Tonight please tune in for the latest chapter in Who will have more career wins: Jose Berrios or Alex Meyer? Last night Berrios finally took the lead with a dominant 5.1-inning outing in a 6-2 victory over the Houston Astros. With that victory, Berrios (career: 1-1) now has a one win lead over Meyer. But don’t worry Alex Meyer (career: 0-3) fans, he will be facing those same said hapless Astros and odds are pretty good we will once again be tied with both pitchers finally getting their first MLB victory. Is Alex Meyer up to the challenge in his first Major League start? Can he stay neck-and-neck with the phenom? First pitch at 7:10p with DicknRoy calling the game.
Category Archives: 2016 Twins Game Logs
Twins at Houston. Game in progress
Didnt see a gamer.
2016 Game 25: Tigers at Twins
First pitch 1:10 p.m.
Ricky Nolasco (1-0, 3.25 ERA, .904 WHIP, 24 K)
Mike Pelfrey (0-4, 4.64 ERA, 1.922 WHIP, 9 K)
I'll admit to inaugurating this season with a sense of irrational exuberance. The first few series knocked that out of me in pretty short order, though. And there's still plenty to be pessimistic about as we start the second month of the season today. After appearing to be righting the ship, the Twins have lost 7 of their last 10 games. They are 10 games below .500, 9 and 1/2 games behind division leading Chicago, and 6 and 1/2 games out of the wild card race. The starting rotation has been more than decimated by injury with Santana and Gibson on the DL, our regular closer is injured and ineffective when healthy, and his substitute isn't nearly as solid as he was last year. The bullpen has shown flashes of brilliance but an annoying inconsistency. The offense is improving but remains sub-par in many spots up and down the lineup. Jeebus, what I'd give to have a catcher who can hit again.
The odd thing is that I'm not terribly concerned. I never expected this team to do any more than than contend for a wildcard, and to be honest I'm enjoying watching this team, even with all of its flaws and miscues. There are bright spots here. We have pretty decent starting pitching with some depth in the organization, and now we finally get to see what Alex Meyer and Jose Berrios can do in the show. Duffy continues to impress. There are some good arms in the bullpen and some good hitters always worth watching. The return of very-high-BA/OBP Joe Mauer has been thoroughly satisfying to watch. Every time our Korean crusher comes to the plate, my wife starts chanting "Park bang, Park bang, Park bang..." After finding a regular spot in the lineup due to injuries, Nunez at first blazed and continues to burn brightly at the plate, hitting the ball like it sassed his mother. But we sucked in April. Nothing new there for this team, the Twins haven't finished the month above .500 since 2010. We've got a young team (average age just over 27) with too many infielders playing outfield, so there will be errors in the field and streaks at the plate. But there should also be some exciting baseball and in the end that's all I ask for, just make it interesting.
Today I'm feeling a little upside-down because I'm actually looking forward to watching both Mike Pelfrey and Ricky Nolasco pitch -- Pelfrey because I expect him to be the same pitcher we let go, and Nolasco because he doesn't appear to be the same pitcher we've had (off and on) for the last two years. That's all I got.
Play ball!
Game 24: tigers @ twins
If you ignore the crazy awful 0-9 start, the Twins are a .500 team. That seems about right. It's disappointing to be staring at a 7-16 team, but I would guess that it'll even out quite a bit over the course of the season.
Also, the Twins might be getting below average production from almost every spot in their lineup, but one position hasn't been a problem...
| Rk | 1B |
|---|---|
| 1 |
MIN
0.5
|
JMIVGABB, indeed. He's gotten on base in every game so far, and has gotten on base twice in 14 of them.
Today, Tyler Duffey will try to provide some stability in what has suddenly become a topsy turvy rotation. Remember when everyone was wondering where Duffey and Berrios were going to fit, and who was going to falter first? Yeah. Good times.
Twins on Leaderboards
Batting Average - Núñez - 10th (.382) *
On Base Percentage - Mauer - 1st (.451) *
Games Played - Mauer & Sano - t-10th (23)
Plate Appearances - Dozier & Mauer - t-7th (102) *
Triples - Suzuki, Núñez, Buxton & Mauer - t-8th (1)
Bases on Balls - Mauer - 2nd (20)
Bases on Balls - Sano - 4th (16)
Strikeouts - Sano - 2nd (22)
Stolen Bases - Núñez t-5th (5)
Singles - Mauer & Núñez t-10th (18)
Runs Created - Mauer- t-9th (18)
Times on Base - Mauer - 1st (46)
Hit By Pitch - Núñez - t-2nd (3)
Sacrifice Bunts - Rosario & Murphy - t-1st (2)
Sacrifice Bunts - Dozier, Duffey, & Buxton - t-7th (1)
Intentional Walks - Mauer - 1st (5)*
Intentional Walks - Escobar & Rosario - t-9th (1)
Caught Stealing - Núñez & Santana - t-7th (2)
AB/K - Mauer - 9th (8.9)
AB/HR - Park - 8th (12.4)
Outs Made - Dozier - t-7th (74)*
- Núñez' batting average adjusted down to .323 by adding outs required to qualify in plate appearances.
