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2015 Twins Game Recaps

Game 6: Bad Guys 6, Good Guys 2

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It's time for another Good Idea, Bad Idea:

Good Idea: Getting Oswaldo Arcia out of the lineup vs. Chris Sale.

Bad Idea: Replacing him in LF with Eduardo Escobar with a flyball pitcher like Phil Hughes starting.

Good Idea: Keeping Phil Hughes on his regular schedule so he can get as many starts as possible.

Bad Idea: Even considering starting Mike Pelfrey ahead of Trevor May, Alex Meyer, Jose Berrios or Taylor Rogers.

Good Idea: Switching to a RH reliever when Avisail Garcia, Alexei Ramirez and Gordan Beckham are due up in the eighth inning of a one-run game.

Bad Idea: Using Blaine Boyer when J.R. Graham is available to pitch.

Good Idea: Not using Tim Stauffer in a critical situation.

Bad Idea: Signing Stauffer to a guaranteed deal in the first place and then using that deal as an excuse to guarantee him a spot in the bullpen despite a horrible spring training, which then forced manager Paul Molitor to choose between a guy that was originally signed to a minor league deal and a Rule 5 draft pick in a critical situation after just one pitcher developed a stiff shoulder.

Good Idea: Throwing out stupid base runners to prevent runs.

Bad Idea: Losing a game when the other team looked like it was actually trying to lose it with their stupidity.

Good Idea: Assuming that the rest of the season can't possibly be as bad as the first week.

Bad Idea: Believing that the run of lost baseball seasons will be over soon without some major changes to the current roster, especially the bullpen.

Cup of Coffee

Sunday, Aug. 31: Why not?

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Jose Berrios was just promoted to AAA Rochester to make an important start in their final desperate push for a playoff spot. Danny Santana was promoted to the majors after about a month at AAA. Kennys Vargas was promoted straight from AA. Berrios has always been considered the superior prospect. Why shouldn't he be a rotation candidate next spring for the Twins?

2014 Twins Game Recaps

2014 Game 127: Minnesota 20, Detroit 6

No, the Vikings season didn't start early this year. The Twins offense just decided that if the defense was going to keep allowing field goals, they would just have to get touchdowns.

But seriously, if you are not watching the Twins right now, you might want to. No, they aren't winning a lot yet thanks to their best pitching prospects not having made it to the big leagues, but the young position players are really starting to show their talent.

The focus of the game highlights will be justifiably around Eduardo Escobar, who had a career-best 5-hit game with a three-run HR and a triple*. He even was nice enough to throw in a couple of errors to give Gardy something to complain about.

(*Escobar has a mind-boggling high number of doubles on the season and he comes up a double shy of a cycle. Stuff like that is why I love baseball)

Escobar's great game aside, what should excite Twins fans is the play of the three 23-year-old players on the team. All three had an extra-base hit in the six-run second inning, although Kennys Vargas' double should have been a single and an error when Ian Kinsler dropped a throw on what should have been an easy tagout of Vargas at second base. The three players combined for 7 hits, 5 for extra bases; 7 RBIs and 8 runs scored. So three players now have the three best OPSs on the Twins.

And with the offensive explosion, the Twins are officially an above-average offense. They moved past the White Sox and Orioles into sixth place in the AL with 4.31 runs per game on the season. And the Twins now lead all of MLB in runs scored and OPS in the month of August and it really isn't close. The Twins' OPS in August is .797. They Royals are second at .749. It might be a coincidence, but Vargas' first game was Aug. 1.

Hopefully, the Twins management is paying attention. The team went young and the players are responding. The Twins first tried to bring in Jason Kubel (.607 OPS) and Kendrys Morales (.584) to DH before finally letting Vargas (.895) have a shot. The Twins also tried Jason Bartlett (.250) as an OF when Hicks was struggling and then got hurt before being forced to try Danny Santana (.828) as a CF.

And while Pedro Florimon wasn't exactly a veteran, he also has been around long enough and is old enough (27) that it should have been obvious that he wasn't going to hit before the Twins allowed him to have a negative OPS in 86 plate appearances. The Twins finally figured it out and gave Escobar (.737, age 25) a shot. Remember, the average AL OPS this season is .710.

The thought of adding Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano to the mix has me really excited for the future potential of this lineup.

