JI [carriage return] JIM THOME

I should be finishing up the two video game posts (along with two more for Monday, since I'm gone all weekend), but instead - in honor of Jim Thome's 594th home run, I present this.

MS Paint, ftw

 

Oh, for dumb.

Farewell, Neshek

Yesterday, the the Twins announced that Pat Neshek had been claimed off waivers by the San Diego Padres. I was sort of shocked by the news, but I guess it shouldn’t be so surprising.

After coming back from Tommy John surgery last year his fastball was barely touching 85, and he was giving up home runs this year at a pace that would make Jose Lima cringe.

I prefer to remember mid-2006, when he first debuted in the big leagues. My dad, brother, and I went to a game in July (I’m all but certain it was this one). The Elmer’s glue and Scotch tape holding Brad Radke’s arm together must have been a little loose, because he was about as hitable as he could have been. We thought about leaving midway through the fourth, but then the Twins got a couple in the bottom of that inning. In the top of the 7th, Neshek came out. I knew what to expect from the couple of times I’d seen him (I believe the game in question was his 7th major league game), but it was all-new territory for my brother and dad. We marveled at the motion, how the ball seemed like it was coming from no place in particular. Pretty soon, we were marveling at how lethal he was – he struck out three in just under two innings, with none of those three batters looking like they had the slightest clue what they were up against. I had a new favorite Twin.

I soon found his blog, and have been a loyal follower in the years that followed. I’ve been out of the baseball card scene for a little over 15 years now (I never really came back to it after the strike), but the one card from the last decade that I do own is one of Neshek’s minor league cards (autographed, of course) that I just had to have off eBay. It’ll probably be the last one I’ll ever need.

This move makes me a little sad. I’d really hoped Neshek could come back to his former glory. He still could – fingers crossed. Here’s hoping Petco does him right.

In honor of one of the more unique pitching motions in recent memory (and one of my favorite Twins ever), here’s some bullpen footage some random dude took three years ago.

 

Suck It, East Coast

Eight years, $184 million - full no-trade clause.

Now let's just hope for no injuries....

What the Carlos Gomez Trade Really Means...

12 walks, 92 strikeouts last year...
Roller-skate defense....
Minnesota Twins starting left fielder... for ALL of next season.

Ladies and gentlemen, Delmon Young!!

Goodbye, Go-Go

MLB.com is reporting that the Brewers have traded J.J. Hardy to the Twins for... Carlos Gomez.

I have to admit, I'm a little bummed out about this, not because of anything J.J. Hardy may or may not be able to accomplish on the baseball field, but because it was just so fun to watch Gomez play baseball. The guy played the game as if it was the most awesome thing in the world to be doing. The picture at the top of the post, taken just a few weeks ago when the Twins won the division, captures it perfectly.

Baseball-wise, this probably makes sense, but I'm going to miss the bat-smelling, crazy "how-in-the-hell-did-he-catch-that" plays, and the ridiculous enthusiasm Gomez had.

Ron Darling Needs Physics Lessons

The Twins were predictably eliminated in painful fashion on Sunday. They got the lead for the third straight game, only to follow the script straight through to the part which called for A-Rod to bludgeon our pitching staff into submission.

Rather than complain about the Twins losing in the playoffs (I had them pegged for 75 wins and for most of the season, it looked like I was right), I'll make fun of the announcing staff.

During the early innings of last night's game, Ron Darling made the comment that ground balls hit on the Metrodome turf "gain speed" as they approach the infielders. Even if that didn't violate the laws of physics, such a field would be ridiculously dangerous. Imagine - bunt hits gaining momentum until, by the time they reach the outfield, they are hurtling at devastating speeds. Fielders daring not bounce their throws on the turf, lest they decapitate the intended recipient of their throws. Maybe he meant that the turf slows the ball down less than grass? Mmm.... no, I'm quite certain he meant it this way.

