MINNESOTA 12, KANSAS CITY 8 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Sunday, September 22.
Batting stars: Eddie Rosario was 3-for-4 with three doubles, a walk, and three RBIs. Nelson Cruz was 2-for-3 with a home run (his fortieth), two walks, and four runs. Miguel Sano was 2-for-4 with two home runs (his thirty-second and thirty-third), a walk, and four RBIs. Jorge Polanco was 2-for-4 with a double, a walk, and three runs. Marwin Gonzalez was 2-for-4 with a walk and three RBIs.
Pitching stars: Tyler Duffey struck out the side in a perfect inning. Trevor May pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and a walk and striking out one. Cody Stashak struck out two in a scoreless inning, giving up one hit. Brusdar Graterol struck out the side in a perfect inning.
Opposition stars: Whit Merrifield was 3-for-4 with a stolen base, his nineteenth. Nicky Lopez was 2-for-3 with two doubles, a walk, and two runs.
The game: The Royals started the game with singles by Merrifield and Adalberto Mondesi, then immediately pulled off a double steal to put men on second and third with none out. They did not score, however, as the next three batters failed to get the ball out of the infield.
The Twins responded with a big bottom of the first. With one out, Polanco and Cruz singled and Rosario followed with an RBI double. With two out, Gonzalez singled home a run and Sano came through with a three-run homer. It did not kill the rally, as Jake Cave walked and LaMonte Wade and Luis Arraez singled. It was a 6-0 Twins lead, and they then cruised to an easy victory.
Well, not quite. Nick Dini hit a two-run homer in the second to cut the lead to 6-2. In the third, Lopez and Jorge Soler hit back-to-back doubles, Hunter Dozier singled, a ground out scored a run, and Cheslor Cuthbert had an RBI single, cutting the margin to 6-5. Sano homered in the bottom of the third to make it 7-5, but Lopez had an RBI double in the fourth to again cut the lead to one at 7-6. Cruz hit a home run in the bottom of the fourth to put the difference back up to two at 8-6.
Things settled down a bit for a little while. There was no more scoring until the sixth. Polanco doubled, Cruz was intentionally walked, Rosario had an RBI double, and Gonzalez drove in a run with a single to make it 10-6. They added two more in the seventh. With two out, Polanco and Cruz walked, Rosario had another RBI double, and Jason Castro and Gonzalez walked, giving the Twins a 12-6 advantage. The Twins remained in control of the game the rest of the way.
No, not really. They should have. Fernando Romero came in to pitch the ninth with a six run lead. No one needed their bats against him, as he went strikeout, walk, walk, strikeout, walk. With the bases loaded and two down, Rocco had seen enough and brought in Sergio Romo. He immediately walked two men, making the score 12-8 and bringing the tying run to the plate. Finally, however, he struck out Alex Gordon and the victory went to the Twins.
WP: Zack Littell (6-0). LP: Jorge Lopez (4-9). S: None.
Notes: LaMonte Wade was in center in the continuing absence of Byron Buxton. Jake Cave was in right in the absence of Max Kepler. Marwin Gonzalez was at first base in the continuing absence of C. J. Cron. Mitch Garver started the game at catcher, but was removed in the fifth due to "right hip tightness". I have no information on how serious it is.
Luis Arraez was 1-for-6 and is batting .343. Cruz is batting .303. His home run, as I'm sure you know, was the four hundredth of his career.
Zack Littell has an ERA of 2.83. Tyler Duffey is at 2.26.
Remember when Miguel Sano was a total bust, and the Twins should either send him to Rochester or just DFA him?
I seem to hear from a lot of Twins fans who aren't really enjoying this run for the division title. They keep saying, "But with our pitching, we won't do anything in the playoffs." I actually agree with that assessment, although with the caveat that it's baseball and you never know. But even so, that doesn't mean we can't enjoy the success we're having in the regular season.
I think part of the problem is that a lot of fans have no confidence in the Twins' ability to take the next step next year. They don't see this as a division title this year, maybe a deep playoff run the next year, then a world championship. Their fear is that this is a one-off, and next year we'll be back to mediocrity. I understand that. We've never really seen a Twins team that was able to take that next step. The division championships in the first decade of the 2000s were accompanied by post-season futility. The two world championships were not the culmination of a steady building phase--they came from bad teams becoming good in a single bound, and then dropping back to mediocrity or worse within a couple of years. We have no experience with a Twins team going from good to better to best.
I think there are reasons to think this Twins team could, though. The biggest one is the number of young players who are having success this season. Front and center, of course, is Arraez, who is batting .343 with an OPS of .851. But look at the pitchers:
Littell, 2.83 ERA, 1.23 WHIP.
Cody Stashak, 3.13 ERA, 1.22 WHIP.
Randy Dobnak, 2.01 ERA, 1.39 WHIP.
Brusdar Graterol, 4.32 ERA, 1.20 WHIP.
Granted, we're dealing with some small sample sizes, but these guys have all been put into games in important situations and have, for the most part, come through. There's every reason to think they are legitimate big leaguers, and that there are more coming.
