 and 2/3 innings this year, on pace for 40 allowed) a little too much.

 

For having the “best bullpen in baseball”, the Twins’ bullpen sure has been horrible as of late. After giving up a 5-run lead last night, the bullpen shoved Jesse Crain into the has-pitched-like-garbage category. It took him 27 pitches to get through an inning that saw the Tigers get a 2-run homer and an RBI double. He also walked one and struck out one, not that they matter in the big picture of last night. It honestly seems like, besides Joe Nathan of course, that Brian Bass is the team’s best reliever at this point. Between Pat Neshek and Matt Guerrier‘s getting demolished two nights ago, Dennys Reyes not pitching that much, Juan Rincon being his typical bad pitcher without his steroids, and Crain’s loss last night, Bass’s 3.27 ERA in 11 innings pitched (leads all relievers) looks awfully good.

 

Bright spots on offense were Carlos Gomez‘s 5th double of the year and then stealing third and eventually scoring, Justin Morneau‘s 4th homer of the year (2-run shot), Joe Mauer‘s 2 hits, 2 RBI, and run scored, and Craig Monroe getting 2 hits against his former team, including an RBI single in the 9th.

The “dim” spots were Brendan Harris failing to collect a hit, Jason Kubel going 0-for-4 with 3 strikeouts, and Mike Lamb going hitless in 4 at-bats, including one in the 9th with Monroe on first and the team down 6-5.

 

Apparently Adam Everett‘s erroneous through to Morneau a couple nights ago was cause for concern. He’ll have his throwing shoulder examined today in hopes that there’s something wrong, explaining his weak arm as of late. It could only be a blessing in disguise because Matt Tolbert has been tearing it up and seems pretty solid defensively, too. I’m not as down on the Everett signing as most people, but frankly I think he’s under-performed thus far. We signed him for his defense which is why I’m not upset when he doesn’t collect a hit, but when he can’t even make the throw to first…something is probably wrong.

 

As it was just a 2-game set with Detroit (thankfully), Livan Hernandez and the team travel back home to face the Tampa Bay Rays. Hernandez will attempt to get his league-leading 4th win of the year, not to mention pitch deep into the game so we don’t have to risk blowing another lead with this bullpen.

 

Twins surrender 5-run lead; twice

That was my second choice as a title. I wanted to avoid any infringement possibilities by creating my own, less-appealing heading. But as the title says, the team had multiple 5-run leads and blew them both. All 11 of Detroit’s runs were scored between the 6th, 7th, and 8th innings.

 

Nick Blackburn was cruising along, allowing 5 hits and no runs through 5 and 2/3 innings. Then Gary Sheffield reached on an infield single, and it was all downhill from there. He ended up getting pulled before the inning was over, allowing a total of 8 hits and 4 runs. Matt Guerrier, arguably our best reliever from last season, rolled over and let the Tigers run wild against him. He lasted an inning and a third, allowing 5 hits and 5 runs (4 earned). Although, Pat Neshek inherited two of Guerrier’s runners and they scored on Ivan Rodriguez‘s triple (one of two triples given up by ‘Shek in the game.)

 

The lineup obviously did fairly well, scoring 9 runs. But of the team’s 13 hits, 11 were singles. Delmon Young and Adam Everett each had a two-bagger. In fact, Young had 3 hits and scored 3 times, plus he drove in 2. Jason Kubel and Brendan Harris were the other Twins to have 2 RBI, although both of them only scored once. Joe Mauer was hitless but drew 3 walks and scored on two of them. Bert gave his “a lead off walk always comes around to score” spiel when Mauer led off the 6th with a walk and sure enough, he later came in to score.

 

Other notables: Everett had his third error of the season, this one coming on a short throw to Justin Morneau who couldn’t field it cleanly, allowing the runner to reach safely. Denard Span, hitting in the second spot, threw out Edgar Renteria at second base.

Young and Carlos Gomez each had a stolen base. It was Young’s 3rd and Gomez’s 6th.

A note from a recent Pioneer Press column: “Alexi Casilla” was benched recently in AAA Rochester for not hustling against Norfolk.” This kid, much like Matt Garza, needs an attitude check.

 

In short, I’m really scared that the game was the spark necessary for the Tigers to start performing like they should with the lineup they have. It’s key for Scott Baker to silence them again and make sure to pick his spots so Detroit doesn’t smash the ball all over the field like they did last night. The game starts at 6:10 again.

 

Oh, and the Minnesota Wild won their second straight game, in overtime again, 3-2 over the Avalanche. I’m not a huge hockey fan so I didn’t watch it, but it’s always nice when a hometown team gets a win in a  playoff series (even the Wolves!)