Category Archives: Gamelog Archive

Archive for game logs from previous seasons.

2011 Twins Game Recaps

Game # Something Recap: Twins @ Tigers

11 Comments

Twins 6, Tigers 5
WP: Matt Capps. Wait, What? LP: Dancie McDancealot
Blown Save*: Matt Capps
Save: Joe Nathan
Fangraphs likes making graphs.

We only have a few games left so we'd better check in on the King of the Savers Race. John Axford and Craig Kimbrel are riding on top of the list with 36 saves apiece, but Jose Valverde and The Beard are hot on their heels with 35 successful saves.

Carl Pavano looks mad, rip snorting mad. Over his last 10 starts he has factored in half the decisions winning one and taking the loss in the other four despite being 'quality' over his last three starts. He's beat up water coolers, spiked the ball (several times), sneered at opposing batters, and, most egregiously, he had to endure Joe Mauer's pitch calling last night. He's angry. You can see it on his face, but that really isn't important at this point in the season. This game had it's share of baseball magic. The Twins took the lead in the second, Detroit tied it up in the third, and then took the lead in the sixth. The Twins came roaring back to take the lead in the top half of the seventh, and then served up the tie in the bottom half. Then big Jim Thome came to the plate and stroked a single take back the lead. I'll never, ever, tire of watching Thome swing the lumber. Glen Perkins came on to be automatic, and instead loaded the bases without retiring anyone. Shortening was called in, and I couldn't watch. I sat at my couch staring at the rug waiting to hear the roar of the crowd that would affirm my worst fears, but that roar never happened. With the game knotted at 4 Leyland brought in his Iceman, the douchy closer who's been perfect in save opportunities this year, and he blew up the game. Morneau had the clutch hit driving in two runs, and Joe Nathan saved the day by only giving up one run. The Twins may have raised the white flag, but there are some positive things to watch for towards the end of the season. We may get to see K-slow pitch a real game, and, unless he's traded to AMR's new boyfriend team, we may get to see Jim Thome pass Sammy Sosa on the all time list.Even if the Twins aren't in the race for the division title I'm not willing to give up watching them play because the off-season is long and dark.

*that makes 8 blown saves for Crisco this season which = $875,000.00 per. The more he blows the cheaper they get.

Culture Club: Heads up to Hungry Joe, and anyone else who is hanging out around Chi-Town, the International Museum of Surgical Science is a great place to spend an afternoon (although, they are closed until labor day). Of the many reasons to like a museum dedicated to surgical science the most important reason is that they have a forward thinking approach to the connection between art and science with their Anatomy in the Gallery program. If you can't make it down to Chicago you can get your fix at the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices on display at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

2011 Twins Game Logs

2011 Game Logs: Game 122 Minnesota Non-Delmons @ Detroit _elm_ns

124 Comments

Nick Blackburn

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Justin Verlander

Alright, you guys are going to have to bare with me for a little bit here. I am going to try to crunch some numbers and see if I can find a way for the Twins to make up the 10.5 game deficit currently between them and first place.

While I understand the caveats of a small sample size, it is difficult to argue with cold hard numbers. One such case of ignoring sample sizes has to be the result of the Twins scoring 9 runs in every single game that Delmon Young has never been a member of the Twins this season.  Conversely, the Twins have allowed only 6 runs in each and every game played since they traded Delmon. Considering the Tigers had a team ERA of 4.25 before the Delmon trade, I feel comfortable saying the Delmon has made the Tigers 1.75 runs worse per game.

So, at this point the next natural thing to do was to go through the previous 121 games, see how many games the Twins would have won if they scored 9 runs and allowed 1.75 less runs the scoreboard reflected. I will then take that winning percentage, apply it to the rest of the season and see if it puts the Twins in position to win the Central.

This would put the Twins record at 112-9. Over the course of a full season that translates of a winning percentage of .925. This would give the Twins 37.02 wins over the remaining 40 games. We will round this down to 37 wins (to be realistic), putting the Twins final tally over the last 40 games at 37-3.

Assuming all of this elm'n-less math to be true this will put the Twins at 90 wins for the 2011 campaign. Not too shabby. Now how about the other teams? Seeing as how the Tigers are still yet to win a game while employing Delmon I think it is safe to figure they will continue to lose every game the rest of the season.  With the Twins winning 90 the Tigers will be pretty far behind with only 64 wins.

As for the other teams the Twins have to pass, pfft, it is AMR's White Sox and the lowly Indians. Neither of those teams should prove too much trouble as the Twins cruise to their 7th division title in 10 years.

Man, this is going to be an awesome couple of months.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2011 Twins Game Recaps, View from the Ballpark

2011 Game 121: DC 1001011000 258

6 Comments

600!

How many taters is that? Well, it's exactly twice the number of homers Chuck Klein hit in his career. It's 154 more than the next two active players, Vladimir Guerrero and Chipper Jones. It's 15 40-homer seasons. It's 1 more than the combined career totals of Lou Pinella, Honus Wagner, John Kruk, Lonnie Smith, Todd Hollandsworth, Chuck Knoblauch, Jason Tyner, Al Newman, and Don Sutton. It's 100 more than the combined totals of Kent Hrbek and Kirby Puckett. It's twelve bushels' worth, if you figure one homer is the equivalent of one pound of potatoes.

It's a whole lot of mashin', that's what.

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And now, this week's View from the Ballpark:

photo by Flickr user joyosity

photo by Flickr user joyosity

Remember, no embiggening.

