Tag Archives: overuse

Keeping Track

1991 Rewind: Game Seventy-five

2 Comments

CHICAGO 8, MINNESOTA 4 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Saturday, June 29.

Batting stars:  Kirby Puckett was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer (his tenth) and a double.  Chili Davis was 2-for-4 with a home run, his nineteenth.  Kent Hrbek was 1-for-4 with a home run, his seventh.

Pitching star:  Terry Leach pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two hits.

Opposition stars:  Dan Pasqua was 4-for-5 with a home run (his seventh), a triple, and three RBIs.  Ozzie Guillen was 3-for-4 with a stolen base (his thirteenth) and two RBIs.  Robin Ventura was 2-for-3 with a double and two walks.  Lance Johnson was 2-for-4 with a double and two runs.  Tim Raines was 2-for-5 with a double, two runs, and two RBIs.  Greg Hibbard pitched a complete game, giving up four runs on seven hits and a walk and striking out one.

The game:  The White Sox opened the game with singles by Raines, Ventura, and Frank Thomas, taking a 1-0 lead.  A strikeout and a double play prevented further damage, and the Twins bounced back in the bottom of the first.  Chuck Knoblauch singled, Puckett hit a two-run homer, and Davis homered, putting the Twins up 3-1.

It stayed 3-1 until the fourth, when Pasqua led off with a homer to make it 3-2.  It stayed 3-2 until the seventh, when Chicago exploded for five runs.  Singles by Matt Merullo and Johnson started the inning.  With one out, Guillen had an RBI single to tie it and Raines' two-run double put the White Sox ahead.  Ventura was intentionally walked, and with two out Pasqua hit a two-run triple, giving Chicago a 7-3 lead.

It was pretty much over at that point.  Hrbek homered in the seventh to cut the lead to 7-4, but the White Sox got the run back in the eighth when Johnson doubled and scored on a Guillen single.  After the Hrbek homer the Twins got only one baserunner, a Davis single in the ninth.

WP:  Hibbard (6-6).  LP:  Scott Erickson (12-3).  S:  None.

Notes:  Shane Mack was in left replacing Dan Gladden.  Pedro Munoz was in right.  With Erickson pitching, Junior Ortiz was behind the plate in place of Brian Harper.

Puckett raised his average to .322.  Erickson pitched 6.1 innings, allowing seven runs on eleven hits and two walks and striking out one.  His ERA went up to 1.83.  Leach lowered his ERA to 3.16.

Erickson pitched well for six innings.  He would not pitch again, however, until July 15 and was not really the same pitcher the rest of the season.  He obviously could not be expected to keep up the pace of a 1.39 ERA, which he had going into this game, but it seems logical to think overuse played a part in his pitching.  He was twenty-three years old in 1991 and this was his sixteenth start.  He pitched 122.2 innings, never pitching fewer than six and only three times pitching fewer than seven.  He threw a hundred pitches or more eleven times, more than 110 seven times, one hundred twenty or more three times, and over 130 once (134).  Erickson would go on to have some good years in his career, but he was never the dominant pitcher he was for the first half of 1991.  Maybe he'd have gotten hurt at some point anyway, or maybe he wouldn't have remained dominant, but one has to wonder what his career might have looked like if the Twins had taken batter care of him.

Greg Hibbard was a solid major league starter for five seasons.  He came up with the White Sox in 1989 at age twenty-four and had his best season in 1990, when he went 14-9, 3.16, 1.22 WHIP.  He was with the White Sox through 1992, but they left him unprotected in the expansion draft and he was chosen by Florida.  They immediately traded him to the Cubs, for whom he pitched in 1993.  He became a free agent after the season and signed with Seattle in 1994.  He immediately began to have shoulder problems, tried to pitch through it with awful results, and was done after the 1994 season.  He has been a minor league pitching coach since 1999, most recently for the Frisco RoughRiders in the Rangers organization.  For his career he was 57-50, 4.05, 1.35 WHIP in 990 innings.  Not a superstar, but in his good years he was someone you'd be happy to have to fill out your rotation.

