All posts by Can of Corn

2015 Twins Game Logs

Game 162: One and Done

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It is with a heavy heart that I post today's Game Log, the final of the 2015 season. At 83-78,* the Twins are 13 wins better than at this point last year and will finish 2nd in the AL Central, 7th-best record in the AL. As recently as Friday, I was confident the local nine would have at least one additional, meaningful game this year, which is quite a few more than anyone expected when they opened in Detroit on April 6. Couple of things to pass along:

"The curtain came down so to speak, but it was a pretty good show," manager Paul Molitor said. "Some of the acts were a little sketchy at times and we tried to move on to the next scene."

Torii Hunter after loss: "This could be my last game..."

The Royals can still lock up home field advantage with a win today, so I don't expect them to let off the gas. Midseason acquisition Johnny Cueto (great before the trade deadline, okay-to-bad for most of July & August) goes for Kansas City. He's cleaned things up a bit, posting a 3.60 ERA in his past three starts.

Despite spending big bucks by adding some arms over the past few years, the Twins rotation is still a work in progress. Ricky Nolasco will start today, his first start since the last day of May. Makes sense to me - showcase him for a trade, or convince yourself that he's back and ready to contribute in 2016, either way, Nolasco was not good this year. Pelfrey was not good. Hughes was not good. Milone was up & down ... not bad, per se, but not good either. Santana was good for a few starts, then he wasn't, then he was. Gibson was the Twins best pitcher this year. I agree with Patrick:

"...the Twins screwed up when they took Trevor May out of the rotation on July 1 and put him in the bullpen. The odds would have been much better of maintaining the competence of the rotation with May taking his turn.
-Reusse

I am excited for next year, though for now I'm feeling a bit sad. Hopefully we'll see Kepler's first start, Buxton in Center, Sano at Third and a pinch-hit homerun from ii so he can tip his cap and feel like he left it all on the field.

*An 84-78 season last year would have put the Twins in 4th place in the AL Central and tied for 8th in the American League ... to further quote Reusse:

This was a year when mediocrity ruled the second level of the American League, and that had more to do with the Twins’ status as a contender than an indication this was a team waiting to explode into excellence.
...
The Twins will finish with the seventh-best record among 15 AL teams. The candid opinion here is they are closer in talent to the three or four teams behind them than the five making up the AL’s playoff field.

2015 Twins Game Recaps

Game 156: Minnesota 4, Cleveland 2

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Winners!

Facing the reigning Cy Young winner, Corey Kluber, the Twins swung early & often and their first five hits went: double (Mauer), double (Sano), homerun (Plouffe), double (Hunter), double (Rosario). These five players accounted for all eight of the hits for the Twins - Brian Dozier added a sacrifice fly and a BB, Herrrmaaann reached twice (BB & HBP) and Escobar also had a BB.

Eddie further celebrated his 24th Birthday with a couple of singles, going 3-4. Despite 114 K's to only 14 BB's, Rosario's had a very nice rookie year: .270/.290/.463 with 18 Doubles, 15 Triples, 12 Homeruns, 49 RBI's, 56 Runs and 11 Stolen bases.

Tommy Milone, tapped to start in place of an ill Phil Hughes a mere four hours before the game, rebounded nicely from his previous two starts at the beginning of September (the results of which - combined with Hughes' return from the DL and Duffy's effectiveness - caused a move to the bullpen). He gave Molitor & Co. 5 2/3 quality innings, allowing only two earned runs on four hits, no walks and four strikeouts. In the sixth, Kipnis blasted a fly ball to deep centerfield that it appeared Hicks had a play on. Instead, he leapt & missed it and the ball caromed off the wall, allowing Kipnis to reach third base. The Indian's rookie SS phenom, Francisco Lindor, then added his second RBI of the night (first was a 1st inning HR) by grounding out to SS. That was all they'd get as the Twins bullpen went on to shut the Cleveland lineup down. Boyer, Fien, Perkins & Jepsen pitched 3 1/3 innings of shutout baseball, allowing only two hits and striking out three (two by Perk-n-Play - yay!).

With this win, the Twins have guaranteed themselves the first .500 or better season in five years. Considering I couldn't find any/we didn't do any predictions this year, I'd say none of us expected much from this club to begin the season. That they're still in the playoff hunt with six games to play is a minor miracle.

For Funzies:
2014 Predictions
2013 Predictions

2015 Twins Game Recaps

Game 145: Tigers 7, Twins 4 (in 12 innings)

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Consensus after the game seemed to be that:
a) Molitor made some curious moves re: pinch-running and defensive substitutions which came back to bite him (see socal's comments in the Game Log),
b) The Twins offense had numerous chances to put this thing away, but simply couldn't get it done (3-13 w/ RISP),
c) Jepsen was bound to blow a save with the Twins at some point - unfortunately, it came in game that was both very winnable and very important,
d) Hicks still has some work to do on keeping his head in games: he was doubled off 2nd in the 6th and didn't hit the cut-off man in the 9th, allowing the eventual tying runner to advance to 2nd.
e) Duensing sucks,
f) It's all Mauer's fault, all the time.*

And the positive:

With his solo homer off Norris in the third, Eddie Rosario became the 17th rookie to record 10 homers, 10 triples, 10 doubles and 10 stolen bases in a season. He was the first do it since Hanley Ramirez in 2006. He's also just the sixth rookie to reach those marks with at least 10 outfield assists.
-Jason Beck

They're still only 1.5 games behind Houston for the 2nd Wild Card spot, with seventeen games left and a fairly favorable list of opponents. Channeling JeffA, I'd say they're ready to start their seventeen game winning streak tonight against LAAAAA.