Of course, I'm being more than a little pedantic, but the team of Ron Darling and Chip Caray (particularly the latter) are quite possibly the worst announcers to listen to. I'm including Hall of Shamers like McCarver & Buck (Joe, of course, not his dearly departed father) in this ascertation. They get facts wrong, they (especially Caray) act as homers for all things Yankee, and worst of all, they bring absolutely nothing to the table. They're certainly not informative, they're just sort of... there (and the way Caray refers to just about every bloop hit as being 'fisted' is creepy to me).

Sour grapes notwithstanding, that was a pretty disgusting end to a season that defied expectations. You can't beat the Yankees by leaving 17 men on base in one game, or by blundering your way out of at least 2 runs by simply not paying any attention on the basepaths, or by hitting a grand total of zero home runs after putting up decent power numbers all year - and guess what......we didn't.

Ah well..... we'll always have last Tuesday's game.

Note: This gets the "Joe Buck Sucks" tag, because boy howdy does he ever.

Ouch.... ouch ouch ouch

Note the position of the umpire as he calls the clearly fair ball foul.

Great game by Blackburn. Too bad that it all has to wind down in the shittiest way possible.

On a sidenote, I overheard Ron Darling saying after the team's MVP Justin Morneau went down with an injury, it was guys like Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel... and Delmon Young that pulled the Twins into contention.

Joe Mauer, meanwhile, selfishly hit .354/.471/.487 - to be clear, that means he was getting on base almost as often as he was getting out over the critical playoff drive. What Cuddy did was great, but he and Kubel aren't getting RBIs if Mauer isn't setting the table for them. To act as if the soon-to-be AL MVP had less to do with the Twins eventual division title than DELMON YOUNG, is cockflickery, my friends.

Also, in what universe do people still think the MVP of the 2009 Twins is Justin Morneau??

What a complete disappointment... let's pick up at least one from this very beatable team, shall we, gentlemen??

First to Eleven Wins

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Minnesota Twins...

It all makes a lot more sense in retrospect. I mean, we have one of the best closers in the game (who at one point had a streak of 20+ games pitched without a single run given up) - of course it all came down to a situation where our mop up guy had to get out of a bases loaded, one out jam.

We had five guys who had OPS+ numbers above 120 (which is quite good), so of course in the critical inning, it all came down to Carlos Gomez getting a hit, Delmon Young getting a walk, and Alexi Casilla (who was sporting a tasty .259 SLUGGING percentage) driving in the winning run. It's the Twins... you just kind of go with it. So when Brian Duensing makes his 10th major league start later today against C.C. Sabathia, it doesn't concern me (okay... maybe a little), it's just part of the show.

Going into the season, I thought the Twins were about a .500 team. Up until September, it looked like a was right. The way I figure it, last night was one of the most exciting games I've ever watched (post-1991, of course). I gave up on the idea of my team making the playoffs no fewer than three times, so now that they've made it, the whole thing feels like free baseball. The fact that we were 0-7 against the Yankees during the regular season doesn't bother me, in fact, I'm anxious for us to have another crack at them.

Realistically, the Twins will probably lose the series - probably in four games or under. That would be disappointing, of course, but this season has already given Twins fans a lot more than we could have ever expected. Baseball is kind of awesome that way.

That being said, I hope the Twins sweep the Yankees, and since the playoffs are a complete crap shoot, why can't they?

Uno!

You see, it's funny because Delmon Young always swings at the first pitch, no matter where that pitch might be located.

Coincidentally, he's got 68 strikeouts and 7 walks this year. For being advertised as coming with "plus power", he's got only six doubles in 245 plate appearances (or about one double per 41 PAs, for reference, Neifi Perez averaged one double per 23 at bats over the course of his career).

Ouch.

Hitters Who Would Better Leadoff Batters Than Matt Tolbert: A Handy Reference

Ron Gardenhire seems to think that in lieu of an actual leadoff hitter (Denard Span), he should simply place a speedy player at the top of the lineup. Normally, it would only matter to a limited extent, but putting a batter who's hitting .175 (also sporting a nifty .270 OBP and .237 SLG!) the highest number of plate appearances in a given game seems like a great way to not score very many runs.

