2011 Twins Game Logs

Game 35: Detroit at Beloit

242 Comments

I didn't see a game log, so here one is.

That's about as much effort as I feel like putting into this team right now. When the major leaguers outnumber the minor leaguers on the roster, they might grab my attention again.

242 thoughts on “Game 35: Detroit at Beloit”

  2. Heh. I went with AA while you picked A-. Yours certainly feels closer to the truth.

  3. "Morneau doubles on a popup to shortstop."

    I'm expecting a "Great Moments in Gameday History" bit soon.

    1. The hit chart shows it in fairly deep left field. I'd be, not having seen it, that Santiago was going back and somehow messed up the catch allowing Morneau to hustle into 2nd.

    2. Bloop hit that left fielder dived for and missed and went past him for a double.

  4. Call me a fair weather fan, but since I live in LA and the weather's always fair, I am sticking with the Twins no matter how low they sink this year. It's interesting that the actual AAA squad has done all right despite having players plucked off their roster right and left.

    1. I'm talking tough, but unfortunately, this team is like an addictive poison for me. I'll stick with it, even if I know I shouldn't.

      1. As depressing as the start of this season has been, this team isn't the Vikings, so I consider them to be worth paying attention to even when they suck. (Although the continued employment of Rene Rivera is making that harder.) If the season ends up crappy all year, at least we'll know it was, in my mind, basically due to some of the worst injury luck I've seen in some time.

        2. Same here. And I still root for the Timberwolves, so the Twins have a very, very low bar to clear.

        3. Somehow upon moving to Iowa in 1998 and being greeted with 3 straight years of 90+ losses, I still became a Twins fan. Just in time too.

        4. oh yeah, the twins of the mid-90s were awesome. i remember having 10 sections of the upper deck to ourselves.

          1. Yes, but you still had the 1987 and 1991 afterglows. We had nothing. AND WE LIKED IT.

    3. I was bitter from the start this season because they stopped broadcasting Sunday games on TV so they could make more money from Fox a year after their publicly funded stadium opened. The sucking hasn't helped. And yet, I still pay attention to the team...

  6. I really don't understand why teams are pitching to Kubel, given how the rest of the offense is doing.

  8. It's nice to know that every pitch Jack Morris threw went exactly where he wanted it to go and that when it did, no one ever hit it hard.

  9. bS - I made that tomato & green bean Greek dish you posted a few weeks back. Served it as the side to some lemon chicken and ciabatta bread. Delicious. Having some for lunch right now.

  10. from gleeman today:

    Ranking dead last among AL teams in runs, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, homers, and walks is depressing enough, but Nick Nelson notes that the Twins have still managed to hit into the fourth-most double plays. Pretty hard to do with the fewest baserunners, but they've found a way.

    1. prior to today, team leaders were Cuddy and Valencia with five each, followed by Morneau and _elm_n with four each. As a team, the Twins had accumulated 30 -- 18 of which were accounted for by those four guys.

  11. Danny V. smacking Cabrera has been a highlight of the game so far.

    The Cuddyer double play after that though, was so Twins Baseball 2011.

  15. Minor oddity: the Tigers have 4 players in the lineup whose first name and last name start with the same letter. Hopefully we will see Al Alburquerque pitch before it's over. Or maybe it's already over now that Cabrera just doubled.

    1. in 1985, I'm sure we saw from time to time this arrangement in the infield:

      Gary Gaetti
      Greg Gagne
      Tim Teufel
      Bert Blyleven

      1. My prize is a Twins comeback victory? Cool. I went to lunch and got a nice surprise upon returning.

      1. Ejections are not as exciting when you only have our radio guys doing the play-by-play.

      2. Cabrera got nailed by Danny and tossed by Vic? I don't care what the score ends up being, this was a good game.

  27. Is this the earliest Nathan has entered a game for the Twins?

    *To Baseball-Reference!*

      1. Yeah, my cursory glance couldn't find him ever entering a game earlier than the 8th inning previously for the Twins.

    1. Only by wasting a juicy line drive, but at least Cuddles has a chance to hit a weak grounder on the first pitch.

  30. I'm sure it has been noted elsewhere, but it bears repeating. Today is a good day.

    Mauer hit flip tosses, threw, and ran on the field early Tuesday afternoon, the paper reports. "Today was my first day getting on the field a little bit and moving around.'' Mauer said, according to the paper. "And it was a good day."