2011 Twins Game Logs

2011 Game 121: Marisa Monday, Post _elm_n Edition

147 Comments

I just got this message from "ThaReal_elm_n":
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryAeNSzanKY

some rights reserved by GranniesKitchenThome Watch continues. Younger and wussier players around him continue to wilt in the August heat, but the Masher keeps on keeping on. The Tiggers have pretty much pwned the Twins for the last year, having won 12 out of their last 13 against our boys.

pitching matchup:
F-Bomb (tRA+: 92, FIP: 4.53, xFIP: 4.41, fWAR: 0.8, 97:66 K:BB in 117 innings)
Rick Porcello (tRA+: 108, FIP: 3.92, xFIP: 4.00, fWAR: 1.9, 76:30 K:BB in 126 innings)

The 22-year old Porcello is having a solid season. Amongst the mortal starters on the Tiger staff, he leads the way in pRAA at +4.8 (Verlander is at +33.0, tied for 7th in the Majors; he's third in pitching rWAR). But the real strength of this club is the offense, which weighs in at +43.2 bRAA and is 5th in the A.L. in runs per game at 4.44 (Twins are 12th at 3.87 -- behind Oakland, for goodness sake). So, tell me again why they wanted _elm_n???

Porcello is a ground-ball inducing righty. The Twins have a lefty-heavy lineup, with no _elm_n and a questionable Cuddy.

2011 Twins Game Logs

Thome Watch, Game 120: JI at Indians

27 Comments

Thome's quest for 600 is all we got left right now, other than maybe avoiding the cellar or passing the White Sox to make ourselves feel a little better but not really accomplish anything constructive. At this point, I think it would take a miracle to get to .500.

Lefty David Huff is pitching and it's a day game after a night game, so it might be a good day for Thome to take a break, especially on the road. I'm sure it's no great secret that the Twins want him to get to 600 at home to give the fans something to cheer about. However, Thome is 4-for-8 with two home runs and three walks (1.886 OPS) vs. Huff and those are numbers Gardy has a hard time ignoring.

Oh yeah, some kid named Slowey was recalled from the minors to take Scott Baker's spot in the rotation. I hope he takes the ball and shoves it up Gardy's ass.

2011 Twins Game Recaps, Minnesota Twins, MLB

Game 119: Indians 3, Twins 1

1 Comment

No more excuses.

If I thought that the Twins had packed it in for the season like most teams would have a long time ago, then I would understand it. But, that would mean Ben Revere playing and Trevor Plouffe on the roster, so I don't believe that.

Josh Tomlin? Really? His picture is next to the word "junkballer" in the dictionary. He's got nothing. A team with this many lefties who supposedly can hit should be teeing off on him.

I saw one inning in which a bunch of hard-hit balls found gloves, but I'm tired of the excuses. But what I'm really tired of is incompetence.

I'm tired of seeing impatient at-bats. I'm tired of seeing not making routine plays. I'm especially tired of seeing Matt Tolbert. Is there anyone that has brought so little to a team that was allowed a major league job for this long? He has zero power. He can't hit from either side of the plate. He has no patience at the plate. He's a below-average fielder. He might have average speed, but he's not a good base stealer. He makes me long for the days of Nick Punto or even Denny Hocking. Even Al Newman.

I'm not asking for the Twins to try to make a miracle run. Right now, I'm just wanting to see some sign of hope for 2012.

2011 Twins Game Recaps, Minnesota Twins

Game 118, Indians 3, Twins 2

A pinch hit recap for Twayn...I wish I was on vacation and he were writing this.

I was really looking forward to having all of our opening day starters back together again. Then Cuddy tweaked something in his neck in early batting practice and Kubel had to sub in right. Good start out of Pavano. Not a good outing by Perkins. Mountie and Lexi back in the lineup - Laddie back out of the lineup in the 7th with a tweaked hamstring...lots of "tweaking" tonight.

Batters 1 through 6 were 1 for 20 with a walk and rare were the outs made on well struck balls (typically they didn't even leave the infield). That's simply not going to cut it. Most exciting moment for the hometown 9 may have been the Dude's 400+ ft fly out to center in the 5th. Nishi had both rbi's for the Twins, but also had a pretty gawd-awful night in the field.

"We basically gave it away," Gardenhire said. "We missed a lot of plays. It's a tough loss for us. We need some people to play a lot better baseball. It's kind of embarrassing to tell you the truth."

I couldn't agree more. Highlight of the night for me was the shout-out to Rhubarb_Runner of WGOM and é rayhahn, rayhahn fame who is "jostling for position" with someone named Matt Krieger...and Rhu_Ru didn't even submit the winning answer tonight!11!1!

For some reason, I've been hanging on to hope that this team would make a run and challenge for a playoff spot. Watching them run around like monkeys f*cking a football tonight has pretty much cinched it for me. How about you?

2011 Twins Game Logs

2011 Game 118: Twins at Indians

110 Comments

Carl Pavano vs Justin Masterson

Last time Masterson faced the Twins, he threw 104 pitches. 103 of them were fastballs. I'm a little skeptical they were all fastballs, since the velocity range was 89.9 to 97.7. Let's check his pitch selection this year. BIS says a mere 0.8% of his pitches have been change-ups, while MLBAM says 0.1%. Okay, maybe it really was 103 fastballs. Depressing.

Pavano meanwhile... it's not too pretty. He hasn't been terrible, but below average for a 35 year-old pitcher with another year on the contract. He'll be worth more than two wins, but by virtue of eating a lot of innings.

Oh yeah; welcome back Morneau.