Ah, bad teams have such a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
103 thoughts on “2013 Game 43: Twins at Braves”
The lead for the PiPress game story from last night was how the Twins lost "another one" that they should have won. First of all, that was Perkins' first blown save and the bullpen has been very good overall. Usually, a bad bullpen leads to a lot of losses that should have been wins. Second of all, the Twins have been awful in the first inning, both pitching and hitting, which has led to a lot of early deficits. I'm trying to think of games the Twins lost where they "should have" won. There was last night and that game they led 6-0 and then ... I think Burton blew a save and I think the Twins lost it, but ... I just remember a whole lot of bad starting pitching putting the team in an early hole.
Looking back at JeffA's prognostications, they should have won them all!
Colabello has played all of thirteen games in the outfield in his minor league career. Maybe he has skills I'm not aware of, but I don't expect that to go particularly well.
Hidden depth
Adventures in the outfield!
Escobar and Florimon at the top of the lineup. This is the top 2 we've sort of been worrying about all year, right?
Pretty much. Gardy's definition for a number two hitter has expanded to "scrappy or Mauer".
I have enjoyed how long he's stuck with Mauer in the 2 spot. I just hope that he doesn't blame the lack on runs on that, rather than other issues. As bad a stat as RBIs are, the fact that Morneau has so many ought to imply that having a dude who can get on base a lot in front of the power hitters is a good thing, right?
Okay, what's the record for first inning runs by a team in a season?
That Worley and Pelfrey remain in the Twins rotation is a huge indictment of the starting pitching options the Twins have.
This starting pitching staff is a joke. I think it's worse than last year's, even if the numbers don't bear that out right now. By the time we get to the end of the season, we are going to be in 2012 territory.
They may improve (they could hardly get worse), but Worley and Pelfrey have made 18 starts and have a combined ERA of 6.43, a WHIP around 1.85 and an opponents batting average of over .350. In other words, the average player who bats against them hits like a Hall-of-Famer. Deduno, Gibson and Walters in the rotation couldn't be much worse than that.
Come to think of it, I'm not sure Jose Berrios and D. J. Baxendale would be much worse.
In fact, Ramon Ortiz and Livan Hernandez would probably be an improvement.
Miguel Sano for Livan Hernandez and cash.
Get it done, Terry Smith!
Whoa, now.
The pitching staff's stats may have broken Jeff A. He seems out of kilter.
d'oh. [kilt.jpg]
Hmm, last year's staff:
Rk
Name
GS
IP
BB/9
SO/9
1
Scott Diamond*
27
173.0
1.6
4.7
2
Nick Blackburn
19
98.2
2.4
3.8
3
Francisco Liriano*
17
100.0
5.0
9.8
4
Cole De Vries
16
87.2
1.8
6.0
5
Liam Hendriks
16
85.1
2.7
5.3
6
Sam Deduno
15
79.0
6.0
6.5
7
P.J. Walters
12
61.2
3.2
6.1
8
Brian Duensing*
11
109.0
2.2
5.7
9
Carl Pavano
11
63.0
1.1
4.7
10
Jason Marquis
7
34.0
3.7
3.2
11
Esmerling Vasquez
6
31.2
5.4
4.0
12
Anthony Swarzak
5
96.2
2.9
5.8
Versus this year's:
Rk
Name
GS
IP
BB/9
SO/9
1
Kevin Correia
9
57.2
1.4
3.4
2
Vance Worley
9
45.0
2.6
4.4
3
Mike Pelfrey
9
40.1
2.7
4.2
4
Scott Diamond*
7
39.2
2.0
3.6
5
Pedro Hernandez*
6
32.1
2.8
4.7
6
Liam Hendriks
2
9.2
0.9
4.7
It's close. Gibson might turn out to be the only bright spot and I doubt he will get more than 10 starts with the Twins.
That's 5 1/3 innings per start (counting today). The bullpen has been good, but they can't go out there and pitch 4 innings a night and continue to be good.
Might be time to just make the whole damn pitching staff the bullpen. Forget even trotting the starters out there unless they finally just bring up some of the yougins to see what they have in what is increasingly looking like yet another lost season in which the up-and-coming pitchers don't get a big league look.
I'm honestly mystified by their unwillingness to take these looks.
The Astros might be willing. In the minors, they have a first starter and then a second starter for each game.
I'd love to see a bad team experiment in the majors, especially since bad teams seem to often have bad starters. A manager with better bullpen management would be needed, though, I'm guessing.
The Rockies made a half-baked attempt last year. I think a rotation of pairs of four would be a great idea. Plus, it makes a mockery of the win stat since none of the "starters" would finish five innings.