I don't remember the last time the Twins brought up this many young players and had them perform well. Part of the reason for that is that, before this year, they would not have been given the chance. Arraez would never have been brought up with so little AAA experience--they'd have found a veteran middle infielder to fill in. And if injuries had forced them to bring Arraez up for a week or two, he'd have been sent back as soon as the veterans got healthy. It would've been "Nice job, kid. Now go back to AAA and prove you belong here." On the pitching staff, we'd still be bumbling along with people like Matt Magill, Blake Parker, and Mike Morin, because "They've been around. They know how to pitch." Current management should be given credit not just for their role in developing these players, but for actually giving them the chance to play. There are never guarantees, but it gives me a lot of hope that this year is not just a one-off, but is instead building toward something even better in years to come.
Record: The Twins are 96-60, in first place in the American League Central, four games ahead of Cleveland. Their magic number is three.
Projected record: We're still on track for 102-60!
He immediately walked two men, making the score 12-8 and bringing the tying run to the plate.
I was only keeping an eye on the box as I was pretty busy yesterday. I didn't realize that's how they scored those two run. Yeesh...
The two world championships were not the culmination of a steady building phase--they came from bad teams becoming good in a single bound, and then dropping back to mediocrity or worse within a couple of years.
Not to quibble and I know it didn’t end up with a Braves-level of consistent winning, but the story I’ve always heard was the ‘87 team was compromised of players coming up through the system and/or learning to play successfully together. Their record from 1984-86 may suggest that the ‘87 club became good in a single bound, but it wasn’t a roster full of free agents and unfamiliar faces. The 1991 team was not without players from ‘87 and included Twins minor league products.
Again, that’s the narrative I’d always heard and I certainly take your point within the context of what your recap communicates.
You're quite right about that. My point was that we didn't see them make a progression from, say, contending for the title one year, winning the division the next, then winning the world championship the following year. The 1986 Twins were 71-91, sixth in a seven-team division, 21 games back. The 1990 Twins were 74-88, seventh in a seven-team division, 29 games back. At the beginning of the season, no one expected either team to do anything. And while each team was good the year after their championship, they didn't make the playoffs, and the year after that they were back below .500.
Well, the 87 team was pretty mediocre and got extremely lucky with the division they were in. The only really good Twins years from that group of players were 88, 91 and 92. In fact, they were the best team in the AL West in 91 and 92, but Oakland had some Pythag luck.
That said, Jeff's point is accurate. We have never had a sustained winner. And fans are ridiculous. If you will never enjoy the Twins unless we're perpetually better than the Yankees, then you'll never enjoy the Twins.
If you will never enjoy the Twins unless we're perpetually better than the Yankees, then you'll never enjoy the Twins.
This would make for a quality headstone or tattoo.
Ayyup.
By my count, nine different clubs have won an AL pennant and 11 different clubs have won an NL pennant in the last 20 years (19 overall because of the Astros switch of leagues).
I want the Twins to be competitive as often as possible and to make the World Series at least once every 15 years or so. They are overdue on the latter and have had only 6 90+ win seasons in the past 20 years. If that were more like one WS and ten 90+ I would be pretty satisfied as a fan.
The Yankees are the wrong model, both for expectations & practicalities. The Cardinals — or perhaps the Braves from 1991–2005 — are the right one for the Twins.
The Braves did well with developing and churning out hitters, but to have three hall-of-fame starters all at the same time has a lot of luck involved. The Cardinals have had sustained success going on 100 years now with no long bad stretches. It's pretty remarkable.
Do we have data on the Braves' payroll compared to the league for those years? This site has back to 1998 and the Braves were top three for '98 - '00 and '03 but top-ten the rest of their run. They drop the middle or bottom of the league after that.
Re: Cardinals. The things you can do with a little beer money.
The Braves won exactly one world series in that span. Twins Twitter would have lost its mind.
In discussing young pitchers's success this year, you left out Devin Smeltzer (3.68 ERA, 1.182 WHIP, 0.7 WAR).
Yep. My bad. Thanks for picking me up.
Regarding seeing this many younger players come up and succeed: This is what is so refreshing about Rocco the Great. When I think of TK, Gardy, and even Molitor, it felt the call up players were mishandled. It seemed like one mistake and they were in the doghouse. I guess part of it is probably the leaders on this team, like Cruz, making guys feel welcome, but it just seems like a much more positive atmosphere in the dugout.
Regarding Twin's fan angst: Get a clue. I know we all pull our hair out on this site at times, but we all seem to have reasonable expectations. You take a step back and think about where we were, and what market we are in, and it leaves me satisfied that we are on the right track. I think the F.O. has taken reasonable steps to make us playoff competitive this year, but they are definitely playing the long game. I am all in on hoarding prospects, as our history has proven that there are no sure bets. If you are sitting on an embarrassment of riches in your farm system you can do great things. They could have gone all in this year, but it would not make sense in a year where the Dodgers and Astros looked so stinking good going in to the season.
On top of all this, we can't judge this team on the last week or so. Obviously, Rocco is comfortable that we will win the division and he is not running his horses out as often as he would if the race was tighter. He is setting up his bullpen, auditioning roles for the post season and just plain giving players additional rest to ensure we are in great shape in the playoffs.
As you've alluded to, If you are sitting on an embarrassment of riches in your farm system and you actually bring them up and give them playing time you can do great things
Dazzle made a brief comment a while back that young players on the Twins were being treated much better this year than they had been in previous years. He didn't expand on it. I got the impression that he meant by the older players on the team, but he could've been referring to management as well. And of course, sometimes the veteran players will take their cue from management on things like that.