Tag Archives: Mark Buehrle

Keeping Track

2003 Rewind: Game Eighty-two

CHICAGO 6, MINNESOTA 1 IN CHICAGO

Date:  Tuesday, July 1.

Batting stars:  Cristian Guzman was 2-for-4 with a double.  Matthew LeCroy was 1-for-4 with a home run, his seventh.

PItching stars:  J. C. Romero struck out three in a perfect inning.

Opposition stars:  Mark Buehrle pitched eight innings, giving up one run on eight hits and no walks and striking out five.  Frank Thomas was 2-for-4 with a home run (his eighteenth), a double, and three RBIs.  Brian Daubach was 2-for-4 with a home run, his third.  Sandy Alomar was 1-for-3 with a home run, his second.

The game:  Willie Harris led off the game with a single and Thomas hit a one-out two-run homer in the first inning.  With two out Daubach hit a home run to make it 3-0 White Sox after one.  Alomar homered in the second to make it 4-0.

The Twins opened the third with a pair of singles, but a double play took them out of the inning.  Neither team really threatened after that until the sixth, when ground-rule doubles by Magglio Ordonez and Joe Crede increased the Chicago lead to 5-0.  Thomas doubled home a run in the seventh to make it 6-0.

The Twins got their lone run in the ninth when LeCroy led off with a home run.

WP:  Buehrle (6-10).  LP:  Brad Radke (5-8).  S:  None.

Notes:  Dustan Mohr was in left field in place of Jacque Jones.  Bobby Kielty was in right.  Jones would not return to the lineup until July 17.

Corey Koskie was 1-for-4 and was batting .308.

As often happened, Radke did well after the first inning.  Still, his line was 5.2 innings, five runs, eight hits, no walks, and five strikeouts.  His ERA went up to 5.76.

Johan Santana allowed a run in 1.1 innings to raise his ERA to 2.51.

This was the second time in five days Buehrle had shut down the Twins.  After scoring ten runs off him in 3.1 innings on May 16, the Twins had managed just two runs in 17 innings.

Radke's ERA in the first inning in 2003 was 6.00.  Overall it was 4.49.  For his career, his ERA in the first inning was 5.05.  Overall it was 4.22.

Record:  The Twins were 43-39, in second place in the American League Central, a half game behind Kansas City.

Keeping Track

2003 Rewind: Game Forty-one

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MINNESOTA 18, CHICAGO 3 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Friday, May 16.

Batting stars:  A. J. Pierzynski was 4-for-4 with two doubles and two runs.  Doug Mientkiewicz was 3-for-5 with a home run (his third), a double, a walk, two runs, and two RBIs.  Bobby Kielty was 2-for-4 with a home run (his sixth), a walk, three runs, and five RBIs.  Cristian Guzman was 2-for-4 with a walk, two runs, and two RBIs.  Luis Rivas was 2-for-4 with two runs.  Torii Hunter was 2-for-5 with a home run (his sixth), two runs, and four RBIs.  Corey Koskie was 2-for-5 with a walk and two runs.  Tom Prince was 1-for-1 with a home run.

Pitching stars:  Brad Radke pitched seven innings, giving up three runs on nine hits and no walks and striking out three.  Tony Fiore pitched two perfect innings of relief.

Opposition stars:  Carlos Lee was 2-for-4 with a double.  Sandy Alomar was 2-for-4.

The game:  The White Sox took the early lead.  In the second Magglio Ordonez singled and scored from first on Lee's double.  Lee then scored on a sacrifice fly-plus-error to give Chicago a 2-0 lead.  The Twins got one back in the bottom of the inning when Dustan Mohr doubled, went to third on Pierzynski's single, and scored on a ground out, cutting the margin to 2-1.

The Twins took the lead in the third.  Guzman walked, Koskie hit a one-out single, and Kielty hit a three-run homer, making it 4-2 Twins.

The Twins took control in the fourth.  The first five batters reached, with two singles and an error loading the bases, Guzman delivering a two-run single, and a walk loading the bases.  With one out Kielty singled home two more and Hunter hit a three-run homer to make the score 11-2.

The Twins kept adding on.  In the sixth two walks, and a Hunter single brought home a run, Pierzynski doubled home another, a ground out scored a third and Rivas singled home another to make it 15-2.  Jose Valentin homered in the seventh to make it 15-3.  Prince led off the eighth with a home run and Mientkiewicz hit a two-run homer later in the inning to bring the final to 18-3.