    1. Watching the replay of Hughes's double, that's a funny statement because Span should already have scored.

  43. To reiterate the Padre's question, why is anybody pitching to the Dude right now?

  44. DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111111!!!!!!!ONE!!!!!!!!!

  45. Like Jeff said above, I don't know why people are pitching to Kubel the way his batting and the way the rest of the team isn't.

      1. I was supposed to be at the game today, but I had to bite the bullet one last time for law school...

      1. Until Gameday updated me that it was, in fact, a double play. Ugh, why hit and run there?

  49. Do we know if the Kuby Smacks image is appropriate for use over here? ('Cause this would be one hell of a place to use it.)

  50. Sure, I walk away from my desk at work for 10 minutes, and the Twins throw runs up all over. Who's going to clean this up?

  55. Oh, scheiss. Strike-out and throw-out DP? Ugh. Gardy, why were you pushing your luck?

    2. Well, Cuddy can handle the bat a little bit, and we wanted to get the runners moving, you know manufacture a run or two, now we got the lead, the pitcher just needs to throw the ball over the plate.

      Dazzle'd

  57. Not really digging the choice of Neck Fat to protect a one-run lead here, but I guess all our other decent options are in different uniforms now.

  66. I was in a meeting and saw the Twins took the lead. I was excited. I got GameDay up just in time for JHONNY FREAKING PERALTA to hit a homer off of Crapps. Dadgummit.

      1. No, just having Revere/Tolbott hitting consecutively and creating a run. Of course, huge assist to the defense.

  84. OK, someone (DPWY) has to tell those of us stuck with Gameday what the heck that play was.

    2. Tolbert hit a linedrive to the RF gap. It landed just out of Boesch's reach, so Revere was headed to third. Boesch kicked and fumbled the ball so Liddle sent Revere home. The throw was arriving at about the same time, but Revere slid feet first into Avila and sending Avila flying through the air and causing the throw to go through to the pitcher backing up the play. Revere's face slid right into Avila's knee blocking the plate.

    3. Tolbot hit a line drive to right center that was mishandled by Boesch bouncing toward center.

      Revere was on first and went all the way around arriving at home plate at the same time as the ball but sliding under Avila and crashing into his legs causing Avila to go airborne backwards. Tolbot scuttled into 3rd on the throw.

  92. Well, guys, maybe the Twins can finish dead last and get the #1 draft pick next year. It worked okay last time.

  95. I've heard that over the course of a baseball season, every team wins 50 games and every team loses 50 games, it's what you do in the remaining 62 games that matters.

    So I'm putting the Twins down for 50 wins this season.

  99. We just got hit with the hail that nailed Minnesota last night. Fitting ending to the game.

  101. BOOO!!!

    Another 9 runs given up by Twins' pitching. I wonder if this team is going to make it to June.

  102. Kubel and Tolbert combined for more than 1 WPA. Capps was -0.85 WPA. Ouch.

  105. What are the lamest ways to end a game? I submit that foul pop-up must be one of the five or so lamest. Walk-off balk is the worst I can think of off the top of my head.

      1. Hmmm...wasn't it Restovich who won a game against the O's on a walk-off passed ball strikeout? That seemed pretty exciting--you think you had the guy and then things go terribly wrong.

        However, that does remind me that it is really lame to lose the game on a runner scoring from third on a random passed ball. That's not even noteworthy, like a walk-off passed ball strikeout would be. I think Ray King lost a game for the Cards a while ago on a passed ball during an intentional walk attempt. That's way up on the list.

        1. That did happen for a minor league team not so long ago. Barely succeeded in intentionally walking to fill first and then failed when trying to fill second as well.

        2. Restovich didn't win the game - he sent it to extra innings (with Mientkiewicz scoring from second base). The game ended with a Jacque Jones groundball single through a 5-man infield.

