Category Archives: 2016 Twins Game Recaps

2016 Series 5 Recap: Brewers 1, Twins 1

For the first time this year, a sweep was not involved in the series. Once again, the good and bad from the series.

The bad:

  • Sano in the outfield. Oof. There will be bad plays, I get that. But Sano needs all the practice he can get. It also would help he he'd mash more. For the season he has a .607 OPS. Thankfully, before the series it was at .535 but it has a long ways to go to.
  • Run prevention. Four runs in one game, even if only six innings, is decent but six runs is not. I think it's likely the Brewers would have scored again in game one so letting the bad guys score five plus runs a game is not good.
  • Murphy. I want the Murphy era to begin. His OPS is below Punto levels at .279. World Champion Butera at least managed that for a SLG.

The good:

  • Scoring. The Twins scored seven runs in six innings and then five more in the next nine. Scoring six runs a game will result in a lot of wins.
  • The bullpen before Jepsen. In the three innings from Santana to Jepsen on Tuesday, the bullpen had two hits, one walk, and six strikeouts. Each reliever allowed only a single batter to reach base. Tonkin and O'Rourke did make it interesting by having both of their batters reach in the same inning, but all three outs came on strikeouts.
  • Strikeouts. The Twins batters struck out only five times in each game. They also walked six times on Tuesday (only once on Monday).
  • Park. He raised his OPS from .657 entering Monday's game to .871. The OBP still needs work at only .313, but the SLG of .558 is great to see.
  • Mauer. Mauer back to Mauering.

2016 SERIES 2 RECAP: ROYALS 3, TWINS 0 (SOSO)

The Twins dropped three straight at the defending champs to fall to 0-6. They will have to win Monday's Home Opener to match 2015's 1-6 horrible start, which they better do because Tuesday would be an awful time for an off day with the team sitting at 0-7.

The Twins not only have not won, they also have not scored more than 3 runs in a game. They haven't done that in 6 games since last June 6-12. That streak also involved 3 games with the Royals, although this time the series was at Target Field.

As for this series:

THE GOOD

Paying Off: Ervin Santana and Ricky Nolasco were both very good. They gave the Twins what the team was hoping for when they signed them to the two largest free agent contracts in franchise history. Santana gave up 2 runs in 6 innings with 7 strikeouts and 2 walks. Nolasco was even better, allowing just 1 run on 3 hits and no walks with 5 strikeouts in 7 innings.

Park Bang: Byung-ho Park hit his first major league home run on Friday. It was a no-doubter in a difficult park to hit it out of, especially with the wind blowing in. It also broke an eighth-inning tie.

Breaking Out: After going 0-for-Baltimore, Brian Dozier broke out in KC by going 4-for-11 with a home run and three walks.

Vaguely Familiar: Joe Mauer is looking like the Joe of old. He went 4-for-9 with 4 walks and an hbp in the series and is batting .400 with 1.069 OPS on the season. What's most exciting is he has improved is K/BB ratio with 4 Ks and 5 BBs. Prior to concussion symptoms ended his catching career, Mauer had more walks than strikeouts. The last two seasons, Mauer has had 127 walks and 208 strikeouts.

THE BAD

Blown Chances: The lack of offense has been the dominant storyline for the Twins, but the Twins still had two late-inning leads in this series and lost both games. Jepsen blew the lead in Game 1 about 3 seconds after Park's first home run landed with an assist on a questionable dive in left field by Eddie Rosario. Perkins blew the save in Game 3 with another assist on another ill-advised dive by Rosario. So despite the lack of offense, the Twins still should have won this series.

Painful Loss: After getting 4 hits in his first start of the season, Eduardo Nunez got hit on his right arm near his wrist and had to be removed from the game before taking the field in the 10th, which left the Twins with no backup infielders.

THE UGLY

Ineffectively Wild: Trevor May has been racking up the strikeouts, but in the 10th inning on Sunday, he walked the leadoff man, bounced a throw to first to send the winning run to third with no outs, and then, after keeping the runner at third with two outs, he then bounced a breaking ball in the dirt in front of home plate for a walkoff wild pitch.

Offensively Bad: There's not much to say that hasn't been said. It's been bad. The good news is that the offense isn't this bad. At least 5 regulars are well below projections and only 2 are above them. All players go through slumps. It doesn't help when a number of players are going through it at the same time. And because it is the start of the season, everything is blown out of proportion. It certainly would help to ease tensions for the batters if the bullpen could have gotten the team a win or two, but you would like to think these players have been around long enough at multiple levels to be able to figure it out soon enough on their own.

2016 Series 1 Recap: Orioles 3, Twins 0

Different year, same start. Twins once again are swept in the opening series. It would be easy to say it worked out okay for them last year, but it didn't really. Yes they performed better than expected but they finished three wins behind the Astros. If they instead had swept the Tigers to start the season they would have at least had a playoff game.

I watched barely any of the games and had the radio on for only a plurality of the time so I'm going to fill in the bad and good from the boxscores.

Four negatives from the series:

  • Run scoring. Obviously they did better than last year, improving their runs scored by 500%. It is nonetheless difficult to win when you top out at two runs.
  • Strikeouts. The batters struck out 35 times but walked only six times. All six walks happened in the second game.
  • Dozier not starting well. He finishes the series with a 0.083 OPS. He had one walk in 13 PAs.
  • Not pinch hitting for Suzuki in game two. He's the only other player without a hit and he reached base only once.

Three positives from the series:

  • Run prevention. Giving up only 3.67 runs a game bodes well for willing. AL teams averaged 4.4 runs a game in 2015.
  • Mauer starting well. He had a home run to center and has a nice 1.021 OPS after three games.
  • Escobar starting well. He had a double in each game and two in the opener. He has a 1.167 OPS after three games.