Since Gardy is obviously confused as to what makes a good leadoff hitter (hint: see pitches, get on base for other hitters to get you in), I've composed this helpful cheat sheet.

List of People Who Would Be More Apt to Bat Leadoff Than Matt Tolbert

Brendan Harris
Joe Mauer

Nick Punto (and, my God, does that distress me)

Luis Ayala
Cecil Fielder

This man and his two career stolen bases would be a much better leadoff hitter than Matt Tolbert.

Scott Baker
Emilio Navarro (propped up with a series of levers and pulleys)
An unoccupied batter's box
Carlos Gomez (but only just barely... that was a long, angering road I'd rather not go down again)
A Sony Aibo
American Idol winner Kris Allen
Most of the commenters at the Star Tribune's website
Doctor Who
The gun toting corpse of Charlton Heston
That one guy on Lost... you know... the bald-ish guy, the mysterious guy with the shifty eyes... yeah, him
Eddie Gaedel
A sentient jack-in-the-box
Ordinary buttered toast

But is it scrappy buttered toast? Does it battle its tail off??

Lest you think I'm overly pessimistic, here another list.

List of Hitters Who Matt Tolbert Would Probably Be Better Than

Alexi Casilla
Bob Buhl

Please, listen to reason. Scrappy, light-hitting infielders who strike out almost as often as they get on base do not in any way scream "leadoff hitter".

How Amazing Is Joe Mauer?

Joe Mauer came off the bench and hit yet another home run in today's 6-5 loss to the Red Sox. That gives him 11 on the year, good enough to break the top ten in the AL. There are several amazing things about this fact.

1. He missed ALL of April. That means that he's caught up to the rest of the AL - and he spotted them a whole month.
2. He's never really been a power hitter before, his career high in home runs is 13 (in 608 plate appearances, as opposed to 11 in 100 plate appearances this year). Until this season, he had averaged a home run every 46.8 at bats - this year he's averaging one every 7.36 at bats.
3. Most of the homers he has hit (seven) have gone opposite field, none of them have been dead pulls - none (he's hit two to dead center, and two to right-centerfield).
4. He's hit 5 just this week.
   

It could be said that he's gotten lucky with a few of these, as there have been a decent number of them that have just barely sneaked over the left field wall. Even if he's been lucky with the home runs, his batting line is a ridiculous .444/.530/.914 - including an otherworldy .527/.597/1.055 against righties.

I've pretty much run out of positive adjectives to describe how he's playing. This is the best I've ever seen anyone play the game. These numbers are obviously completely unsustainable, but add in the fact that he's a freaking catcher, and he's got to merit some serious MVP talk assuming he stays healthy.

Wow.

This 'n That: Ugly Losses, Stuff I've Been Listening To,

Bah.

Last night's Twins game was so great for the first eight innings. Morneau crushed two homeruns on his birthday, Mauer added one of his own, Johnny Damon got ejected... going into the ninth inning, the Twins were two runs up. In his career, Joe Nathan's only blown four two run leads. Things got ugly - fast. Nathan had a meltdown and gave up three runs in the bottom of the ninth to lose the heartbreaker. The outfield had some issues, including the normally solid Denard Span over-pursuing a line drive down the left field line, which led to an inside-the-park home run. Hopefully the Twins will be able to get to Joba Chamberlain early today and put the evil empire in their place.

---

Micro Album Reviews

• I'd been eagerly awaiting Viva Voce's new CD 'Rose City' since I'd heard of its upcoming arrival. The finished product is pretty decent, but they've sort of stripped away a lot of the melody that made them so undeniable before. Most of the songs expand on the jam-heavy sound from "Get Yr Blood Sucked Out". It's a pretty good album, but it's going to take some time to get everything out of it.
• Wilco's new album (amusingly titled "Wilco (The Album)" is good. It's streaming for free at their website now, so you really don't have any reason not to check it out.
• Mewithoutyou's new album, "It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright" might actually kind of suck. After a couple of listens, I haven't gotten much out of it. The original mwY sound as featured on '[A-->B] Life' is gone. Aaron Weiss no longer has any fire left in his vocals, everything is either straight singing or done in his "sing-talking" style. All of this wouldn't really be a problem if the lyrics were up to mwY's usual caliber. Instead we get awkward lyrics with none of the drive that we've been used to from previous efforts. So to recap, they've lost their musical, vocal, and lyrical intensity - what actually is left to draw a listener in?

