Tag Archives: 2012 Game Logs

Game 107: Twins @ Red Sox

Time is running out for Ben Revere. If he's going to hit an honest-to-God over the fence homerun, you'd have to figure it'd be here or New Yankee bandbox. The problem, of course, is that in his entire career, he's only hit four balls in the air out of the infield. Things look grim, but this is the ballpark that has walls just over 300 feet from the plate (seems gimmicky, but I've been assured that it's not) If he really got into one, and the wind was blowing out at about 30 miles an hour, and the fielder Canseco'd it, he might have a shot.

Cole DeVries takes the ball for the good guys today. I've mentioned it before, but I really thought that when DeVries was sent back down that first time that he was gone for good. Instead, he's pretty much become our second best starter. I like his strikeouts, such as they are*, I love his walk rate, if he can figure out how to avoid throwing two or three BP fastballs every single game, I'd be good with him the rest of the way. Good Lord, though, those home runs... he gets grounders on fewer than a third of the balls hit in play, and a full 15.8% of those fly balls leave the playing field. If he keeps this up, I don't know how we're going to be able to rely on him come playoffs.

Clay Buchholz is also pitching, but he's a thoroughly mediocre pitcher, and no one cares about him.

* Fun Fact: At 6.2 k/9, DeVries has the highest rate of any of our starters (including injured ones), and the third highest strikeout rate of any pitchers who are still with the team who have pitched more than 15 innings this year. How is that even possible??

Game 87: Twins and A’s

Coles De Vries takes the ball for the Twins tonight. I could have absolutely sworn when he was sent back to Rochester the first time that we'd seen the last of him. However, as it turns out, he's been pretty persistent, and here he is making his sixth start. He's rapidly becoming a semi-fixture in the rotation, and the fact that he's the second pitcher starting off the post-All Star break seems to imply that he might be here a while.

Is that a good thing? I suppose if we had an ideal major league roster, a 5.17 FIP (4.37 xFIP) wouldn't get my heart all aflutter, but looking over some of the rest of the rotation - Duensing (who I wish would just get left alone in the bullpen), Hendriks (is he still with us? It's always so hard to tell), Blackburn (I know he's not in the majors, but you know it won't be long...) - it's hard to say that he's the first person I'd drop.

The A's are sending out Tommy Milone, who's gotten decent results in his rookie season, but seems to be pretty heavily built up by a super low walk rate. If the Twins can hit some line drives, he'll be toast, and De Vries can pick up his third win. Not bad for someone I figured would be kicking it in Rochester for the remainder of his career.

Game 33: Blue Jays at Twins

The Twins won last night. It was a pretty good game. Between that and sitting out on the deck drinking delicious gin and tonics most of the afternoon, I'm feeling pretty positive.

Tonight might change that. Drew Hutchison hasn't shown up on any elite prospect lists that I know of, but he compiled a pretty good FIP throughout the minors (2.22) whereas our pitcher (P.J. Walters) didn't wow folks quite as much.

But this is positive day, so rather than judge our starting pitchers by their minor league record, we'll note that Hutchison hasn't exactly wowed anyone in his cup of coffee thus far. Theorhetically, he'd be the type of high-strikeout, low walk guy that would eat the Twins alive, but nothing is stopping this winning streak from hitting '2'.

Game 15: Twins at Rays

The internet connection is extremely spotty at my house right now, so instead of giving you the well thought out, well researched behemoth of a game log intro that you all deserve, I'm going to spout off random things that I like and dislike about the team without backing any of it up with anything resembling a fact.

Likes

  • Burton's Splange - He threw one or two last night, and when that pitch is on, it's a thing of beauty. He seems like a good pickup about 10% of the way through the season, and looks like he could be a decent late inning option. I wasn't expecting to say that about any of the offseason relief pickups, but none of them have been failing to live up to what I'd hope for (Grey is finally letting the rest of the team's pitchers wins a few games, Maloney hasn't tripped on the pitching rubber or picked any fights with fans or umpires, there might be someone else I'm forgetting, but the fact that he's not springing to mind means that I probably haven't been cursing his name too often, so... uh... keep being invisible, other relief guy).
  • The Porkstar - My Reds fan buddy noted how nice it was that the Twins finally had a free agent signing work out. I could have punched him for his condescending tone, but instead, I simply nodded my head in agreement. Willingham's been good with the bat, and he's only the second worst outfielder I've seen play for Minnesota over the last five years. Once you factor in that they had to get rid of Delmon Young to make it so that they could go out and get him, and it's not just a net positive - I can confidently say that it's the best thing that's ever happened to this team.
  • Mauer/Morneau - I was concerned about Morneau for a bit there in the first few games, but he seems to be taking much better swings over the last few games. Mauer's been solid as he ought to be; I just wish he were just a little bit more manly, because seriously, it's got to be bringing the team down.
  • Having a middle infielder simultaneously batting second and not sucking - Carrol's D is much better than I expected (no one show me any +/- numbers, I don't want to see if I'm wrong on this one. It's also really nice to not have a black hole batting second. The hits are starting to come, and I love the patient way the guy bats. They've got 3 guys at the top of the lineup that bleed the pitcher dry. Very cool.
  • Span - It's really nice having him back as the leadoff hitter. Now that Baker's probably gone forever, I'm tempted to say that Span's my favorite Twin.

