2016 Twins Game Recaps

2016 Series 5 Recap: Brewers 1, Twins 1

9 Comments

For the first time this year, a sweep was not involved in the series. Once again, the good and bad from the series.

The bad:

  • Sano in the outfield. Oof. There will be bad plays, I get that. But Sano needs all the practice he can get. It also would help he he'd mash more. For the season he has a .607 OPS. Thankfully, before the series it was at .535 but it has a long ways to go to.
  • Run prevention. Four runs in one game, even if only six innings, is decent but six runs is not. I think it's likely the Brewers would have scored again in game one so letting the bad guys score five plus runs a game is not good.
  • Murphy. I want the Murphy era to begin. His OPS is below Punto levels at .279. World Champion Butera at least managed that for a SLG.

The good:

  • Scoring. The Twins scored seven runs in six innings and then five more in the next nine. Scoring six runs a game will result in a lot of wins.
  • The bullpen before Jepsen. In the three innings from Santana to Jepsen on Tuesday, the bullpen had two hits, one walk, and six strikeouts. Each reliever allowed only a single batter to reach base. Tonkin and O'Rourke did make it interesting by having both of their batters reach in the same inning, but all three outs came on strikeouts.
  • Strikeouts. The Twins batters struck out only five times in each game. They also walked six times on Tuesday (only once on Monday).
  • Park. He raised his OPS from .657 entering Monday's game to .871. The OBP still needs work at only .313, but the SLG of .558 is great to see.
  • Mauer. Mauer back to Mauering.

9 thoughts on “2016 Series 5 Recap: Brewers 1, Twins 1”

  1. Twins have a OPS+ of 99 and a ERA+ of 116. If those 2 things stay consistent (and I'm sure the OPS+ has been improving), I feel confident the Twins will have at least a winning record.

    1. They have a FIP of 3.74 and an xFIP of 3.91. League average of both is 3.89. I feel confident that ERA+ will also trend to 100.

      1. Well, even with that, it's a .500 team with a 4-10 record. Plus, the Twins have a 99 OPS+ despite the outfield (other than Arcia) being horrifically bad offensively.

  2. Murphy. I want the Murphy era to begin. His OPS is below Punto levels at .279. World Champion Butera at least managed that for a SLG.

    Am I missing something? Are you excited about murphy, or just accepting the fact because suzuki?

    1. He is projected to be a better catcher (e.g. framing) and at least as good at the plate. He's not going to be a great catcher, but should be at least serviceable for a few years.

    2. I want the Murphy era to begin because I don't think Suzuki is good enough. Murphy may or may not be, but we should be finding out. And his defense, SSS (obviously), and it seems like it would be harder to get going when you're playing about every third day.

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