Minnesota Twins, MLB

Where Did It Go Wrong? Playing the Blame Game

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When a team goes through a fourth consecutive noncompetitive season, it's only natural for media and fans to look for someone to blame, especially for a franchise that had previously been used to routinely making it to the postseason.

It's the players' fault. They're overpaid and underperforming.

It's the manager's fault. He's not getting the team to compete.

It's the general manager's fault. He's not bringing in the help we need and was wrong on talent evaluation.

It's the owner's fault. He's too cheap and only cares about making money. Continue reading Where Did It Go Wrong? Playing the Blame Game →

2014 Twins Game Recaps

2014 Who Cares?

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Apparently falling behind 6-1 is not a good way to win a ballgame.

No, I'm not referring to the Twins, although it didn't work for them either. I'm referring to the Charlotte Stone Crabs, who had an even more difficult task trying to come back while facing one Jose Orlando Berrios of the Ft. Myers Miracle.

I normally recap the Twins' game on Fridays, but I figured there would be a lot more interest in one of the few shining stars in the Twins' system this year. Plus, I chose to spend the Fourth with my family and only saw the condensed game for the Twins. Continue reading 2014 Who Cares? →

2014 Twins Game Recaps

2014 Game 72: Twins 5, White Sox 4

Brian Dozier to the rescue.

It was just over a year ago that most Twins fans were wondering if Dozier would ever be anything more than a replacement-level player. Now, I don't think there's much question that he's the Twins' Most Valuable Player, or at the very least, most valuable position player. He came into Saturday's game 8th in the AL in rWAR for position players at 2.7, which puts him on pace to possibly be worth 6 WAR by the end of the season.

His value comes from his all-around great play and that was on display Friday night in the ninth inning. First, he made a heady, split-second decision to go for the double play with the bases loaded and one out in a tie game in the top of the ninth. It was heady because he and Danny "AK47" Santana turned it, but it was by no means routine.

Then, in the bottom of the ninth after Eduardo Escobar and Sam Fuld walked, Dozier singled to left field to bring home the winning run.

Dozier's heroics rescued Glen Perkins, who blew a two-run lead in the ninth and was credited with the win after Dozier's big hit. Amazingly, that was the first double play turned behind Perkins this season. It shouldn't be surprising that Perkins hasn't had many double plays turned since he puts few runners on base, he strikes out about 30% of the batters he faces, and those that do put the ball in play, usually do so in the air instead of on the ground.

The only real victim of the blown save was Ricky Nolasco, who struggled with his command but managed to hold the White Sox to 2 runs in 5 1/3 innings. It didn't qualify as a quality start, but I think I'd rather have a line like Nolasco's than the minimum of 3 runs in 6 innings for a quality start, especially with 8 relievers in the bullpen, including two long relievers.

Nolasco continues to be disappointing after signing the largest contract in Twins history for a free agent outside of the organization. What makes him more frustrating is it just isn't much fun to watch him pitch. He throws a bunch of offspeed stuff and it just seems like he's always trying to get batters to chase, which has meant a lot of early exits even when he wasn't pitching all that bad. It's not like watching Mike Pelfrey, perhaps the least fun pitcher to watch in the history of baseball, but it's still not much fun. Maybe this is because we've never really seen him at his best. Hopefully, when that happens he'll be more fun to watch as well. Otherwise, it could be a long 4 years.

2014 Twins Game Recaps

2014 Game 65: Twins 2, Tigers 0

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Apparently, all Twins second basemen do is hit home runs.

Brian Dozier took a day off with a sore back and his replacement, Eduardo Escobar, hit a solo home run in the third inning and then walked with the bases loaded in the ninth inning for the only two runs of the game.

Kyle Gibson showed that he can pitch well on the road as well with seven shutout innings. He didn't exactly dominate with just three strikeouts and two walks, but he got more than twice as many ground balls as fly balls. That worked out for him despite the Twins' best defensive shortstop playing in Rochester and their best infielder on their roster on the bench.

Gibson played with fire by facing Miguel Cabrera in the most critical at-bats: once with two on and two out and the other with the bases loaded and two outs. The first situation, Cabrera hit a comebacker to end the inning and the second time, he hit into an inning-ending double play.

