Another late game.
There West Coast games are hard on your recapper, because most of it is played after he goes to bed. Thus, we rely on the box score, the play-by-play sheet, and hints from the game log to tell us what's happened.
It appears that Pino did okay. Not great, not anything to shout about, but okay. He only pitched five innings, and he allowed nine base runners, but got out of danger, only gave up one run, and was credited with his first major league win. And when we're talking about a fifth starter, "okay" is about as good as we can hope for. So, congratulations on your first major league win, Yohan. You did okay.
On the offensive side, I keep waiting for Kurt Suzuki to come back to earth, and instead he got two more hits to raise his average to .307. Parmelee got a couple of hits, Morales got a key double, and Fuld reached base three times. It wasn't a great offensive game, by any means, but they did enough.
I really don't understand why Seattle felt it was so important to start Hernandez against Oakland that they were willing to risk messing up their bullpen to do it. They kind of got away with it--they didn't win, but they only gave up four runs, which isn't awful by any means. On the other hand, they burned up six relievers to do it. They were also somewhat lucky that they none of their relievers got lit up--one of the dangers of running six relievers out there is that one of them won't have it that day and will get pounded. In addition, it leaves them dependent on Hernandez going deep into the game tonight, because they'll have a somewhat short bullpen. I realize that's a good bet, but as great as Hernandez is, he's still human and anyone can have a bad game. There's also the chance he could get hurt. I'm not outraged at it or anything, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Of course, the Twins only used one fewer pitcher than Seattle, which makes what the Mariners did look less bad. As we've noted before, Gardy rarely uses any relievers other than Swarzak and Deduno for more than one inning. It's something that looks good when it works and looks bad when it doesn't. Again, the more relievers you use, the better chance there is that you'll find one who doesn't have it today. On the other hand, if someone only pitches one inning today, he's probably still available for tomorrow, whereas if he pitches two or three he's probably not. Also, there is something to be said for having relievers with assigned roles and for each reliever knowing what his role is. I would assume that it's helpful for a pitcher to know that he's only going to be pitching this one inning, so that he knows he doesn't have to hold anything back. On the other hand, when you run through that many relievers, it leaves you really vulnerable when a game goes into extra innings, because you've already used up your best pitchers. So, there's an upside and a downside, and I don't know which side is higher. Again, it looks good when it works and it looks bad when it doesn't.
So, after dropping the first game, the Twins won the next three to take the series in Seattle. They continue the Asleep at the Wheel portion of the schedule tonight as they travel to Colorado. It appears that Kris Johnson will be promoted from AAA to make the start, although I haven't seen who's being sent out to make room for him. We saw him once earlier this year, and while he wasn't awful he had a lot of trouble finding home plate. Control has been something of a problem for him throughout his career, although not to the extent it was in that one start.
Johnson pitched well in AAA last year and is pitching well there again. He's twenty-nine, so he would seem to fit into the Deduno/Pino late-bloomer mold. It's always nice to see guys like that get a chance, but even so, we have to recognize that usually, when a guy hasn't made the big leagues by that age, there's a reason for it. When someone like Colabello or Pino or Deduno succeeds, it's a great story, but you can't really build a team on guys like that. The best we can really hope for is that Johnson reaches that "okay" level.
And of course he will, because the Twins have Momentum on their side, and you can't stop Momentum. The three wins in a row are just the beginning! We've started on our season-ending seventy-three game winning streak. We're still on track for 113-49!
Twitter sweep!
The corresponding roster move to Kris Johnson is to send Yohan Pino to Rochester. I suspect this is a temporary thing, that with the all-star break coming up they won't need a fifth starter for a while, so they'll see what happens with Nolasco and make another decision when it becomes necessary to make one.
I didnt realize Seattle was many games for the .500 mark.
What does taking 3 out of 4 games mean for our local squad?
They are fewer games below .500 than before.
That's about it.
In my household, it means having bragging rights since Mrs. SoCal is an M's fan (and Trey claims to be, too, although his two favorite players are Glen Perkins and Joe Mauer. Basically, he feels sorry for Mommy because no one cheers for her team).
I don't know that one series ever means much of anything. It's always better to win than to lose, of course. And it's always nice to win a series on the road. On the other hand, we threw our best pitchers at them while they deliberately held their best pitcher out for reasons that are still not entirely clear to me. As you know, in baseball it's not unusual for a better team to lose a series to a worse team. So, as sean says, it keeps the Twins within shouting distance of .500. If they keep playing well, we may look at this series as a turning point. If not, it'll have just been four more games on the schedule.
Even if it's just 4 more games on the schedule, I found myself able to catch most of each of the games, and I had a good time doing so. It reminded me that I'm having some real fun following (to the extent that I am) this team this year, in a way I didn't the previous few.
This is very much the case for me too. I actually stayed up, turned on the radio, grabbed an armchair and had a beer the past couple of nights. Wouldn't have done so if the contests hadn't been competitive.