2012 Twins Game Log

Game 40: Twins @ Brewers

128 Comments

Well, hey. It looks like we've got ourselves a little winning streak here. Let's do some in-depth analysis and see how the odds look for extending it.

PITCHERS
Carl Pavano (2-3, 4.38 FIP, 4.28 xFIP, 0 k/9)
Yovani Gallardo (2-4, 3.89 FIP, 3.96 xFIP, made up name)

Edge: Initially, it would seem that the Brewers have the edge here, but even though Pavano seems to have taken a sacred vow to never strike anyone out ever, I'm going to go with the Twins here. Unless you're Randy Johnson, pitching is 90% luck, 10% facial hair, and Pavano's rebounded nicely after a tough 2011.

HITTERS
I'd be a fool to bet against a lineup that prominently features a catcher sporting a .350/.381/.450 slash line. Twins, it is.

BALLPARK
Miller Park can't possibly hope to match Target Field, so even though they're not playing at Target Field today, I'm giving the advantage to the Twins.

INTANGIBLES
Morneau's radiant good cheer (that is how he won that MVP in 2006, right?) is worth a hundred of whatever the Brewers might have in this department (beer, maybe? brats? Ryan Braun's contaminated urine?)

Adding all of that up (4-0), I'd say it's pretty much a sure thing. The Twins are going to sweep this series!*

* yes, I might be getting ahead of myself here, but with literally every indicator saying that they'll win this game, why wouldn't they win the next one, too?

128 thoughts on “Game 40: Twins @ Brewers”

  1. You might want to rethink the hitters advantage:

    1. Denard Span, CF
    2. Ben Revere, RF
    3. Josh Willingham, LF
    4. Justin Morneau, 1B
    5. Brian Dozier, SS
    6. Alexi Casilla, 2B
    7. Drew Butera, C
    8. Jamey Carroll, 3B
    9. Carl Pavano, RHP - 300th career appearance

  2. Well, tomorrow's game will have me and he drinking Surly's and Grain Belt before the game. With that much Minnesota awesome walking in to Miller Park, the Twins can't possibly lose.

  3. with literally every indicator saying that they'll win this game, why wouldn't they win the next one, too?

    Rock solid logic in my opinion.

  9. Steal of 3rd? Not something you see everyday. That's one of those decisions that's brilliant if it works, and the dumbest thing you've ever heard of if he's out.

        1. to be honest, I forgot about him until I saw a Cubs/Brewers game on WGN not too long ago.

    1. I'm on Gameday, so when I saw "In Play, run(s)", I was pleasantly surprised by how few there were.

      1. That is one way to accomplish said goal when BABIP has not been your friend. Glad Revere is able to still ride.

    1. The Twins have three runs on four hits, but the storyline will be how the offense wasn't clutch after the game unless the Twins open up a big inning. Kind of hard to get a hit w/RISP when you only have four to begin with. All three runs have scored without a hit on the play (2 sac flies and a hbp).

      1. well, there's that.

        it struck me looking at the box score that the Twins dont have many hits, but have had a lot of baserunners. I thought they were up to about 6 or 7 hits.

        5 walks, HBP will do that I guess.

  25. Provus: If Casilla was running on the pitch, he scores easily.
    Me: If Casilla was running, Butera most likely tries to punch it to the right side and could easily just hit a groundball instead of a double.

  30. I like Joe Mauer. I think he is a great player. But these soft rolling double plays are pretty annoying.

    1. To be fair, they'd be pretty annoying even if it was Babe Ruth in his prime.

        1. Fair enough. Souhan is still a douche, though.

          (not that you're parroting Souhan, just that I wanted to make sure everyone was clear on my position.)

      2. Speaking of Babe Ruth, on returning from a Boundary Waters trip, we stopped in here for lunch. Strange place.

    2. He doesn't strike out much and hits a lot of ground balls. He will hit into plenty of double plays. If he doesn't, that just means base runners aren't getting on ahead of him.

  31. Well, it's set up exactly how I would want it. Burton to face Hart and Braun, and if anyone gets on, Ramirez. Then, Capps doesn't have to face Braun or Ramirez as the tying run.

    1. I was going to type basically this same thing, but didn't want to jinx this half inning.

      1. It doesn't mean it will work out, but if it doesn't it won't be because we had Capps facing Braun at the wrong time.

        1. Indeed. I'm just feeling really superstitious right now for some reason.

          My hope is that Capps doesn't have to face anyone because the Twins have an 8-run ninth.

  34. Wow. Gameday is showing Strike 2 to Braun was a fastball right down the middle. Don't know what he was looking for but so glad he didn't swing.

    1. My team is not very good, but that Freeman trade actually hasn't worked out too badly so far, has it?

  42. The way this game is going Gardy might want to carry 4 catchers in the future.

    1. It's pretty funny how losing the DH is considered to be this big risk, but using up all the backup catchers as pinch-hitters in NL rules is totally cool. If Butera gets hurt now...Casilla? Carroll?

        1. I wonder if Plouffe has any emergency catching experience. Position players pitch all the time, why not (non-catching) position players catch?

        2. Given his history with head injuries, putting Morneau at catcher seems like a really bad, no good, terrible idea. Plouffe and Casilla are probably good answers as emergency catcher, though. Pretty expendable if something goes wrong and they were middle infielders so they are probably athletic enough to handle it.

  44. Well, Casilla isn't going to be the fourth catcher. At least the Twins are on just their fifth pitcher compared to the Brewers having used seven now.

    1. Since I've been wrong every freekin time I've made a statement, I wanted to make sure I make only negative ones for this game.

  46. If you consider the starting pitchers off limits, the Brewers have only two players available to put in the game and the Twins have four.

    1. I don't get why more teams don't delay the between start bullpen session until after the game in case something like this happens. Night games I can sort of see, since it's so late. Day games however, especially a day game where the team isn't traveling after the game, make a lot of sense.

      1. Yeah, a day game in the middle of a home stand seems like the perfect time to let your starting pitchers wait until after their game for their bullpen session, just in case.

  50. PLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUFFE

  54. Plouffe! There it is! Well, my Internet has been real iffy, but I got to hear that, at least. Woohoo!

  62. Approximate stats so far this season:

    20.1% SO% -- Cuddyer
    20.7% SO% -- Plouffe

    8.1% BB% -- Cuddyer
    14.0% BB% -- Plouffe

    .180 ISOp -- Cuddyer
    .186 ISOp -- Plouffe

    .301 BABIP -- Cuddyer
    .132 BABIP -- Plouffe

    $2.63M -- Cuddyer
    $0.12M -- Plouffe

    Plouffe hasn't been getting singles, and that's been bringing his whole line down, but he's basically been doing everything else.

    1. Including playing all over the diamond! I see right field and all four infield positions so far this year.

  63. No joak. I saw a dude in downtown H'ford walking a pair of hounds like our bouncers.

  64. .350 feels a lot nicer than .258. Hopefully they don't go back to playing .250 ball anytime soon.

  66. Twins now have two more wins in May than they did in all of April. Record at 8-10 in May. Twins now have a better record through 40 games then they did a year ago, by one game. Baby steps.

  73. Time to take action on this Twins hot streak.

    May 20 01:05 PM EST - Baseball Futures - American League Pennant Minnesota Twins +20000 for To Win
    10.00 USD 2,000.00 USD

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