That's probably why the managers don't have the cojones to do it.
There was some thought at The BookTango's Blog that the players would be against it since the Win is often used in arbitration.
That theory drives me crazy, since any agent worth their salt will use whatever stats are available (as would any FO), and other stats would become available in such a system.
It's the arbitrators. They aren't baseball people (which is the point), so using things like wins is easy to communicate in a short hearing.
Yeah, I've read that as well. It was in relation to Saves, but obviously, the same principle applies.
"Mr./Mrs. Arbiter - my client ranks in the top 10% of the league in 4-inning appearance with 2 or fewer runs allowed, and he's one of only 4 pitchers to have 2 dozen appearances of more than an inning where he gave up just 1 run. Moreover, this team has taken a unique approach in constructing their pitching staff, and my client has embraced everything the team has asked him to do - if the Rockies are telling you he doesn't have enough wins, that's because they have interfered with his ability to get those wins. He is uniquely valuable in a unique situation, and is worth every penny we're asking for."
Piece of cake. Arbiters are intelligent people (I may have had the NHL's arbiter for contracts law).
That's great. Go become a lawyer for agents and push the cases of the 90s. I am only passing on the way I've read it currently is.
My point is that I don't buy the speculation that the players are really against it for arbitration reasons. I do buy the "teams/managers are too afraid to innovate" logic.
It strikes me that there's not a lot of incentive for a manager to innovate in this way. If you have a good team, you're not going to risk a chance at the playoffs on what, for baseball, would be a fairly radical experiment. If you have a bad team, then even if it works, you're still probably not going to win that many more games, because you're a bad team. And if it doesn't work, not only do you still have a bad team, but everyone thinks you're an idiot for trying such a hare-brained scheme. Even if the manager thought it might be a good idea, there's not a lot of upside to trying it from his point of view.
Very true. There is no reason for the manager to try different things, which is why the Astros are doing all of their experimentation (other than the MLB standings limbo) in the minors. They still got flak for it, but thankfully just ignored the writers.
It's too bad that Kyle Gibson isn't as consistent as Worley or Big Pelf.
Well, I have to admit, they have been pretty consistent.
And how.
Worley has been a disappointment. His strikeout rate has dropped so far that I wonder if he's healthy. His pitch velocity is down from last year on everything he's throwing. Looking at his LD%, his FIP, and his xFIP, it seems like he's been somewhat unlucky, but he's still been worse than he was last year. If he's injured, then you wouldn't necessarily expect FIP or xFIP to accurately reflect his abilities.
Whoops. These east coast day games throw off my delay the log an hour. Thanks Sean.
It's also a sad state of affairs when Provus sounds happy that the Twins only gave up one run in the first inning.
Four runs in the first inning in the first game, two in the second game, and one in the third game. That's sounds like progress to me.
Baby steps.
Geometric.
If this were a four-game series, Twins would only give up half-a-run in the first.
(UER maybe?)
I would say maybe a double? A single the next game.
No clue how to get an eighth of a run.
K w/ a passed ball, batter reaches.
But they really do give up lots of 1st inning runs... And don't score a ton in the first inning too. Perhaps they aren't appropriately game-ready?
50 first inning runs in 43 games. That's brutal.
The starter's ERAs are all hovering around the mark of Satan.
Edit: Except Correia, who's trending that way.
Consistency!
Hey, Dozier's not leading off. That's something, anyway.
*forehead smack; goes on concussion DL*
VANCE.
How long is the first inning?
Right around nine innings long, it would appear.
I'm thinking more like 162*9.
I'm starting to get worried about Consensual...
edit - Hitting what, .150/.329/.267 for the month of May?
Bad news from Dazzle: Roenicke should be available for a couple innings today
Is this jokes?
I am glad that I am going to be out of town for the next 5 days so I don't have to watch this team flounder.
Their perch at the bottom of the standings isn’t in danger yet.
We should all be carping about the pitching staff.
Cause these pitchers are all crappie. (GOB says: "COME ON!!!")
To be fair, only suckers thought they'd be any better in 2013.
I never, ever, EVER thought I could possibly start missing Nick Blackburn.
His ERA and FIP are still lower than Blackburn's was last season over nineteen starts.
That makes sense.
Gibson, please.
DeVries please.
#Crushed
So yeah, I've been baiting Phil Mackey on his assertion that the Twins pitching is better today.
Point of reference: 2012 xFIP: 4.46. 2013 xFIP: 4.44. The main reason total runs is down is an unsustainably low HR rate, which Vance Worley is working to correct.