Their hot streak ended, the Twins had now lost four in a row, all at home, and their best pitcher was now injured.  Was their hot month just an illusion?  We'll see.

Record:  The Twins were 44-31, in first place in the American League West, two games ahead of California.

Keeping Track

1991 Rewind: Game Seventy

MINNESOTA 5, NEW YORK 0 IN NEW YORK

Date:  Monday, June 24.

Batting stars:  Shane Mack was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer (his seventh), a double, and two runs.  Kirby Puckett was 2-for-4 with a home run (his ninth) and two runs.

Pitching star:  Scott Erickson pitched a complete game shutout, giving up two hits and a walk and striking out six.

Opposition star:  Jeff Johnson pitched eight innings, giving up three runs on four hits and a walk and striking out none.

The game:  Through five innings there were only two hits, both by the Yankees.  They put a man on third base in the second, as Matt Nokes doubled and went to third on a wild pitch, but Alvaro Espinoza grounded out to end the inning.  Meanwhile, the first fifteen Twins batters were retired.

Junior Ortiz gave the Twins their first baserunner with a leadoff walk in the sixth.  He was bunted to second, and with two out Dan Gladden got the Twins' first hit, an RBI triple that made it 1-0 Minnesota.  In the seventh, Puckett led off with a home run, followed by Mack's double and a Pedro Munoz RBI single to give the Twins a 3-0 lead.  In the ninth, PUckett had a one-out single and Mack hit a two-run homer to make it 5-0.

The Yankees did not get a hit after Nokes' second-inning double.  Their other hit was a single by Don Mattingly in the first.  Their only baserunner after the second was Kevin Maas, who walked leading off the seventh and did not get past first base.

WP:  Erickson (12-2).  LP:  Johnson (1-3).  S:  None.

Notes:  Gene Larkin was at first base, as Hrbek remained out.  With Erickson pitching, Ortiz was catching.  Munoz was the DH in place of Chili Davis.  Mack batted in the fourth spot.

Puckett raised his average to .328.  Erickson's ERA went down to 1.39.

Erickson was an incredible pitcher to this point of the season.  12-2, 1.39 ERA, 1.07 WHIP in 116.1 innings.  He would not sustain that, of course, and it was not reasonable to think he could.  In fact, he would never have a half-season like that again.  As we've said before, Tom Kelly rode him pretty hard for a twenty-three year old in his first full season, and he eventually had to pay the price for that.  But for the first half of 1991, he was the best there was.

This was the fourth start of Jeff Johnson's major league career.  He would appear in parts of three major league seasons, all with the Yankees.  He made twenty-three starts in 1991 and went 6-11, 5.95, 1.49 WHIP.  That was as good as it would get for him--he would appear in thirteen games (eight starts) in 1992 and make two more starts in 1993, and his numbers got worse each season.  For his career, he was 8-16, 6.52, 1.63 WHIP.  He had good seasons in AAA at that time--4-0, 2.61, 1.34 WHIP in 10 starts in 1991 and 2-1, 2.17, 1.02 WHIP in 11 starts in 1992.  I don't know why he had so few decisions in that many starts.  I also don't know why he could not translate his AAA success into major league success, but he clearly couldn't.  I wish the Yankees had more pitchers like that these days.  Jeff Johnson has been a minor league pitching coach for several seasons.

Record:  The Twins were 43-27, in first place in the American League West, 3.5 games ahead of Oakland.

 

Keeping Track

1991 Rewind: Game Sixty-four

3 Comments

BALTIMORE 6, MINNESOTA 5 IN BALTIMORE

Date:  Monday, June 17.

Batting stars:  Al Newman was 3-for-4.  Kirby Puckett was 3-for-5 with two doubles and a stolen base, his third.  Brian Harper was 2-for-4 with a double.  Kent Hrbek was 2-for-5.   Chili Davis was 1-for-4 with a home run, his fifteenth.