    2. I will add that "Casilla batting with two-outs" as being way up there, regardless of how he gets out.

    3. how about that minor league game the other day with the walk-off bunt where the winning run scored from first?

      1. I'm going more for lame in terms of excitement/entertainment value. If you lose on a walk-off bunt with a run scoring from first, that hurts, but it's unusual and generally a pretty exciting play with the runner circling the bases while you hope the throw beats the runner.

        With a foul pop-up, it's just so routine and since the ball doesn't even go fair, there's no chance during the play that things might work out for you.

        1. what if the ball popped out of the player's glove and it fell in fair territory?

          1. Most foul pop-ups aren't that close to the line, but I can definitely see some kind of exception for pop-ups near the boundaries.

          2. If the ball was touched in foul territory, it is still foul, no matter where it falls.

      1. Hmmm...a definite contender, but I would say walk-off balk is still more lame. If you lose when the defensive player is arguing, you can be enraged at his negligence. There is nothing that quite matches the emptiness of seeing a 3-hour game end on something that maybe a dozen people in the entire park noticed when it happened. (Since inevitably most balks are so subtle that they either don't get called or you need a close-up replay to see what happened.)

    5. Walk-off walk when the whole ballpark knows the pitcher has no chance of throwing a pitch for a strike.

      1. No one ever knows a pitcher has no chance of throwing a pitch for a strike.

        2. I remember that 4 pitch walk to Torii Hunter here a few years ago. I'm pretty sure everyone was certain of that one.

      1. Oooh, that's lame. Catcher's interference is nearly as hard--if not harder--to spot as balks are.

    7. Dropped infield popup that allows tying and winning runs to score (I'm looking at you, Luis).

  106. Balking in Jeter in Game 7 of the ALCS and Capps Nathan Perkins permanently injures his arm doing so.

  107. Wow. What are you going to do? Baker has been our best starter and Capps has been our best reliever outside of Perkins and they give up eight of the nine runs (and all nine scored while they were in there). So frustrating. You think you start getting the rotation in order other than one guy (Baker great, Duensing solid, Blackburn with two or three good starts in a row and Liriano with the no-hitter) and then a rain delay, illness and a microscopic strike zone comes along and it all falls apart.

    One glimmer of hope: Joe Nathan's last six innings: 7 Ks, two walks, 3 hits for a 0.71 WHIP. Please let him get some more critical innings. It can't be possibly worse than Burnett or Hoey, especially Burnett.

    1. What are you going to do? Get more of a team performance so you don't have to depend on any two pitchers to always come through for you? A bit unlucky, sure, but as the cliche goes, it's a long season, and your best players are going to have bad days.

      1. Oh, I know. I'm not mad at them or anything, it's just frustrating that on a day you figured seven runs would be plenty, it isn't. Of course, the total amount of runs had more to do with a microscopic strike zone than anything. Which is why it was funny that Cabrera got thrown out on a called strike. I actually though Baker had great stuff today, but that he had a difficult time locating with all the movement on his fastball.

        It also was frustrating that Span has been terrific on defense all year and came out of nowhere to get to that ball in the ninth only to not catch the ball. He may have lost sight of it or something, but it certainly was within his reach on the triple in the ninth inning.

    2. I saw Burnett throw a couple of pitches yesterday and turned the game off in disgust. It looked like he was throwing batting practice up there. Generally, when people say that, they mean that people were teeing off on him, and they certainly seemed to be, but his throwing motion, the speed and movement of the pitches, just everything was like "here it is, swing away".

  108. Capps understands:

    a loss is a loss, a blown save is a blown save, an earned run is an earned run, a spade's a spade. It is what it is. They all suck.

      1. That's a reference to the card game of Hearts. The goals is to have the fewest points possible and the Queen of Spades is worth 13 points. Any spade is bad because if could lead to you being stuck with the Queen of Spades.

        1. Hmmm...it looks more like he's making an awkward/incorrect reference to the phrase "to call a spade a spade."

          1. Also, the queen of spades can be good in Hearts if you shoot the moon, so even in Hearts, a spade isn't always a bad thing.

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