I think his point that his projections were for the whole season is valid counterargument. Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention, but I don't remember seeing Mackey pointing out that this staff is going to be good.
No, his point has been since the off season that they would be improved and anyone who suggested otherwise was ridiculed. I never thought they would be improved. They are and likely will be just as bad as last year, maybe worse. Some unsustainable HR rates have disguised that fact.
I guess I don't understand the beef.
The starting staff certainly doesn't look good in any case.
To wit:
This is a case of someone on the Internet is wrong, but I listened to this multiple times in the off-season and I thought I'd check to see where he was today.
they're walking fewer this year, fwiw (not much)
Wait until Deduno shows up!
You get a BB! And you get a BB!
You get a K! And you get a K!
It's probably beside the point, since by the end of 2013, the rotation will have Diamond, De Vries, and Deduno in it.
Exactly! Just like last year! Don't forget PJ Walters.
2012 me would be mildly horrified to hear of the idea of the 2012 staff being brought up from the minors to improve the 2013 staff.
I don't follow Phil Mackey at all, but look at the Twins' offseason from a high level, it's hard to see concluding that the 2013 rotation would be much better. They did move some outfielders for starting pitching, but that starting pitching (sans Worley) wasn't going to be in the majors for a couple years. I wasn't totally against, say, the Correia signing, but he wasn't going to make the rotation better so much as provide some replacement-level innings for a team that's had trouble finding even replacement-level starting the last couple years.
I just sat down to lunch and haven't been paying much attention. Has the comeback started yet, or should I go back to reading NBA draft projections?
It's a wash as far as inducing depression goes, right?
Yeah, but isn't it like gratification, where it's better if it's delayed?
Are you saying you prefer Gibson/Buxton/Sano 2016 > 2015 > 2014 > tomorrow?
I'm saying I'm going to get my hopes up for the thing that will make me sad next month instead of the thing that will make me sad right now.
But yeah, I'm thinking 2015+ is going to be a lot better than 2011-2014.
home for lunch and watched Worley's effort...he he been squeezed all game? I really wish FSN would have the FOXtrax graphic up all game.
also, we want a pitcher, not a belly itcher.
get er done Billy SMith
When he walked Freeman, he was definitely squeezed.
After that Vance Worley shelling Twins starting pitchers have a 5.69 ERA this season. Last year they had a 5.40 ERA.
Maybe I'll see if John D'Acquisto would be willing to come out of retirement.
we could use an innings eater
You know, I really miss Francisco Liriano.
Thielbar is in the game!
Clap Clap Clapclapclap!
Much as we've criticized the pitching staff, and much as it's deserved it, the offense hasn't exactly been setting the world on fire lately, either.
If Hicks would start to hit, that would at least be a bright spot.
3-for-4 to raise his BA to a lofty .157!
H(R)icks!
A(H)Rcia!
The great thing about baseball is that everybody can come out to the ballpark tomorrow and try again. Well, everybody but Vance Worley, anyway. We'll just have to settle for 138-24!
The lead for the PiPress game story from last night was how the Twins lost "another one" that they should have won. First of all, that was Perkins' first blown save and the bullpen has been very good overall. Usually, a bad bullpen leads to a lot of losses that should have been wins. Second of all, the Twins have been awful in the first inning, both pitching and hitting, which has led to a lot of early deficits. I'm trying to think of games the Twins lost where they "should have" won. There was last night and that game they led 6-0 and then ... I think Burton blew a save and I think the Twins lost it, but ... I just remember a whole lot of bad starting pitching putting the team in an early hole.
Looking back at JeffA's prognostications, they should have won them all!
Colabello has played all of thirteen games in the outfield in his minor league career. Maybe he has skills I'm not aware of, but I don't expect that to go particularly well.
Hidden depth
Adventures in the outfield!
Escobar and Florimon at the top of the lineup. This is the top 2 we've sort of been worrying about all year, right?
Pretty much. Gardy's definition for a number two hitter has expanded to "scrappy or Mauer".
I have enjoyed how long he's stuck with Mauer in the 2 spot. I just hope that he doesn't blame the lack on runs on that, rather than other issues. As bad a stat as RBIs are, the fact that Morneau has so many ought to imply that having a dude who can get on base a lot in front of the power hitters is a good thing, right?
Okay, what's the record for first inning runs by a team in a season?
That Worley and Pelfrey remain in the Twins rotation is a huge indictment of the starting pitching options the Twins have.
This starting pitching staff is a joke. I think it's worse than last year's, even if the numbers don't bear that out right now. By the time we get to the end of the season, we are going to be in 2012 territory.