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In Which Things Get a Little Weird on the Bases...

With one out and runners on first and third, Michael Cuddyer (the runner on first) took off as the pitch was being thrown. Brian Buscher (the batter) hit a looping drive which was caught by the centerfielder. Cuddyer had slid into second base already, so he started running back to first, as Morneau tagged up to score. Bizarrely, Gardner ignored the easy double play option in Cuddyer and threw home to try to catch Morneau. His throw was unbelievably pathetic, and Morneau scored in plenty of time. At this point, they appealed to second, and the umpire ruled that Cuddyer had not tagged second on his return to first (even though he had not run past second at all). Somehow, the run counted. Which rules govern this, and why did Cuddyer get called out for not retouching second even though he had not travelled past second base, but rather had simply slid into it?

---

While We're At It...

Derek Jeter is a great baseball player and a liekly first ballot hall of famer. However, he does not now, nor has he ever had "great range" or really even good/average range. He is a subpar fielding shortstop who knows how to make certain plays look very flashy. Thank you.

Thank You, Joe Crede

Okay, follow along.

Twins get out to an early lead.
Tigers first pound starter Glen Perkins, then start on increasingly useless Luis Ayala. They take the lead in the 6th.
Twins get a triple from Denard Span to put them back in the lead in the 6th.
Tigers get a couple of homeruns and take a two run lead in the 7th.
Jason Kubel ties the game with a 2-run homer in the 8th.
The game stays this way for a while.
Granderson gets a one out triple in the 13th, then startles Jesse Crain into committing a run-scoring balk with two outs. Things look bad.
Jason Kubel gets a single, Punto pinch runs, gets bunted over to second, then scores on a ball that was just barely trapped in the bottom of the 13th.
A couple of walks happen (including a two out intentional walk to Morneau), then Joe Crede hits a walkoff grand slam to win the game?

Epic WGOM game log, epic game. As was posted over yonder by BrainS, "Crede just ceased being an ex-White Sox. He's now a Twin."

Scott Baker = Ace

I've noticed that my blog shows up near the top of the list for the google search 'scott baker ace'. Ironically, the post which triggers this high ranking is a questioning of his ability to be the ace of the staff.

There should no longer be any question about that. Consider his stats (with where he ranks in the AL in parentheses):

ERA: 3.45 (8th)
Winning %: .733 (4th, he was 11-4, and keep in mind that he could have easily won a few more games, considering he was on the tough end of three 1-0 games)
WHIP: 1.178 (5th)
Strikeouts to Walks: 3.36 (7th)

He also gave up just a .247 AVG, and strikes outs 7.4 per 9 innings - which puts him just outside top 10. I really look forward to watching him pitch a full season next year as the undisputed ace of the Twins' starting rotation. Sorry for doubting you, Light Rail.

The Sound of the Wind Escaping the Sails

162 games wasn't enough to contain this season. The Twins were picked to finish anywhere from 3rd place (optimistic) to last (pessimistic). Even devoted Twins fans were figuring on somewhere in the range of 75 wins and a 4th place finish. The Tigers were too good, the Twins were too young. After all, we'd finished poorly last year, and that was before we got rid of Torii and Johan. There was just no way we were going to be playing meaningful September baseball.

What happened?

Seemingly out of nowhere, we took interleague by storm, and suddenly we had hope. Maybe we'd pull down 3rd, maybe even keep pace long enough to take 2nd. Soon the Indians and Tigers were well in our rearview, and we were facing something we hadn't envisioned in anything but our most unrealistic dreams - a bona-fide to-the-wire pennant race.

