Pinch-runners.

Some days it's just hard to come up with anything besides the obvious.  Kyle Gibson pitched well except for a case of OBI (One Bad Inning) Syndrome.  The offense made a nice comeback to get back into it, but couldn't get all the way there.  Glen Perkins made one bad pitch (or maybe it wasn't even a bad pitch--I wasn't watching at the time) and it was enough to give up the lead.  The Twins got two on in the ninth with none out and their three-four-five hitters coming up, but they couldn't score.  And that was that.

Of course, it wasn't really their three-four-five hitters, because they'd pointlessly removed Trevor Plouffe for a pinch-runner with two out and Plouffe on first in the seventh inning, thus leaving the privilege of making the last out to Eduardo Escobar.  Are there studies out there that show what the chances are of a pinch-runner actually making a difference in various situations?  It just seemed like, in that situation, the chance of Escobar's running making any difference were remote.  I suppose one could argue that the offensive difference between Plouffe and Escobar isn't all that great either, and it could be argued that putting Escobar at short and moving Nunez to third might even improve the defense, so we didn't really lose anything by making the switch.  It may have made no difference whatsoever--obviously, we'll never know what Plouffe might have done if he'd batted in the ninth.  But I needed something to write about, and It truly did seem to me that putting in a pinch-runner in that situation didn't make much sense.

Anyway, the series continues tonight with the Twins sending the exasperating Ricky Nolasco out against Matt Shoemaker.  Shoemaker is an undrafted free agent who turned into a pretty darn good pitcher.  He's striking out about a batter an inning, has a WHIP of 1.06, and is 14-4 with a 3.14 ERA.  That doesn't sound good for the Twins.  But it's baseball, and oftentimes games turn out the exact opposite of what it sounded like.  So, we'll assume that tonight starts our season-ending twenty-two game winning streak.  We'll just have to settle for 83-79!