Second-half Preview

We all know the numbers. On June 1st, the Twins were a whopping 16.5 games behind Cleveland in the AL Central division. Now, about a month and a half and 35 games later, the Twins have advanced past the Royals (no shock there) to sit 4th in the division, just 6.5 games behind Detroit.

The issue with the team, other than injuries which cannot be controlled, has to be their bullpen. While trotting out names like Hughes, Hacker, and Hoey (alliteration not intended), the Twins have racked up a 5.01 ERA on the season for relief situations. That’s good for…well, it’s good for absolute last in all of the Majors, and nearly half a run higher than the second-to-last team (which happens to be the Tigers, by the way.) In fact, the team doesn’t even have two relievers with sub-4.00 ERAs. Glen Perkins has shined in his newly-acquired relief role, posting a 1.87 ERA with 36 strikeouts in 33 and 2/3 IP. And although Joe Nathan has come around lately, he still has a little bit to go to prove that he is back to his old, dominant self. Jose Mijares’ walk rate has ballooned much like his weight and he is now our second-best option as a lefty reliever. If Capps can get his head on straight, and return to his form from last year when he had as many blown saves (6) in 48 chances as he does this year in just 21 chances, we have a great shot at winning the division.

 

And let me remind you that if the Twins win the division, it’s more of a testament to how weak the Central is this year rather than how great the Twins are. The next 12 games for your hometown team are all at the sophomore stadium, Target Field. The best part about that is all 12 games are also games within the Central division – four against Kansas City, four against Cleveland, and four against Detroit. It will be a very important stretch for the club this season and should give us some serious ideas as to how the team will turn out come the end of September.

 

Does this thing work?

Exciting news coming your way very soon, TNT fans.

 

Shaky Slowey can’t fend off Tribe

Kevin Slowey allowed a two-run homer in the 4th and 5th innings last night, en route to allowing five runs in six innings of work, but other than that he pitched fairly well. I’m surprised all of the runs were earned because in the 4th there was a ball that landed in between a trio of Twins, when it should’ve been caught by somebody, and also a foul ball was in Justin Morneau‘s glove for a brief period before falling out. Anyway, Slowey allowed six hits but he struck out seven and didn’t walk anybody. His only problem right now seems to be Santana-itis in that he gives up way too many long balls.

 

The 3rd inning started off promising enough, with Carlos Gomez and Denard Span both getting bunt hits and then Nick Punto sacrificed them over with a bunt of his own. Joe Mauer was intentionally-unintentionally (you know what I’m talking about) walked to fill the void at first, but the most that a combination of Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel could do was a sacrifice fly off Morneau’s bat, which would score the team’s only run.

 

It seemed like every out the Twins hit was a deep fly ball, in the vicinity of the warning track. With Dick Bremer announcing, I had hopes of a home run literally every time because of the way he said “here’s a deep drive to center field, going back is Sizemore aaaaand…CAUGHT!” I’ve mentioned before that I think Dick does a terrible job in those situations, and it’s really more aggravating than anything else.

 

Today’s the big day, folks. “Franchise” Francisco Liriano will pitch at 1:10, making his first ML start since the end of April. I will try my best to watch every pitch but I have a previous engagement that runs the length of the game.

 

Twins outlast Indians in first game of series

I’m not at home this weekend so unfortunately my blogging will be short and to the point for this Cleveland series.

 

First off, so long Livan Hernandez and Craig Monroe. They were released by the Twins yesterday and can either accept an assignment to AAA Rochester or choose to be free agents. The moves were made to help make room for a callup…Francisco Liriano, welcome back to the big leagues. He’ll make the start tomorrow in an afternoon game against the Indians. I think I speak for the general Twins fanbase by saying I’ll be tuning in to watch Franchise pitch again. Also getting a call is DH Randy Ruiz, a 30-year old rookie. He has pretty good AAA numbers, if I remember right he had a .320 batting average with something like 17 homers, and he got his first Major League hit last night, a single. I expect him to get most of the DH at-bats against left-handed pitchers, as Jason Kubel has apparently become a platoon player (for what it’s worth, Kubel has only 4 less HRs than Justin Morneau this season.)

 

Now onto last night’s game. Nick Blackburn allowed only one run through seven innings of work, aided by some nifty defense and key groundballs.

 

Brendan Harris struck first, lining a double to the left field corner and later scoring to put the Twins up 1-0. He also hit a double after Ruiz’s single, and aided by a fielding gaffe, Ruiz was able to score. It surprised me and probably would surprise a lot of other people to know that Harris now has 21 doubles on the season. That’s good for third-best on the team.

 

Joe Mauer hit a key two-run homer when the score was tied 1-1 to give Minnesota the lead, for good. For as little power as he displayed early on in the season, it seems to be coming around for him. I wasn’t, and still am not, the type of fan that thinks he can knock out 20 homers in a season. But 10-12 certainly isn’t out of reach for him, and his on base skills plus defense certainly make up for any offensive deficiencies.

