I didn't see anything, so here we go! DOZIER! WOO!
53 thoughts on “Game 8: Twins at Tigers”
Lead off home runs are awesome.
That was was destroyed. Ball went well over the fence just to the left of centerfield.
It was also down in the zone. That's a good sign that Dozier is getting more on the ball now and isn't trying to pull everything.
The Twins are undefeated when they take the lead at any point in a game this season.
No Buxton in CF. Hold on to your butts.
But no Sano at third with Gibson, the guy that should get a lot of ground balls, pitching. If you're going to give Buxton a day off, doing it on a day like today, especially against a RH starting pitcher, is a real good day to do it.
Exactly what I was thinking. I don't get the impression that Buxton is being benched or anything, just given a day off. And as you say, if you're going to do that, this is the best day to do it.
Upton was certainly looking inside. That pitch was 6 inches in off the plate that he pulled for a double.
This reminds me, I forgot to do the schedule on the sidebar.
Note: this is working for me in IE11, but not Firefox. I'm sure I'm just missing something, but I'm not looking it up right now.
Ooh, very nice- thank you, kind sir.
*was not working in Chrome, but I have IE so whatever
Dick doing some math up in here.
Mauer's starting, of course we'll win*
*head explodes if Tonkin is used though
* Two days in a row seems unlikely.
He could help along that hypothesis right here.
Yes. Yes he can.
Perfect.
I like Fulmer being at 60 pitches with 2 outs in the 3rd.
Dido
Even better when he's trailing 3-0.
Back to work I go. Get like 16 more runs please.
I am enjoying this.
Love Joe punishing Fullmer for pitching around Sano after the long foul ball. Also, Joe needed that bouncer to find a hole after all the lineouts he's had.
Strike 3 to Polanco looked a whole lot like Ball 3 to Mauer.
Just did a quick search... Mauer currently sits 13th all time for hits in a career for a player with more than 50% of their games at catcher. He's at 1831 after that hit, just 7 behind Bob Boone. Bill Dickey is in 10th at 1969. May be catchable this year.
With 2 outs in the 3rd, I think Gibson has thrown less pitches in this game than Fullmer threw in the top of the 3rd.
He just went over in the Martinez at bat.
Crap.
Ugh.
I am enjoying this considerably less.
For the love...
Thanks cheaps, spaced on the day game...maybe should've stayed 'spaced'.
Thinking about a #freeBerrios campaign.
I think that it's a little early to be giving up on Gibson.
I know, Bert just has me reacting angrily to everything.
Also, #freeBerrios anyway.
Oh, for sure. #freeBerrios.
That was a very cool* inning.
*not actually cool
GUH! SHUT UP BERT! YOU ARE NOT THE MANAGER OF THIS TEAM!
I'm getting tired of announcers griping about two-strike hits. They're going to happen sometimes. There's a reason the rules make you get three strikes rather than two. I'm also tired of hearing, after a two-strike hit, "He should've spiked a breaking ball." Unless you've got a pretty tremendous breaking ball, there aren't a lot major league batters who are going to sucker for a pitch that's "spiked". You obviously don't want to throw it down the middle, but most of the time, throwing pitches that are way out of the strike zone is just helping the batter with the count and making the pitcher throw more pitches.
Ding ding ding
I understand why they'd play "no doubles defense", but there's a greater than zero chance that Buxton could score from first on a single.
Well, shoot.
Made it interesting at the end, at least. Stupid 5-run inning.
I'm not crazy about the 9 strikeouts, but it at least sounded like there were quite a few hard-hit balls today too.
There were some hard hit balls. It seemed like an inning or two after that long one they stopped making solid contact, for the most part.
They weren't exactly making hard contact on Fullmer before or during the long inning, with Dozier's home run the notable exception. Mauer's two-run single was a chopper up the middle that followed a two-out hbp and walk. Sano was robbed by Upton on a liner and Mauer hit a hard one-hopper that was a nice play by Kinsler. Mauer also lined out in his last at-bat. Santana hit a hard sort of liner toward the gap for an out. That's about all I remember.
The good thing was the extended at-bats that forced Fullmer out of the game after 6 innings. A lot of managers would have pulled him after 5.
I'd feel more sorry for Gibson if so much of his damage wasn't self-induced. I mean, if Romine hits a fly ball to the warning track instead of over the wall, he's out of the 4th with only 1 run allowed. The grand slam pitch wasn't a meatball down the middle. It was a slider on the corner at the knees. Not a terrible location, especially to a guy not known for power. However, for him to walk Upton to load the bases was terrible. Plus the hit batter.
I've always like to believe that Gibson was doing to develop into a better than average starter, but this was his 100th career start and he came into the game with a career 88 ERA+ and he's only had 1 season better than that, which is looking more and more like a fluky season for him and the Twins.
I'm fearful that Gibby might be the second coming of Nick Blackburn.
This was my conclusion half way through last season. I was hoping some club would have wanted to make an offseason trade for him, but here we are, one good game then three craptacular ones.
The notable difference is that Blackburn worked a ridiculous 3-year extension out of it (which I believe this FO would not have done).
At age-29, it seems pretty unlikely that he has anything left to "figure out." He is what he is.
Looks like there were well-struck balls in the 4th, 6th, 8th & 9th ... they just couldn't string any together.
Still and all (and I might be grasping at straws today) but I didn't expect this team to be 5-3 with a chance to retake a share of first place after 2-weeks of play. Mauer with some 2-out hitting. Dozier's first homer of the year. 4 solid innings from the pen. ... no strikeout's from Buxton!