They may improve (they could hardly get worse), but Worley and Pelfrey have made 18 starts and have a combined ERA of 6.43, a WHIP around 1.85 and an opponents batting average of over .350. In other words, the average player who bats against them hits like a Hall-of-Famer. Deduno, Gibson and Walters in the rotation couldn't be much worse than that.
Come to think of it, I'm not sure Jose Berrios and D. J. Baxendale would be much worse.
In fact, Ramon Ortiz and Livan Hernandez would probably be an improvement.
Miguel Sano for Livan Hernandez and cash.
Get it done, Terry Smith!
Whoa, now.
The pitching staff's stats may have broken Jeff A. He seems out of kilter.
d'oh. [kilt.jpg]
Hmm, last year's staff:
Versus this year's:
It's close. Gibson might turn out to be the only bright spot and I doubt he will get more than 10 starts with the Twins.
That's 5 1/3 innings per start (counting today). The bullpen has been good, but they can't go out there and pitch 4 innings a night and continue to be good.
Might be time to just make the whole damn pitching staff the bullpen. Forget even trotting the starters out there unless they finally just bring up some of the yougins to see what they have in what is increasingly looking like yet another lost season in which the up-and-coming pitchers don't get a big league look.
I'm honestly mystified by their unwillingness to take these looks.
The Astros might be willing. In the minors, they have a first starter and then a second starter for each game.
I'd love to see a bad team experiment in the majors, especially since bad teams seem to often have bad starters. A manager with better bullpen management would be needed, though, I'm guessing.
The Rockies made a half-baked attempt last year. I think a rotation of pairs of four would be a great idea. Plus, it makes a mockery of the win stat since none of the "starters" would finish five innings.
That's probably why the managers don't have the cojones to do it.
There was some thought at
The BookTango's Blog that the players would be against it since the Win is often used in arbitration.That theory drives me crazy, since any agent worth their salt will use whatever stats are available (as would any FO), and other stats would become available in such a system.
It's the arbitrators. They aren't baseball people (which is the point), so using things like wins is easy to communicate in a short hearing.
Yeah, I've read that as well. It was in relation to Saves, but obviously, the same principle applies.
"Mr./Mrs. Arbiter - my client ranks in the top 10% of the league in 4-inning appearance with 2 or fewer runs allowed, and he's one of only 4 pitchers to have 2 dozen appearances of more than an inning where he gave up just 1 run. Moreover, this team has taken a unique approach in constructing their pitching staff, and my client has embraced everything the team has asked him to do - if the Rockies are telling you he doesn't have enough wins, that's because they have interfered with his ability to get those wins. He is uniquely valuable in a unique situation, and is worth every penny we're asking for."
Piece of cake. Arbiters are intelligent people (I may have had the NHL's arbiter for contracts law).
That's great. Go become a lawyer for agents and push the cases of the 90s. I am only passing on the way I've read it currently is.
My point is that I don't buy the speculation that the players are really against it for arbitration reasons. I do buy the "teams/managers are too afraid to innovate" logic.
It strikes me that there's not a lot of incentive for a manager to innovate in this way. If you have a good team, you're not going to risk a chance at the playoffs on what, for baseball, would be a fairly radical experiment. If you have a bad team, then even if it works, you're still probably not going to win that many more games, because you're a bad team. And if it doesn't work, not only do you still have a bad team, but everyone thinks you're an idiot for trying such a hare-brained scheme. Even if the manager thought it might be a good idea, there's not a lot of upside to trying it from his point of view.
Very true. There is no reason for the manager to try different things, which is why the Astros are doing all of their experimentation (other than the MLB standings limbo) in the minors. They still got flak for it, but thankfully just ignored the writers.
It's too bad that Kyle Gibson isn't as consistent as Worley or Big Pelf.
Well, I have to admit, they have been pretty consistent.
And how.
Worley has been a disappointment. His strikeout rate has dropped so far that I wonder if he's healthy. His pitch velocity is down from last year on everything he's throwing. Looking at his LD%, his FIP, and his xFIP, it seems like he's been somewhat unlucky, but he's still been worse than he was last year. If he's injured, then you wouldn't necessarily expect FIP or xFIP to accurately reflect his abilities.
Whoops. These east coast day games throw off my delay the log an hour. Thanks Sean.
It's also a sad state of affairs when Provus sounds happy that the Twins only gave up one run in the first inning.
Four runs in the first inning in the first game, two in the second game, and one in the third game. That's sounds like progress to me.
Baby steps.
Geometric.
If this were a four-game series, Twins would only give up half-a-run in the first.
(UER maybe?)
I would say maybe a double? A single the next game.
