Tag Archives: Carl Pavano

2012 Twins Game Log

Game 15: Twins at Rays

240 Comments

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 Twins Game Log

2012 Game 10: Twins at Yankees

340 Comments

First Pitch - 6:05 p.m. CDT
Television - FSN, ESPN
Game Notes
Lineups
Scorecard

Oy. Considering the season start we're having, heading to New York City for a four-game series against the Evil Empire just seems sadistic. What, the brain trust that is MLB scheduling couldn't wait a few weeks to add insult to injury? They couldn't wait until May or June to have the Twins demonstrate their futility in the Bronx?

ON THE HILL
Few things tickle me as much as the fact that the Yankees paid Carl Pavano 40 million dollars for less than 150 innings of work over 4 years, and the Twins have wrung 220+ innings out of the guy each of the past two seasons. So at least in the coveted IPP metric (Innings Pitched per Pavano), the Twins continue to outperform the Yankees. While Pavano has been adequate as expected in his first two starts, he's giving up more hits and more runs that any of us would like and would do well to pitch a bit less to contact and a bit more to the catcher's glove.

On the other side of the street, the Yankees send longtime lefty Twins nemesis Freddy Garcia to the mound. The last time I saw Garcia pitch, Jim Lehland was trotting him out against Ozzie Guillens' White Sox in a rainout makeup game that would send the Sox to a game 163 versus the Twins. The last actual time Garcia pitched, just last week, he threw five wild pitches, the first MLB pitcher to pull that off since 1989.

In a universe where karma moves faster than a rebate check from Menards, the Twins would win this game by ten or twelve runs and Pavano would throw a 130-pitch complete game shutout (come on, you just know that a-hole A-Rod would break up the no-hitter with a two-out Texas league dink in the 9th inning). But I'm going on the record as predicting that won't happen today, or any other day for that matter. All I'm asking for out of this series is a split and I'd settle for just one measly win. With Sabathia pitching tomorrow and former Dodger Kuroda on the hill Wednesday, today may be as good a chance as we get this series.

Play ball!

2011 Twins Game Recaps

Game 143 Recap: Pale Hose at The Bullseye

10 Comments

Twins 5, Whities 4
WP: Hot Carl
LP: Danks
SAVE (1): Joe Nathan

Twins Record 59-84 ---->.5 games into the cellar. Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

King of the Savers race update: Craig Kimbrel and Dancie McDouche are knotted atop the leader board with 42 saves apiece. As was noted during the game log the Twins are perfect in converting saves since firing Shortening from the traditional closer role. Small, moral victories are still victories.

Wow. The Twins stink. No, really, they actually smell bad. As a cost saving measure, the front office has turned off the water in the clubhouse for the remainder of the season. They're hoping that Michael Lewis will take note of their radical attempt to change how the game is played. The ensuing movie will undoubtedly star Gene Hackman as the grizzled veteran manager who has to deal with the injuries, the prima donna, and the young upstarts that light a fire which lands the team in the cellar. I'd pay a nickle to watch that movie.

The Twins won this one, although it wasn't a pretty performance. Danny V stroked a blooper with the bases loaded to open the scoring in the third inning. I read that the Twins had been 0-24 this series with RISP before Danny V, and I couldn't believe the number wasn't more like 0-200. Hot Carl was a bit shaky on the mound. He finished the night pitching five and a third innings, allowing 10 hits, 3 runs (only one of which was earned) walking one, and striking out one. Both AJ Burnette and Jose Mijares pitched in tight situations during the 6th inning, but left without causing further harm. The official scorer handed out 4 holds for the Twins bullpen, with perkins the only relief pitcher allowing a run to score. Luke Hughes should have been thrown out attempting to seal second in the bottom of the 6th, but instead no one was covering the bag and the throw ended up in the outfield allowing Hughes to score. Awesome. Joe Nathan came on and pitched a perfect ninth striking out two batters, neither of which were Adam Dunn.

Culture Club: The next time you're up nort stop by the Duluth Art Institute. They've been an influence and a resource for many emerging artists from Minnesota, and the region, for more than 100 years. Their mission is to create a diverse, creative community of art makers and appreciators. Their current exhibit features a former studio mate of mine.

2011 Twins Game Logs

Game #(insert game number here): (insert AAA joke here) vs. (insert detroit or large cat joke here)

76 Comments

("Man this team is bad" joke)

(half-hearted statistical analysis detailing just how bad things have gotten)

(oh, wait... we're batting against Verlander today? We're even more out of luck than usual.)

(Make 190-pitch complete game joke.)

(links to these two Gleeman tweets detailing how the Twins aren't very good at anything)

(threaten to volunteer to do house work with the wife instead of watching game, only to chicken out later because the work she's got planned sucks, and bad baseball is better than no baseball until the 8th inning when we've only got ONE FREAKING RUN AGAIN)

(Delmon Young joke)

(snarky condolences to anyone who watches the game)

I mean, if the Twins can phone it in, why can't I?

2011 Twins Game Logs

2011 Game 127: Mauers w/Pauers at P*ssy Single Hitters

237 Comments

Tonight, the Twins get to take on somebody their own size for a change. The O's are a sad 47-77, on pace for 101 losses per coolstandings.com.

Pitching matchup:
Zach Jeremy Britton for the O's (scheduled; he's coming off the 15-day DL, although it was for a strain in his non-pitching shoulder)
Carl Pavanostache for the Twins.

Bal'more is tied with Minnesota and Seattle for having used the most position players this season (35 different players have had PA), but they've gotten much better offensive production out of all that deck-chair shuffling (team OPS+ of 99, compared to 85 for the Twinkies).

On the bright side, the O's pitching staff leads the AL in HR allowed by a wide margin (157; Twins are tied for second at 130) and is last in the AL in "defensive efficiency" according to b-r (Twins are two rungs higher). So I'm rooting for a slugfest. How long has it been since Jimbo had a three-HR game??

(oh, and that Wieters guy? He's hitting 261/319/404 with 12 HRs and 69:32 K:BB in 426 PA, compared to Joe's 288/350/352, 1 HR and 33:23 in 277; so I suppose you could say that the moniker kind of fits this season)

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?