After consecutive disastrous seasons for the Twins, it will be difficult for most to find hope for 2013; 2014 is another matter, what with the All-Star Game and the Twins' top prospects finally knocking on the door. Oswaldo Arcia, Aaron Hicks and B.J. Hermsen will start in Rochester next year barring a flurry of trades from the Twins clearing room for them (or Hermsen just winning a starting job) and Miguel Sano, Eddie Rosario, Jose Barrios and Byron Buxton could be in New Britain or even Rochester in 2014, meaning a midseason callup in 2014 wouldn't be out of the question. I think the Twins will be looking to load up for a legitimate run at the postseason in 2014 to help generate excitement for the All-Star Game, but I think next season can still be a successful one for the Twins, maybe not a postseason appearance, but maybe a flirtation with contention that leads to multiple division titles in following years, such as 2001 and 2008.
Category Archives: MLB
Game 115 Recap: Detroit Tigers 3, Minnesota Twins 9
Game 109 Recap: Minnesota Twins 14, Cleveland Indians 3
Game 102 Recap: Minnesota Twins 7, Detroit Tigers Chicago White Sox 6 & TRADE DEADLINE
Messing Around with the 1987 Bill James Abstract
Last November, Sheenie and I were in Duluth for a wedding and wandered around town. We stumbled upon an antique store that had a massive collection of books on the second floor. Eventually, we ended up leaving with about $40 in books (which mean about fifteen books). Among the ones I snagged was The Bill James Baseball Abstract 1987. I slowly flipped through it in recent months and found a few items particularly interesting.
Continue reading Messing Around with the 1987 Bill James Abstract
Game 101: Cleveland 1, Minnesota 5
Mountie hit a bomb. Duensing filled in admirably for Frankie "White Sock" Liriano with 6 innings of 5 hit, 1 run baseball. Twins finish the sweep.
Game 95: Twins 7, Royals 5
Doumit hit homeruns from both sides of the plate, went 3-4 and drove in 4 runs. Deduno earned his first major league "W" going 6.1 innings and allowing only 1 earned run. Swarzak and Perkins both gave up homeruns. The Twins beat the original Jeremy, recently acquired by the Royals from Colorado for Jonathon Sanchez.
The Twins take the series 2-1 and are now 40-55, a half-game back of the Royals.
Congratulations to:
Game 89: Orioles 7, Twins 19!
Couldn't leave that one without a recap, though I did not see it or hear much of it.
Twins scored 7 runs in the bottom of the first, added 1 in the second, 2 in the third and another in the fourth. It wasn't until the fifth that they failed to score during the home-half of an inning. Meanwhile, Baltimore didn't put up a crooked number until the fifth and Diamond did what he had to do with all of the run support: finished 6 innings and allowing 5 runs on 9 hits while striking out 3 and walking 1.
Every Twins starter had a hit except Doumit who still managed to pick up 2 RBI and a run scored. Morneau went 4-5 to continue his hit streak as did Plouffe. Span only managed 5 RBI on 3 hits including 2 doubles. Mauer jacked a donger, just because he felt like it.
Oh, and just for fun, the Twins added 5 more runs in the 8th to get that nice round number - 20 hits on the night.
Thome did not hit.
Capps gave up a 2-run homer to Chavez and is hurt again.
Game 88: Athletics 9, Twins 4
Long balls v. no balls....long balls win.
Parker gets the win after his guys managed a cumulative 13 hits off of 5 different pitchers (out of 7 total used by the home club) including 4 more homeruns*.
Duensing gets the loss after a 41 pitch first and a total of 7 earned runs during his 2 completed innings. Poor shlub even walked in a run.
The Twins are now 36-52 (and a ghastly 17-28 at home) and 13 games behind the AL Central leading White Sox.
Good news:
Justin Morneau extended his hitting streak to 15 games with a single in the sixth.
Zach Parise threw out the first pitch before the game. That's right - the Wild signed a couple of amazing free agents this off season. Bring on the snow!
Game 80 Recap: Minnesota Twins 6, Detroit Tigers 4
after jacking donger after donger over the weekend, the twins squeak by the tigers with a mere 13 singles (leaving 12 on base) for their fourth win in a row, and gardy's 900th total. the bullpen held up, though not without creating some drama, and the twins denied the tigers' 8th attempt at a .500 record.
the twins are now, by virtue of teh suck of the central, only eight games back from the sox. i have a very bad feeling that they'll go on their standard july tear and hold on to all of their chips at the deadline in a foolish and misguided attempt at contention, and then crash back to earth in august empty-handed. but that's just my opinion.