Lead off home runs are awesome.
That was was destroyed. Ball went well over the fence just to the left of centerfield.
It was also down in the zone. That's a good sign that Dozier is getting more on the ball now and isn't trying to pull everything.
The Twins are undefeated when they take the lead at any point in a game this season.
No Buxton in CF. Hold on to your butts.
But no Sano at third with Gibson, the guy that should get a lot of ground balls, pitching. If you're going to give Buxton a day off, doing it on a day like today, especially against a RH starting pitcher, is a real good day to do it.
Exactly what I was thinking. I don't get the impression that Buxton is being benched or anything, just given a day off. And as you say, if you're going to do that, this is the best day to do it.
Upton was certainly looking inside. That pitch was 6 inches in off the plate that he pulled for a double.
This reminds me, I forgot to do the schedule on the sidebar.
Posted.
Gameday mini link for those inclined.
Note: this is working for me in IE11, but not Firefox. I'm sure I'm just missing something, but I'm not looking it up right now.
Ooh, very nice- thank you, kind sir.
*was not working in Chrome, but I have IE so whatever
Dick doing some math up in here.
Mauer's starting, of course we'll win*
*head explodes if Tonkin is used though
* Two days in a row seems unlikely.
He could help along that hypothesis right here.
Yes. Yes he can.
Perfect.
I like Fulmer being at 60 pitches with 2 outs in the 3rd.
Dido
Even better when he's trailing 3-0.
Back to work I go. Get like 16 more runs please.
I am enjoying this.
Love Joe punishing Fullmer for pitching around Sano after the long foul ball. Also, Joe needed that bouncer to find a hole after all the lineouts he's had.
Strike 3 to Polanco looked a whole lot like Ball 3 to Mauer.
Just did a quick search... Mauer currently sits 13th all time for hits in a career for a player with more than 50% of their games at catcher. He's at 1831 after that hit, just 7 behind Bob Boone. Bill Dickey is in 10th at 1969. May be catchable this year.
With 2 outs in the 3rd, I think Gibson has thrown less pitches in this game than Fullmer threw in the top of the 3rd.
He just went over in the Martinez at bat.
Crap.
Ugh.
I am enjoying this considerably less.
For the love...
Thanks cheaps, spaced on the day game...maybe should've stayed 'spaced'.
Thinking about a #freeBerrios campaign.
I think that it's a little early to be giving up on Gibson.
I know, Bert just has me reacting angrily to everything.
Also, #freeBerrios anyway.
Oh, for sure. #freeBerrios.
That was a very cool* inning.
*not actually cool
GUH! SHUT UP BERT! YOU ARE NOT THE MANAGER OF THIS TEAM!
I'm getting tired of announcers griping about two-strike hits. They're going to happen sometimes. There's a reason the rules make you get three strikes rather than two. I'm also tired of hearing, after a two-strike hit, "He should've spiked a breaking ball." Unless you've got a pretty tremendous breaking ball, there aren't a lot major league batters who are going to sucker for a pitch that's "spiked". You obviously don't want to throw it down the middle, but most of the time, throwing pitches that are way out of the strike zone is just helping the batter with the count and making the pitcher throw more pitches.
Ding ding ding
I understand why they'd play "no doubles defense", but there's a greater than zero chance that Buxton could score from first on a single.
Well, shoot.
Made it interesting at the end, at least. Stupid 5-run inning.
I'm not crazy about the 9 strikeouts, but it at least sounded like there were quite a few hard-hit balls today too.
There were some hard hit balls. It seemed like an inning or two after that long one they stopped making solid contact, for the most part.
They weren't exactly making hard contact on Fullmer before or during the long inning, with Dozier's home run the notable exception. Mauer's two-run single was a chopper up the middle that followed a two-out hbp and walk. Sano was robbed by Upton on a liner and Mauer hit a hard one-hopper that was a nice play by Kinsler. Mauer also lined out in his last at-bat. Santana hit a hard sort of liner toward the gap for an out. That's about all I remember.
The good thing was the extended at-bats that forced Fullmer out of the game after 6 innings. A lot of managers would have pulled him after 5.
I'd feel more sorry for Gibson if so much of his damage wasn't self-induced. I mean, if Romine hits a fly ball to the warning track instead of over the wall, he's out of the 4th with only 1 run allowed. The grand slam pitch wasn't a meatball down the middle. It was a slider on the corner at the knees. Not a terrible location, especially to a guy not known for power. However, for him to walk Upton to load the bases was terrible. Plus the hit batter.
I've always like to believe that Gibson was doing to develop into a better than average starter, but this was his 100th career start and he came into the game with a career 88 ERA+ and he's only had 1 season better than that, which is looking more and more like a fluky season for him and the Twins.
I'm fearful that Gibby might be the second coming of Nick Blackburn.
This was my conclusion half way through last season. I was hoping some club would have wanted to make an offseason trade for him, but here we are, one good game then three craptacular ones.
The notable difference is that Blackburn worked a ridiculous 3-year extension out of it (which I believe this FO would not have done).
At age-29, it seems pretty unlikely that he has anything left to "figure out." He is what he is.
Looks like there were well-struck balls in the 4th, 6th, 8th & 9th ... they just couldn't string any together.
Still and all (and I might be grasping at straws today) but I didn't expect this team to be 5-3 with a chance to retake a share of first place after 2-weeks of play. Mauer with some 2-out hitting. Dozier's first homer of the year. 4 solid innings from the pen. ... no strikeout's from Buxton!