After completing the sweep of the Sox and taking first place his past Thursday (which was one of the most exciting games I've seen in any setting, '91 world series included), we were in the driver's seat. If we did our business against the Royals, the future looked bright. Unfortunately, the Royals have gotten good at playing the spoiler. In 2006, they swept the Tigers and let the Twins grab first on the last day of the season. This year, they opened the door for what was sure to be an exciting game number 163. Of course, there was the makeup game on Sunday, but that was a mere formality. This was going to come down to a winner-takes-all playoff. Everyone knew it.

After a great game (and it was a great game), I sat on the couch speechless, feeling absolutely gutted. Blackburn came up big in the biggest game he's ever pitched, but Danks was looking possesed on the mound. My stomach twisted a little tighter with every pitch either of them threw (especially on the Thome blast - I somehow knew that was going to be the only run of the game). I've not watched a game that gave me this kind of feeling (not even in the playoffs in 02-04, and in 06). Having been able to watch a vast majority of the games this year for the first time (thank you FoxSports!), the guys on the Twins roster have become family. I've watched Gomez strike out on that same blasted low and away pitch 900 times now, to the point where I cringe every time he gets a 2-strike count. I've watched Scott Baker turn from the goofy looking kid who couldn't get anyone out into... a fairly goofy looking kid who could just turn out to be one of the best pitchers in the AL. These guys are the most enjoyable team to watch, and I've greatly enjoyed living and dying on their every move. I'm sure in a couple of weeks I'll look back on this season and be satisfied with the amazing run they had, but for now, I've still got that sunk feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's been a lot of fun, and I knew in the back of my mind that this day was coming, but that doesn't ease my mind too much right now. These guys have been a pure pleasure to watch day in and day out, and I look forward to next year, when others will think twice before underestimating us.

What a season by a great team. I love this baseball for exactly this feeling, even if it's a little hard to stomach at the moment.

Here's looking forward to April.

Finding New Ways to Suckerpunch the Fanbase

The Twins, no content with the traditional methods of losing games (though they've certainly tried their hand at most of them lately), have decided upon much more colorful ways to break the hearts of their fans.

Take last night, for instance. After 3 innings, the Twins were losing 8-1. I'm not even sure why I kept the game on, but suddenly in the 5th inning, the offense started to come to life. Four runs in the 5th inning, two more in the 6th, and finally another two in the 8th to take the lead. They left a LOT of runners on base in those four innings, but they had rallied back from 7 down to take an improbable lead.

In the bottom of the 8th, Eddie Guardado gave up a long, foul-pole hitting homerun to Grady Sizemore, and the game went into extra innings. All in all, the Twins had used 6 relief pitchers over the course of 7+ innings by the time Joe Nathan came in, and had only given up the one run. Joe Nathan (the best closer in baseball) gave up a 3-run home run to lose the game.

The Twins scored 8 unanswered runs to take the lead, but in the process, they left 13 runners on base (that's more than one per inning) including once were they left the bases loaded, and once where they hit into a double play with the bases loaded to end an inning.

I haven't written much about the Twins lately because they've been fairly depressing, and it doesn't seem like they'll pull out of it in time. They're only 2.5 games back of the White Sox, but time is quickly running out. The White Sox have been doing their best to hand us the title, and we've been doing our best to hand it right back. The coming series against the Rays will be huge. The Twins NEED to at least split, and a series win would go a long way. It's been noted in blogs much better than this one that the expectations for this season were extremely low. I was thinking 80 wins would be just fine, and the Twins have 82 as of today, so they've done better than I thought they would, but to get this far and this close and not make the playoffs because of a September collapse would be maddening.

At least the Vikings are doing awesome.........oh wait...