- This would be Mauer's highest OBP ever. At present, he's over 40 points ahead of second place.
- Mauer has been on base 17 times more in the same number of plate appearances. Move Dozier down in the batting order until he gets things figured out.
- Five intentional walks. For the guy batting before Sano. Wow.
- In the same number of plate appearances, Mauer has made 57.
WHIP - Nolasco - 4th (0.904)
BB/9 - Nolasco - 2nd (0.976)
BB/9 - Hughes - 10th (1.780)
Games Pitched - Fien - t-3rd (12)
Games Started - Hughes - t-1st (5)Complete Games - Hughes - t-1st (1)*
Hits Allowed - Hughes - t-10th (32)
K/BB - Nolasco - 2nd (8.000)
Losses - Hughes - t-1st (4)
Losses - Gibson & Jepsen - t-7th (3)
Wild Pitches - May t-1st (4)
Wild Pitches - Perkins, Milone, Santana, & O'Rourke - t-10th (2)
Hit By Pitch - Gibson - t-9th (2)
- Hughes' "complete game" was the rain-shortened 6 inning game. He's one of 6 pitchers (only 2 in the AL) credited with a complete game so far.
The only pitcher doing much in the way of positivity right now is Ricky Nolasco.
Sure.
Makes sense.
Game 23. Detroit at Minnesota. 7:10pm.
The NFL started its THREE DAY draft yesterday. 3 days to go through 8 rounds. The over coverage of every slightest bit of smoke GMs send out (99% of it is false info) gets blasted on ESPN. One tries to tune out the sports nets, but it gets filtered trough social media. Its all very annoying. Am I'm saying this as a person who still likes to watch football (although my fandom is waning the older I get). I do dislike everything else that surrounds the game.
Why am I bringing this up? I am very happy that baseball's draft hasnt become this huge spectacle of banality. I get heavy coverage of the first round, and to an extent the second (its where the bigger contracts are offered) but after that, its just a bunch of names and the hope that a few of them sign to fill out minor league rosters and hope you hit a gem.
This is all a half formed idea, but it comes down to this : I really dislike draft coverage of all sports.
On to the game. If you take out the 0-9 start to the season, the Twins are 7-6. Thats not bad! Most games have been watchable (although heart pounding and clenched teeth when the Twins have a lead late and the bullpen starts to come in). Maybe the Twins can claw their way to .500 by the 4th of July.
I am also very happy Joe Mauer is back to Joe Mauer Super Baseball Player . Coming into the game he is leading the American League in OnBasePercentage (.459) and is just off the leaderboard in OPS (.907).
2016 Game 22: Berrios vs. The Rain
A dude at my store is freaking out because he has tickets to this one and the rain just keeps getting harder. For his sake, let's do a...non rain dance.
Game 21: Native Americans at Co-birthed Siblings
O.k. I admit it, I was going to go on an epic rant about the Twins and their seemingly clueless front office: allowing the team to have 14 pitchers on the roster, losing John Hicks because they wanted to call up “I batted .194 in Triple-A” David Murphy and fielding a lousy outfield defense with an offense that strikes out at historic levels. Plus those damn red uniforms. But then something miraculous happened. The Twins won a game against the hated Clevelanders and all is right in the world. So why get upset about John Hicks anyway? Twins are on a winning streak, staff ace “Big Spot” Ricky Nolasco is on the mound against “I’m a Loser” (It’s his real nickname - look it up) Cody Anderson and you can get a cheeseburger in your Bloody Mary at Hrbek’s place. So who cares if it might not hit 50 degrees at the ballpark. What else you going to do, watch Nashville v. Anaheim in hockey? Oh and did I mention Sano is playing 3rd base? #winning
So c’mon Twins, let’s get that record to a solid .333 winning percentage and hand Cody (I really am a Loser) Anderson his hat.
Game 634: Twins vs. Someone
Sorry, you guys, kinda busy. Here's a game log. Sufficiently 1/8 baked.
Love ya!
hj
2016 Game 18: Twins at Nationals
They say a baseball season gives you two months to figure out what's wrong with your team, two months to fix it, and two months to contend. This team may need more time on the front end than that.
Due to stiffness in Irvin Santana's back, Tyler Duffy will get today's start for the Twins. Duffy did well in limited time last year and contended for the the final rotation spot throughout spring training. He'll square off against Stephen Strasburg because what the [redacted], it's not like we haven't faced enough really good starting pitching already this year, right?
So yeah, the Twins play so far this season leaves something to be desired. But what the hell, folks, it's the only game in town.
Play ball.
Game 17: old senators @ new senators
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Caleb wrote that. What he lacks in sound analysis, he makes up for with sheer exuberance.
With the season one tenth done already, we press on, hoping that the second tenth is better than the first.
It's our annual "outside chore day", so I don't have much time to put this together, so no Twins on Leaderboards. Suffice to say, Mauer ha looked a lot like his old self, Sano is heating up, and Nolasco has already provided more value this year than his first two seasons combined.
Hughes vs. Roark. Let's put last night behind us.