*even though he's reached base safely in 36-straight-games, a career high.
BrianDuensing

2015 Twins Game Recaps

Game 143: Tigers 1, Twins 7

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Tyler Duffy looked shaky in the 1st inning, walking two, giving up a single and uncorking a wild pitch (meh - didn't even get past Suzuki) to load the bases with one out. He then was able to coax a ground-ball double-play out of Victor Martinez to wiggle out of it. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Twins scored four runs the 1st off of Kyle Lobstein and Duffy followed that up by striking out the side in the 2nd. The offense kept up it's smoke & mirrors* assault on Lobstein, plating two more runs in in the home-half of the 2nd. Eduardo Escobar, doing everything in his power to lock himself into that SS position long-term, added a solo blast to the second deck in the 4th and was 2-4 with two RBI's and one Run in the game, upping his season numbers to .269/.310/.457. Of those currently playing every day for this club, only Sano (.956!!!) and Dozier (.774) are sporting a better OPS than EE (.767).

Turns out, the team would only need two of those first inning Runs as Duffy went 6 1/3 innings, allowing one Run on seven hits and a couple of BB's to go with seven K's. Casey Fien walked one and struck out three in 1 2/3 innings and Neal Cotts allowed one hit and struck out one to wrap up the 9th.

Oh yeah, that Mauer guy managed to go 3-5 (all well-hit balls) to get his average back above .270 (.271) on the year to lead the team** in BA. He's knocked in 60 Runs (4th on the team) and scored 60 Runs (3rd). He's currently 6th on the team with 1.5 WAR.***

Kansas City (84-59) has lost 2 in a row but still stands 9 games ahead of the Twins (75-68) in the AL Central. Houston (77-67) and Texas (76-67), currently squaring off for the AL West/WC2 spot, seem to be the more likely target(s) for Minnesota to bypass for the last playoff spot.****

*Of 13 hits, only three were of the extra-base variety: two doubles in the 1st (Mauer, Plouffe!) and Escobar's homer in the 4th, along with four BB's by the squad.

**Currently, only Dozier, Plouffe, Mauer & Hunter qualify for the batting title (3.1 PA's / team game). If he played every remaining game, Suzuki (429) needs ~3.85 PA's/game to qualify. Rosario (403) & Escobar (379) are "close," but would need to average about 5.22 & 6.48 PA's per remaining game to qualify.

***The lowest full-season WAR of his career. He had 1.5 WAR in 80 games in 2011 ... le sigh.

****The Yankees (79-64), winners of their past two (4-6 in their past 10), currently hold the first WC spot, four games ahead of the Twins.

2015 Twins Game Recaps

Game 137: Twins 6, Royals 2

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The Twins scored first in the 1st with a homerun by Aaron Hicks, his 10th of the season. KC came back to tie it at one in the home-half of the 1st, and didn't score another run until the 7th. Between those two runs, the Twins added five more, with Eduardo Escobar notching 3 hits, 3 RBI's, a 2B and a walk. Since taking over as the primary SS at the end of July, Escobar is slashing .313/.375/.565 with 19 extra base hits, 18 RBI and a 1.548 WPA. Nice.

Also kinda fun - with his homerun yesterday, Hicks is the 5th Twins player with double-digit homeruns this year, and Rosario (9), Escobar (9) and Mauer (8) are all within striking distance.

Also showing up to play was pitcher Tommy Milone who went 7 innings, allowing only 2 runs on 6 hits while striking out 4. After a rather average August (1-1, averaging only 5.1 innings per start and 2.6 ER's per start) Tommy has now put together back-to-back 7 inning starts in September, earning his 7th & 8th wins of the season and dropping his ERA to a career best 3.54.

Minnesota is 6-4 over their past 10 games, 1.5 behind Texas for the 2nd Wild Card spot (and 2 games ahead of the Angels).

2015 Twins Game Logs

Game 130: Houston @ Minnesota

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Time for the Twins offense to wake up. Four runs on eight hits in the previous two games.

Time for Santana to start pitching. From the FourLetter:

The veteran right-hander holds the majors' highest ERA (9.12) among qualifying pitchers since Aug. 3, and has lost four straight decisions while Minnesota has dropped five of the last six games he's started. During his six-start swoon, Santana has failed to escape the third inning twice.

Opposing pitcher will be recently recalled rookie Lance McCullers (pitching in AA last week).

2015 Twins Game Logs

Game 124: Twins at Orioles

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Last night's win got Minnesota back over .500, within a game and a half of the 2nd Wild Card spot and only a half-game behind Baltimore, one of the three teams ahead of them in that race. At this point, the Twins are not likely going to catch Kansas City for the Central, and are five and a half behind Toronto for the first Wild Card spot. If they can pass Baltimore, they're still chasing LAA and Texas, and have a series with Tampa this week who they're currently neck-and-neck with. Despite some misgivings about management's plan for the club, it sure is fun when they actually look like a real, live MLB team.

Today sees the Twins' most pleasant surprise pitching-wise, Mike Pelfrey (6-7, 3.62 ERA - 2.25 ERA in four August starts) facing off against up-and-coming Baltimore pitcher Kevin Gausman (2-5, 4.48 ERA). A win today results in both a series and season sweep of the O's. Git 'er done Billy Smith.