Ian Kennedy and TBA vs. Phil Hughes and Adalberto Mejia
The Twins keep making more history this season. Today, it will be the first true doubleheader in Target Field history. Normally, the Twins choose to have a day/night doubleheader so they can charge fans separately for each game (and honor tickets for the rained-out game), but since the Twins have had or will have a total of 3 day/night doubleheaders, the players have to approve any more going on the schedule, so the consensus was to play the second game today 30 minutes after the first one ends.
A straight doubleheader always reminds me of the one I went to. It was a scheduled doubleheader at the Metrodome on Aug. 31, 1985, against the Red Sox. My brother was home from college and took me to the games. This was before I followed the Twins on an everyday basis.
That doubleheader got me started thinking baseball was pretty exciting after all. The Twins rallied with 2 outs in the ninth to win the first game on a Ron Washington RBI single and then held on in the second game despite the better efforts of He Who Shall Not Be Named trying to blow the game.
That day left a lasting impression on me, but that's largely because I smashed my thumb in the heavy first safety door between our garage and our house before leaving for the games. My thumb was bandaged and throbbing for both games, and I dealt with infections and scar tissues for months after. To this day, my damaged left thumb is noticeably longer than my right after being smashed flat.
As for these games, the Twins just need a split today after winning dramatically on Friday. There's no truth to the rumor that the ball Kennys Vargas hit opened a hole in the sky that caused yesterday's rainout.
Phil Hughes and Adalberto Mejia both need a good outing to keep their tenuous hold on their own rotation spots. Hughes' veteran status and contract has helped him remain in the rotation, but it's unclear how patient the new regime will be, especially with the Twins still with a slim lead in the division.
Fortunately for them, the Royals come into the day with the majors' worst offense. It's hard to believe this team won the World Series less than 2 years ago.
I think the Twins will need to score quite a few runs today.
Until yesterday, I had no idea there was a deal about the limits about teams scheduling day-night double headers.
A good first inning for Hughes, at least.
Salvador Perez hits a HR against the Twins
DRINK
A somewhat less good second inning for Hughes.
That was Perez's 14th career HR off Twins pitching. 12 have come at Target Field.
Love the strike em out/throw em out.
Would be nice if Joe and Miguel could schedule their hot streaks together. Or if Dozier would have one
Phil Hughes has now given up 10 HRs in 46 innings.
They really need to get some innings out of Hughes even if he is getting hit hard, because they don't know what they might get out of Mejia.
I'm pretty sure Molitor is going to have no choice but to go to the bullpen next inning.
He'll have a choice. He just may not make that choice.
Yeah I know, I was just ribbin ya. 😉
Hughes to the DL. Don't know if he said anything to Molitor before being pulled or not and of course it will look to some like the Twins just making up an injury to get him off the roster without having to actually demote or DFA him.
I wonder if he's really been healthy enough to pitch all year, or if he ever really will be again.
Geez my audio is late; Moss's HR was reported before Bonafacio's was called.
I feel very confident saying that it is time to move on from Hughes. He was never particularly effective to begin with and injuries have sapped even that. Dude's dun.
Part of the problem is that they don't have a lot of good options. The best of their AAA starters, unless you want to bring Gibson back, is probably Aaron Slegers, who's been very hot-and-cold this year. Other than that, I don't know. Wilk? Duffey? Justin Haley? Did I forget someone? I just don't see a lot to choose from.
As long as it isn't Tepesch or Gibson, it'd almost have to be an improvement over a relatively old pitcher with reduced velocity due to injury.
And if you still believe, as I do, that this year is more about player development than it is about wins and losses, it makes more sense to bring up someone like Slegers (assuming he won't be totally overmatched) than to keep using Hughes.
I've got no problem with this year as development, so if be down with Sleger, who I admittedly know nothing about. It also seems like it'd have the added bonus of allowing them to continue to contend.
Too bad Gonsalves got hurt. If he continued to pitch this year like he did last year, I would think he should be given a chance to come up next. I did just notice that Gibson has 18! Ks in 12 innings. He's never been dominate like that before at any level.
I enjoy Torii Hunters(slightly exaggerated) stories way more than Berts
Overall, I think I still don't like him up there. A lot of it is a combination of thinking he isn't adding any interesting commentary to the actual game being played (at least from what I've heard) and the things he's said and done in the past. Combined with the slight southern drawl and I'm not a fan.
Better than Bert though.
oy.
I'm not sure I understand the strategy of Kepler running there.
Torii's with you.
Even Gladden didn't consider that to be good, aggressive baseball.
They wanted to avoid what I thought was going to happen: a strikeout followed by a double play. The way they did it was a much more creative way to not score the runner from third with no one out.
TWINS [redacted] BASEBALL!!