Pitching stars:  Allan Anderson pitched 6.1 innings, giving up three runs (two earned) on eight hits and two walks and striking out two.  Steve Bedrosian pitched 1.2 scoreless innings, giving up a hit and a walk.

Opposition stars:  Cal Ripken was 2-for-4 with a home run (his fourteenth), a double, a walk, and two runs.  Mike Devereaux was 2-for-4 with a home run (his ninth) and a double.  Randy Milligan was 2-for-4 with a double, a walk, and two RBIs.  Brady Anderson was 2-for-4 with two runs.

The game:  Each team missed a chance in the first inning.  Puckett hit a two-out double and was stranded, while the Orioles had men on second and third with one out and the bases loaded with two out.  Davis homered in the second to give the Twins a 1-0 lead, but home runs by Devereaux and Ripken put the Orioles up 2-1 in the fourth.

Baltimore lengthened their lead in the fifth.  Anderson singled, went to third on an error, and scored on a sacrifice fly to make the score 3-1.  The Twins tied it in the fifth.  Mike Pagliarulo led off with a double, followed by singles by Newman and Chuck Knoblauch to cut the margin to 3-2.  A pair of ground outs scored another run to make it 3-3.

The Twins took the lead in the seventh when Puckett hit a two-out double and scored on Hrbek's single.  It went to 5-3 in the fifth when Harper singled, pinch-runner Dan Gladden was bunted to second, and Newman delivered a two-out RBI single.

Rick Aguilera came in to pitch the ninth.  He gave up singles to David Segui and Anderson.  A bunt moved the runners to second and third.  Joe Orsulak's sacrifice fly made it 5-4, but also provided the second out.  Ripken was intentionally walked, but Milligan wrecked that strategy with a two-run double that ended the game and the Twins' winning streak.

WP:  Mark Williamson (1-2).  LP:  Aguilera (2-3).  S:  None.

Notes:  Shane Mack replaced Gladden in left field, with Pedro Munoz in right.  Knoblauch moved up to the leadoff spot, with Mack batting second.  As shown above, Gladden was used as a pinch-runner and stayed in the game in left field, with Mack moving to right.  With Harper removed, Junior Ortiz came in to catch.  Newman started at shortstop in place of Greg Gagne.  Gene Larkin pinch-hit for Mike Pagliarulo in the eighth, and Gagne came in to play shortstop, with Newman moving to third base.

Harper raised his average to .347.  Puckett went up to .327.  Munoz was 1-for-3 and was batting .300.

Aguilera gave up three runs in two-thirds of an inning to raise his ERA to 2.97.

You may remember that yesterday we questioned using Aguilera in the eighth inning for no apparent reason.  He ended up pitching three innings in that game.  It came back to bite the Twins in this game.  Despite having thrown three innings the day before, Tom Kelly brought Aguilera into this game in the ninth.  He clearly did not have much left, and really should not have been expected to.  Yes, it's easy to criticize after the fact, and yes, times have changed since 1991.  Still, it does not seem very smart to have brought Aguilera into this game.

Kelly clearly loved Al Newman.  To this point in the season he had played in 49 of the Twins' 64 games.  Yes, a fair number of those were when he was used as a defensive replacement, but that's still a lot of playing time for a guy whose OPS is around .500 and whose batting average is around the Mendoza line.  Many of those defensive replacement games were at third base.  I've admitted before that I don't understand defensive stats very well--was Newman clearly superior to Pagliarulo and Scott Leius at third base?  I'm skeptical of that, but I don't have anything to base that on other than memories.

So the winning streak came to an end at fifteen.  The Twins had still won eighteen of twenty, which is obviously pretty good.  They would try to start another winning streak the next day.

Record:  The Twins were 38-26, in first place in the American League West, a half game ahead of Oakland.