WP:  Radke (5-3).  LP:  Mark Buehrle (2-7).  S:  None.

Notes:  Mohr was in left field, with Denny Hocking in right and Kielty as the DH.  Apparently, Ron Gardenhire didn't think much of Kielty's defense, as he was seemingly playing everyone else in the outfield while keeping Kielty at DH.

Chris Gomez went to short in the seventh, replacing Guzman.  Prince replaced Pierzynski behind the plate in the eighth.

Prince was batting .313.  Hocking was 1-for-5 to get his average up to triple digits at .107.

Radke lowered his ERA to 5.60.  Fiore's ERA was 5.57.

Mark Buehrle started for Chicago.  He pitched 3.1 innings and allowed ten runs (nine earned) on ten hits and two walks and struck out none.  Buehrle had an awful May, going 0-4, 7.16 in five starts.  I don't know if it was an injury, a mechanical problem, or just bad luck. In four of the other six months his ERA was under four, and the other month (August) it was at 4.50.  For the season he was 14-14, 4.14.

This was the most runs the Twins would score in a game in 2003.

Record:  The Twins were 23-18, in second place in the American League Central, 1.5 games behind Kansas City.

2015 Twins Game Logs

2015 Game 108: Twins at Blue Jays

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At the game marking the two-thirds point of the season, the Twins hope to stop regressing to the mean and start acting like the team that outplayed expectations throughout most of the first half. My ability to watch this team has been minimal since the All-Star Game thanks to scheduling luck and bad situations, and tonight will be no different, but here's hoping I don't come back to learn that the team has dipped to .500 for the first time in months.

Kyle Gibson, a solid but unpredictable starter, faces Mark Buehrle, whose year-by-year statistics are so predictable you can nearly set a watch to him. Outside of the better laundry he's essentially unchanged from when the Twins saw him on the regular, so that's who they face today.

Okay, Twins. Let's stick around the Wild Card race for a while.

History, Minnesota Twins

September 24, 2008: Random Day in Twins History

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I used a random number generator to pick a season from the past with the idea that I would quickly highlight the Twins history that occurred today in that year.  The generator sent me to the year 2008.

Twins 3, White Sox 2 - BR Boxscore

The Twins pieced together four shutout innings of relief to win their second straight game against the White Sox while pulling within a half game of first place in the AL Central.  Nick Blackburn allowed two runs in five innings despite pitching around ten baserunners (sound familiar?).  Craig Breslow, Boof Bonser (?!), and Jose Mijares each pitched a scoreless inning before Joe Nathan's 1-2-obligatory-4 ninth inning save, the 200th of his career.  “You couldn’t ask for anything better than that,” Blackburn said of the bullpen.  “They came in, did their job and got those guys out.  No drama.  It was great.”  In Mijares's eighth inning, he retired JI JIM, Paul Konerko, and Ken Griffey, Jr. in order. Continue reading September 24, 2008: Random Day in Twins History →

2011 Twins Game Logs

2011 Game 67: Hosers at Twins

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Morning baseball (morning here, anyway). Yesterday, the Twins did what they do, beating the White Sox at home. Well, recently, they've beaten them everywhere. How do we feel about today?

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrly 6-4, 86.2 IP, 3.95 ERA, 3.74 FIP, 4.29 xFIP, 1.5 WAR
Nick Blackburn 5-4, 83 IP, 3.47 ERA, 4.60 FIP, 3.77 xFIP, 0.5 WAR

Buehrle, in his twelfth season with the White Sox, doesn't show signs of being a different pitcher at all. His numbers are totally stable this year in comparison to recent years, so the Buehrle you know is the one that's pitching today.

Blackburn's K/9 is all the way up to 4.99, which might help to explain why he's been so much more successful this year than last. His GB% is a tick up from last year, too, which was up from the year before, which was up from the year before. I never trusted the guy, but it seems like he might turn out to be a good pitcher by sheer force of will. For those playing at home, Aaron Gleeman once made a bet with someone that Blackburn would never get 75 Wins as a major leaguer (I agreed). As of today, his next one will put him over 50% of the way there. I still don't know if he gets there, but I'll say I'm definitely not rooting for him to start failing today.