It was good for the Twins to get that extra run in the ninth, but it was painful to watch the struggles of Joe Nathan. It wasn't so much that he was struggling all that much as it was seeing him get booed off the field by the always classy Tigers "fans." (Yeah, booing a guy is really going to make him do better because he really wasn't trying until you started booing him.)

As much as Twins pitchers, especially starters, have struggled recently, I don't remember any of them getting booed off the field like that, especially after only allowing one run in a game the team was already trailing and it was all set up by an infield error.

2014 Twins Game Recaps

Game 52: Twins 6, Yankees 1

Having lost 6 of 7, the Twins needed a big game from the team's biggest free-agent signing in franchise history and they got it. Ricky Nolasco wasn't exactly dominant, but he was good enough. In fact, Nolasco looked like he was fighting himself all game, so to get 6 effective innings out of him was a positive sign.

An even better sign was the Twins erupting for 6 runs. Playing in the Yankees' bandbox may helped some, especially on Josh Willingham's homer, but it was nice to get three home runs in a game for the first time this season. The Twins' offense has been pretty bad since the start of May, but the return to health of Willingham and Oswaldo Arcia should help, especially if Arcia can lay off some bad pitches long enough to give himself a chance to hit something hard.

After Friday's game, Willingham now leads the Twins in OPS at .917 and Oswaldo is third at .864. Danny Santana is just behind Willingham at .907. With Escobar hitting too well at SS to allow Santana much playing time there, the Twins will have to decide which on-the-job training they can endure more: Santana in CF or Hicks batting RH only.

2014 Twins Game Recaps

2014 Game 45: Giants 6, Twins 2

The main storyline coming out of this game is that Kyle Gibson struggled on the road again. However, the defense was terrible behind him. If they just make the plays they should, Gibson probably only gives up three runs and would have probably been left in to pitch after five innings. If anything, this was a better game than most for Gibson since he struck out 4 and walked none in five innings, which is much better than his season numbers, which is almost the same number of walks as strikeouts.

Gibson also pitched much better than his counterpart, Tim Lincecum, who walked 6 batters and gave up 5 hits along with at least 2 wicked line drives for outs, both by Trevor Plouffe. However, the Twins had no luck in stringing hits and walks together (or were "unclutch" if you prefer), so Lincecum gets credited with both a "W" and a "quality start." It also didn't help when Dozier pulled a Torii in the first inning after a leadoff double. Hopefully, the Twins got all their mistakes out for this game because they will need to do better in the next two games if they want to go home with a winning record.

2014 Twins Game Recaps

Game 40: T’s 5, M’s 4

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These are always trying times in my home as my wife is a Mariners fan. Well, at least she wants the Mariners to win more than any other sports team. Of course, she has zero interest in any sports team, so that's not saying much.

The main "conflict" in the home as such comes from our boys. Junior is staunchly a Twins fan and makes sure it is well known when the Twins and M's play each other. (It was he who called the Twins the "T's" after my wife loudly announced "Go, M's.")

Trey, being the younger brother, of course, cannot support anything his older brother supports and "feels sorry for Mommy" because no one else cheers for the Mariners when they play the Twins, so he cheers for the Mariners. I'm sure he'll eventually realize he's a full-time Twins fan as he gets older (his favorite players or Joe Mauer and Glen Perkins), but it's still disappointing when he cheers against the Twins.

Which is why it always nice to win against the Mariners. The Twins needed a rare series-opening victory (although it is starting to become more common now) since King Felix is looming on Sunday.

Kyle Gibson pitched how he needs to pitch to be successful. Limited walks (2, 1 of which scored the only run against him) a handful of strikeouts and a bunch of groundball outs.

The Twins hit the ball much better than the 5 runs would indicate. At one point, they had line-drive outs to infielders in 3 out of  4 batters and a number of well-hit outs to OFs as well.

The one concern was the bullpen, which nearly coughed up another lead. The bullpen's K rate, even when including Perkins' rate, is perilously close to the starting staff's. I was hoping to make that gap smaller this year, but I didn't expect a bullpen that was pretty much the same as last year's to have a big drop. Hopefully, it is just SSS since a number of relievers are well below their career K rates (Thielbar is one who is well down and was hit hard in this game).

At least the Twins are back to .500, and they finally have more victories as the Twins than they did as the Senators, which is really sad to happen so soon from the Senators' perspective.