2016 Twins Game Logs

2016 Game 137: Hosers at Twinkies

40 Comments

First pitch 1:10 p.m. CDT

Anthony Ranaudo (1-1, 8.76 ERA, 13 K, 1.476 WHIP)
Andrew Albers (0-0, 6.97 ERA, 8 K, 2.129 WHIP)

I remember Andrew Albers debut a few years ago when Gardy ended a complete game bid by pulling him in the 9th inning of shutout due to pitch count. I bitched about it for almost a week, right up until Albers' next start when he pitched a complete game shutout. This will be Albers' first major league start since 2013. I hope it goes as well for him as his first two major league debuts. On another note, Byron Buxton has man muscles and runs like a cheetah chasing dinner.

Play ball!

40 thoughts on “2016 Game 137: Hosers at Twinkies”

      1. It seems to be a thing with the Twins that as soon as a guy comes to Minnesota they try to change him. They did it with Berrios and Santiago, too. I'm sure it's well-intentioned, and some of it's probably good advice. But it just does not make a lot of sense to me to bring a guy to the team and before he can get his feet on the ground try to make major changes in his swing or in his delivery. It can give the player too many things to think about and plant doubts in his mind about whether he's really good enough to be there. To me, the better course would be to just let him play like he's already played, see if it works, and if it doesn't, start with making minor tweaks rather than major changes.

        1. Buxton's change came when he was drafted and he almost immediately became the org's best prospect. He came up and struggled for a while before they allowed him/suggested to him to go back to the leg kick. As far as I know, Berrios didn't change anything until he had struggled at the majors and had already been sent down once. It didn't sound like anything major, more a timing issue on his motion. Blyleven actually criticized the org for not making the change sooner, and if Bert is criticizing the Twins, then that makes me sit up and take notice. The Santiago one kind of flabbergasted me. The guy was being incredibly successful when they traded for him, so why change now? Then he went back to not worrying about throwing strikes so much and had a scoreless outing.

  4. Brian Dozier has thirty-five home runs this season. At the end of May he had five. His high in the minors was twelve. Incredible.

    1. It would be a stretch, but not crazy, for him to finish the season with 40. There are 25 games left in the season and from June 1 through yesterday, he had 29 home runs in 85 games. That's one home run every 3.5 games. The first non-Killebrew to hit 40 for the Twins.

      1. He'll be the first non-Killebrew to hit 36 homers for the Twins, let alone 40. His next home run will be the first time in the DH era that a Twins player has hit 36 or more home runs and will be the most home runs hit by a Twins player in my lifetime.

  7. Either Pressly's just going through a rough patch or he's wearing down. He's given up five runs on eleven hits in his last four appearances (not including this one).

  11. This is one of the few times I agree with using a pinch-runner. The only way the game continues is if they get that run home from first.

    1. Agreed. Although I didn't like using 2 players for the 1 move. Could have put Schafer in right, Kepler at first and Plouffe at third instead of just putting Escobar in for Schafer. Would have left open the option to use Grossman to pinch hit for Schafer or at least have Escobar available to run for Mauer later instead of Grossman, who I'm pretty sure is slower than Escobar.

  13. And we immediately put Rosario into a hole by asking him to do something he's not good at. That strikeout is on Molitor at least as much as on Rosario. Especially with John Ryan Murphy/Kurt Suzuki coming up next.

  14. Wow. Dazz is basically calling Molitor out for bad managing by having Rosario attempt to bunt. Saying he should have pinch-hit for him if he really wanted a bunt.

  20. The thought of Pat Dean coming in to pitch the eleventh does not fill me with confidence. We need to win this thing now.

  21. Well, I can't argue that the Twins deserved to win this one. You could argue that the White Sox didn't deserve to win it either, but somebody had to.

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