Ugh
First appearance for Wilk in a week. They need him to give them three or four innings.
If he was considered to start tomorrow, why not finish out the game?
Well, I suppose that would be 4 innings. Sooo, what you said.
Let's get all the lousy ballplaying out of the way in this game and come back strong in the second one.
Two outta three wouldn't be bad.
I swear, every time dick praises someone or starts something specific, the opposite happens. Like "Hughes would really like a ground ball here", Boom, home run. "Joe Mauer is playing gold glove defense at first." WHAM, sails a throw to second.
It is really cold in the third deck. I actually brought a blanket today for the first time in my life, yet I'm still cold. Nonetheless, I plan to stay all day.
Next time you might need to bring a flask instead. Might make it tougher to stay all day, though.
There goes the shutout!
Dan Gladden is actually saying the Twins shouldn't be running here. I don't remember him ever saying that before.
He must really be feeling left down by that Kepler attempt.
Creeping closer!
Mmmm, that soft KC bullpen underbelly.
Buxton!!!
Wow
Loved this exchange:
Provus: Did those two pitches tell you anything?
Gladden: Yeah, they told me they just wasted two pitches.
Peter Moylan is an ex-Twin. They signed him as an amateur free agent from Australia in 1996. He played for the GCL Twins in 1996-97, then was released. He didn't do much there, but on the other hand he was only 17-18 years old at the time, so one could make the argument the Twins didn't show much patience with him.
The 97 team had two Aussies: Moylan and Grant Balfour
Sano!
I think that dented the wall
YUSSSSS!
Oofta
For the record, I was fine with leaving Wilk in the game this inning. The fact that he gave up a home run doesn't automatically mean it was the wrong decision.
I'm not sure what Provus thinks is so strange about Molitor's use of the bullpen in this game. I suppose you could argue he should've pulled Wilk when the game got close, but there was no real reason to. Other than that, the only thing "strange" is that the Twins actually allowed a relief pitcher to go more than one inning, which I've seen several other teams do.
I thought you couldn't use challenges after the seventh inning. Or is this not technically a "challenge", but you can still ask the umpires to review it in their discretion?
No real reason to pull Wilk here, either, but I guess I'm okay with it.
He was definitely laboring.
Maybe--I'm on radio--but you couldn't tell it from the results.
This is a move I do not agree with.
Giving Robbie Grossman a chance to put on his fielding glove is never a good move.
I understand it even less with the fact that the top of the order, that's had a good game, was due up.
Would you give Sano anything close to the strike zone?
They did and Sano struck out. =(
I wouldn't want to put the tying run on base in the ninth.
Sure wish Kennys Vargas was up instead of Escobar
I was gonna make a joke about Kepler being up, but I'm seeing that your feed is ahead of mine.
Need to throw a few more hamster in the internet wheels.
Loons soccer match on ESPN for the break between games.
The loons don't look as embarrassingly bad as the first time I watched them, but the American commentator is still making this game hard to watch.
Game on!
fixed
I'm fairly certain I've been seen at least six in person.
ROBBIE!
That was a couple innings too late, robbie.
KEPLERRRRRRRR!!!!
Auf Wiedersehn!
It's about fifteen degrees warmer in the lower level.
It's like a ghost movie at the bullseye
Wonder is the crowd would have been better if the wind chill wasn't 40 degrees (estimated)
Most likely, but I was referring to all the walks that are haunting.
WHY DO WE PITCH TO HIM?!?
edited for clairty
I think he's passed Trevor Plouffe! as the leader in HR at Target Field.
Seriously, though, he's passed Jose Bautista
They need to get off that kid's jock. Starting to piss me off. I get it, he's disappointed and isn't handling it well. Make his day and invite him up to the booth, tell him to keep his chin up.
Well he got some Lotto scratchers out of the deal. Still, FSN was not cool by showing the guy all that inning.
What happened?
A guy in left field should have caught Perez's second homer of the game and dropped it and another kid came around and picked it up. The guy spent the whole rest of the inning with his head in his hands or shaking his head. Torii spent much of the rest of the game making fun of him.
Without knowing any of this, I happened to walk by that kid playing with the ball on my way out.
Random thing: Julio DePaula still pitching!
I guess that's called pitching
Tell you what, Latroy and Torii are breaths of fresh air compared to Bert and Jack
Nice Kepler's Law Of Motion there.
They pour some more concrete at Target Field or something??
It's the elevation.
Made it through all 18 innings . . . with a 2.5 year old!
Gold medal effort.
Per game.
deleted picture of the President and King of Saudi Arabia
If anything, the Twins pushed the Royals one game down in the standings.
What I like about the season so far is that we are coming up on Memorial Day and there is not one truly terrible team in the American League, the Royals probably being the bottom team being 7 games below .500 and a run differential of -45.