No clue how to get an eighth of a run.
K w/ a passed ball, batter reaches.
But they really do give up lots of 1st inning runs... And don't score a ton in the first inning too. Perhaps they aren't appropriately game-ready?
50 first inning runs in 43 games. That's brutal.
The starter's ERAs are all hovering around the mark of Satan.
Edit: Except Correia, who's trending that way.
Consistency!
Hey, Dozier's not leading off. That's something, anyway.
*forehead smack; goes on concussion DL*
VANCE.
How long is the first inning?
Right around nine innings long, it would appear.
I'm thinking more like 162*9.
I'm starting to get worried about Consensual...
edit - Hitting what, .150/.329/.267 for the month of May?
Bad news from Dazzle: Roenicke should be available for a couple innings today
Is this jokes?
I am glad that I am going to be out of town for the next 5 days so I don't have to watch this team flounder.
Their perch at the bottom of the standings isn’t in danger yet.
We should all be carping about the pitching staff.
Cause these pitchers are all crappie. (GOB says: "COME ON!!!")
To be fair, only suckers thought they'd be any better in 2013.
They're so bad it makes me want to wail.
Yup, they stink.
Things certainly look bleak
[moved where it made sense]
yeah, tie a bow around that pitch
I never, ever, EVER thought I could possibly start missing Nick Blackburn.
His ERA and FIP are still lower than Blackburn's was last season over nineteen starts.
That makes sense.
Gibson, please.
DeVries please.
#Crushed
So yeah, I've been baiting Phil Mackey on his assertion that the Twins pitching is better today.
Point of reference: 2012 xFIP: 4.46. 2013 xFIP: 4.44. The main reason total runs is down is an unsustainably low HR rate, which Vance Worley is working to correct.
I think his point that his projections were for the whole season is valid counterargument. Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention, but I don't remember seeing Mackey pointing out that this staff is going to be good.
No, his point has been since the off season that they would be improved and anyone who suggested otherwise was ridiculed. I never thought they would be improved. They are and likely will be just as bad as last year, maybe worse. Some unsustainable HR rates have disguised that fact.
I guess I don't understand the beef.
The starting staff certainly doesn't look good in any case.
To wit:
This is a case of someone on the Internet is wrong, but I listened to this multiple times in the off-season and I thought I'd check to see where he was today.
they're walking fewer this year, fwiw (not much)
Wait until Deduno shows up!
You get a BB! And you get a BB!
You get a K! And you get a K!
It's probably beside the point, since by the end of 2013, the rotation will have Diamond, De Vries, and Deduno in it.
Exactly! Just like last year! Don't forget PJ Walters.
2012 me would be mildly horrified to hear of the idea of the 2012 staff being brought up from the minors to improve the 2013 staff.
I don't follow Phil Mackey at all, but look at the Twins' offseason from a high level, it's hard to see concluding that the 2013 rotation would be much better. They did move some outfielders for starting pitching, but that starting pitching (sans Worley) wasn't going to be in the majors for a couple years. I wasn't totally against, say, the Correia signing, but he wasn't going to make the rotation better so much as provide some replacement-level innings for a team that's had trouble finding even replacement-level starting the last couple years.
I just sat down to lunch and haven't been paying much attention. Has the comeback started yet, or should I go back to reading NBA draft projections?
It's a wash as far as inducing depression goes, right?
Yeah, but isn't it like gratification, where it's better if it's delayed?
Are you saying you prefer Gibson/Buxton/Sano 2016 > 2015 > 2014 > tomorrow?
I'm saying I'm going to get my hopes up for the thing that will make me sad next month instead of the thing that will make me sad right now.
But yeah, I'm thinking 2015+ is going to be a lot better than 2011-2014.
home for lunch and watched Worley's effort...he he been squeezed all game? I really wish FSN would have the FOXtrax graphic up all game.
also, we want a pitcher, not a belly itcher.
get er done Billy SMith
When he walked Freeman, he was definitely squeezed.
Maybe I'll see if John D'Acquisto would be willing to come out of retirement.
we could use an innings eater
You know, I really miss Francisco Liriano.
Thielbar is in the game!
Clap Clap Clapclapclap!
Much as we've criticized the pitching staff, and much as it's deserved it, the offense hasn't exactly been setting the world on fire lately, either.
If Hicks would start to hit, that would at least be a bright spot.
3-for-4 to raise his BA to a lofty .157!
H(R)icks!
A(H)Rcia!
The great thing about baseball is that everybody can come out to the ballpark tomorrow and try again. Well, everybody but Vance Worley, anyway. We'll just have to settle for 138-24!