Dislikes

  • Casilla - I'm pretty sure that the stats don't bear me out on this, but I find myself constantly unimpressed by Casilla. I know he's the replacement-level guy who's just a placeholder at this point, but I find myself going to the kitchen to get a snack when he comes up. If my diet is going to succeed, I need someone else there.
  • Starting pitching - I was slightly (probably stupidly) hopeful coming into the season. The idea of Liriano pitching well, Baker doing what he always does, Pavano eating innings, with some combination of who cares and someone else filling out the last two spots meant that the Twins would likely be getting 2 or 3 strong starts per time through the rotation. The quality start stat is an awful way of looking at anything, but if Pavano bombs tonight, we'll have gone 5 games without seeing a single start that was even halfway decent. With Hendricks, Blackburn, Swarzack, and Liriano (who seems to be intent on showing that 2011 was not his floor) behind Pavano, I have zero faith in the rotation - and more worryingly, no real hope for anything in the future to patch things up. The idea of being just close enough at trading season for management to go get a "proven winner" puts a chill in my bones.
  • Capps - He hasn't exactly exploded into tiny pieces yet, but it's coming, my friends... oh yes, it's coming.

Pavano* takes on Shields* tonight.

I'm to predict a win. 6-3. Mauer gets a double and a couple of RBIs, but Willingham's hit streak ends (he'll make a comment in the aftergame interview on how all that stuff is cool, but "it doesn't matter, so long as we get the 'W'").

* Both of them have presumably played baseball at some point this season, but if you want all those sexy stats, you'll have to look them up yourself, my computer is currently in a hate/hate relationship with any kind of site where I could look them up for you.

2012 Game Number 2: Minnesota Twins at Baltimore Orioles

New season, same result - 'meh' pitching, and 'too little, too late'  hitting.

I think Sean had it right last game log when he says that the front office knows what they've got, and they know that it's not happening this season. Fair enough, but I'm impatient - I want a World Series this year. Therefore, I've put together a little cheat sheet for how this team can be turned into a contender. If someone with connections could route this to the powers that be, I'd appreciate it.

Pitching

Obviously, the big problem is going to be pitching, so they must obviously trade for some strong starters, and some strong relievers. I've taken the liberty of drawing up some proposals.

  • DFA Jeff Gray (He's letting opposing batters reach at a ridiculous .667 clip. Thanks, but no thanks, Jeff.)
  • DFA Matt Capps (obviously)
  • Trade Brian Duensing for Roy Halladay (He's got an unsustainable rate of 27.0 k/9 going, so trade him while he's hot)
  • Arrange for Kyle Gibson to be fitted with a robotic arm (This whole recovery process is taking too long - time to speed things up a bit.)
  • Have some crazy, back-alley doctor remove all of Scott Baker's arm tendons (He can't strain them if they're not there, can he. Ivan'll put some rubber bands in there, or something.)
  • "Forget" Jason Marquis at the airport the next time he accompanies them on a road trip (This is a two part plan which may involve pretending that Target Field is closed for the season when he inevitably gets a taxi ride back.)
  • Once it gets to the later months, forbid anyone from telling Nick Blackburn that it's not May anymore.

Batting

As we saw yesterday, hitting is going to be this team's biggest obstacle (except for pitching, because Lord, do those pitchers suck). Here's a few quick ways to change that.

  • Trade Alexi Casilla for a large potted plant (the plant can trip runners as they round second, and will likely provide a bit more hitting power)
  • Put Joe Mauer into a time machine, and tell him to retrieve 2009 Joe Mauer (It'll be sad to see 2011 Joe Mauer go, but we liked the other one better, anyway. Besides, this is the kind of sacrifice a leader has to make sometimes. Cuddy would go back in time to get 2009 Joe Mauer, and he'd probably bring back 2010 Justin Morneau while he was at it.)
  • Create an unholy Frankenstein mishmash of Ben Revere's legs and Denard Span's arm. (Den Spavere will be the greatest outfielder ever, while Bard Revan can be safely DFA'd)
  • Trade Chris Parmelee for Albert Pujols (The only worry here is that the Angels may not believe that Parmelee is as good as Dick Bremer says he is. In this case, we include Carl Pavano in the deal. Who says no?)

Until my brilliant ideas are brought to the front office, we're stuck with what we've got. What we've got today is..

F. Liriano (0-0, a disappointing 0 k/9, and a awe-inspiring, but probably unsustainable 0.00 ERA)
T. Hunter (0-0, 3.20 FIP, 0 ERA)

Normally, I'd say that the Twins are totally screwed, but come on... this is Tommy Hunter we're talking about.ZiPs has him projected for something like a 5.00 ERA. Even the Twins should be able to get some runs off this guy, right?