 

Joe Nathan came in and although he gave up a leadoff double, stranded the runner on third and recorded his 30th save of the year. That gives him five years in a row that he’s had at least 30 saves. I’d say that’s pretty impressive.

 

Both starting pitchers tonight (Kevin Slowey for Minnesota and Paul Byrd for Cleveland) are coming off shutouts in their last starts, so I think it will be another fun game to watch, and it starts at 6:10 instead of the traditional 7:10.

 

Twins drop game 2 against Yankees

Our pitching, usually stellar, has been incredibly ugly in this New York series. Today’s game starts in less than an hour, look for a recap of the last two games of the series to appear tomorrow.

 

Twins take first two games against Rangers

Today’s third game in the series starts at 1:10 so I’m going to wait until after the game is done and do one post to recap every game in the series. Stay tuned.

 

Twins win 4-1

It was a pretty sweet game but the third and final game of the series is at 1:10 today so I’m going to wait until that game is done and then I’ll have a double-game post for everyone.

 

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 series opener against Chicago; TV announcers frauds?

The game started typically enough, with Carlos Gomez bunting for a base hit and proceeding to steal second. Denard Span grounded out, advancing the runner, and Joe Mauer squeaked a single to the outfield to strike first. That would be the extent of Mauer and Gomez’s day, never getting on base again. It would be a different story for Span, collecting his first hit (a single) in the third and drawing a walk in the 8th, eventually scoring. He also stole his first base of the year.

 

Nick Blackburn didn’t have extra dominance laying around from his first start to use in his second, but he certainly kept us in the game, allowing 2 hits in 5 innings. It took him 90 pitches to give up 7 hits (2 doubles, 5 singles), 2 walks, and 5 strikeouts. The starting pitcher’s streak of more balks than walks now swings in the favor of walks, and I’m sure it’ll stay that way.

 

The bullpen is what you can blame for the loss. Matt Guerrier lasted 1 and 1/3 innings, walking 2 and giving up a hit. He was charged with 2 runs but they came in with Pat Neshek pitching. Pat got 2 outs but gave up the lead and then a grand slam to make it 7-3. And for all the people who say he can’t pitch to lefties, they kill him, blah blah. Joe Crede, the grand slam hitter, is a right-handed batter. Thankfully there isn’t more fuel to add to that fire. Yes lefties fare better against Neshek, however, they still hit just .201 against him. Pretty feeble if you ask me.

 

There were two very positive things I saw in the game and both involve new Twins. Mike Lamb hitting two separate RBI doubles, for one, and Brendan Harris hitting his third double of the year. Even though Lamb is off to a slow start and Harris hasn’t played everyday because of Matt Tolbert‘s unexpected hot start, I still think both will be very valuable to the club. Harris had 35 doubles and 12 homers last year for Tampa Bay; those kind of numbers would kill any production we’ve received from that position in the recent past (Luis Rivas averaged 25 doubles and 9 homers, but with a significant drop in average/OBP/SLG, Luis Castillo averages 20 doubles and 3 homers a year.)

 

 

 

Are Bert and Dick frauds?

 

Reading through old posts, I came across this one. In it I talk about Bert Blyleven and a comment he made on TV. To save you some time, this is what I said:

Bert said that he once pitched a game where he gave up 5 homeruns (I don’t believe he said if they were solos or not). Dick then interjected, saying “and you WON that game!”. Dick also said “and, what gets me the most, is that you pitched a complete game!”. Bert said that in that season he gave up 50 home runs (major league record), 42 of them being solo, and that he won 17 games that year. And he led the league in innings pitched.

Well, I channeled my inner gumshoe and found out quite a few flaws in their statements. And I know the following is all correct because, thanks to baseball-reference.com, there is a log of every single home run Bert ever gave up in his career. Guess what? In only one game did he give up 5; that makes it easy to know the exact stats for any game in which he gave up 5 dingers. With further digging, I found out that the game was played on September 13, 1986, against the Texas Rangers. Bert’s line was 5 and 1/3 innings pitched, 9 hits/9 runs, 3 walks, 4 strikeouts, and 5 homers. Umm, newsflash for Dick: Bert did not win that game, nor did he pitch all 9 innings. The final score was Rangers, 14 and Twins, 1. 27 of the 50 homers he gave up that year were solo homers, not 42 like Bert had said. They were correct in saying that he won 17 games and lead the league in IP that year, though.

It was probably a mistake, making fraud too strong of a word. But, how can you be off by things such as 15 homers, 3 and 2/3 innings pitched, and the wrong half of whether he won or lost? It seems like they tried to embellish things or, quite simply, thought they were right. It’s a fairly petty thing either way and it goes to show what being bored can do, especially to a blogger. No game today because the White Sox schedule their home opener and then a day off in case of bad weather. Still, look for a post on Wednesday.

 

Opening Day

Game starts at 6:05, watch it!