The Case For Craig Breslow

For a few years previous to 2008, the Minnesota Twins' bullpen has been an embarassment of riches, even beyond having the best closer in baseball (apologies to Mariano Rivera). In 2007, Pat Neshek had a ridiculous year until his arm starting wearing down later in the season, and Matt Guerrier had a very solid year, too. 2006 was the year Dennys Reyes put up some historically good numbers (and was Neshek's fantastic breakthrough, as well). Before that, you had Crain, Rincon, and even J.C. Romero all pitching very good innings - hell, you even had Johan Santana in 2003. The point being, from 2002 to 2007, a large part of the Twins success was the ability of the bullpen to lock games down from the 6th to the 8th so that Nathan could come in and slam the door in the 9th.

This hasn't really been the case thus far in 2008. Neshek - once on the short list of best setup men in the game - had a few rough outings before losing the season to elbow troubles. Rincon continued (a bteer term might be accelerated) his rapid plunge. Guerrier started out nicely, but he's obviously been extremely overworked, and has been nothing resembling effective for the last month or so. Reyes pitches exclusively to lefties (for good reason, it would seem, as righties have a .422 SLG against him). If only we had another option...

On May 23rd, the Cleveland Indians designated Craig Breslow for assignment. The Twins, deciding they needed another left handed reliever, picked him up off of waivers. In limited work, Craig pitched 11 innings before he gave up his first run. Since then, he's been used mainly in innings-eating roles, or as a lefty specialist if Reyes has already been used. Lately, Gardy's been getting him a little more intensive action, and Breslow's responded nicely. In fact, I'd go so far as to say he's doing the best of any non-Nathan reliever the Twins have right now.

You expect a left handed pitcher to be good against lefties, and Breslow certainly has been.

Versus Lefties
Name	AVG	OBP	SLG
Joe Nathan	.176	.250	.304
Dennys Reyes	.198	.254	.259
Matt Guerrier	.258	.346	.366
Jesse Crain	.264	.365	.403
Brian Bass	.279	.333	.452
Boof Bonser	.313	.373	.485
Juan Rincon	.343	.438	.500
Craig Breslow	.197	.232	.258

Craig eats left handed batters. In 66 at bats against him, lefties have fared worse against Breslow than anyone else, including Nathan (they have a lower batting average against Nathan, but a better get on base slightly more often, and have a higher slugging percentage against him).

Now, having a left handed pitcher who knows how to get lefties out isn't anything spectacular, but Breslow's more than held his own against righties, as well.

Versus Righties
Name	AVG	OBP	SLG
Joe Nathan	.196	.234	.255
Dennys Reyes	.281	.352	.422
Matt Guerrier	.274	.339	.457
Jesse Crain	.273	.318	.455
Brian Bass	.318	.376	.532
Boof Bonser	.256	.298	.399
Juan Rincon	.343	.438	.500
Craig Breslow	.211	.327	.225

He's pitched better against right handed batters than anyone except Joe Nathan, and when righties have hit the ball against him, they haven't gotten much on it (one extra base hit in 71 at bats). This is, of course, small sample size, but it's not all that much smaller than anyone else, and he's clearly done better than anyone else. So why is Breslow still toiling in middle relief while Jesse Crain and an overworked (and dangerously near dead armed) Matt Guerrier are given high pressure games? Gardenhire ought to know better than anyone that lefties can get out hitters besides other lefties. Up until late-January, he had the best pitcher in baseball in his employ, and he was a lefty.

In the past 28 days, Breslow has been called in 11 times - and in 6 of those games, he was brought on to face a token lefty or was brought in when there was no other choice. We already have a lefty specialist, and with all due respect to the recently returned 'Everyday Eddie', Breslow has pitched better this year, and it's time that he got a few more late & close game situations to show for it.

Goodbye Livan, Hello Liriano!

According to MLB.com, the Twins have recalled Francisco Liriano, and designated Livan Hernandez and Craig Monroe for assignment.

Suffice to say this is good news, I'll write on this more in depth later tonight, but for now, let me breathe a sigh of relief.

Standing Pat & A Wild Win

So, the trade deadline came and went, and...

...nothng happened.

While I wasn't surprised, I'm a little disappointed that the Twins didn't try a little harder for one of the infielders that hey had been rumored to be in taks for. Adrian Beltre would have been a huge pickup, and one more strong shutdown reliever would have been nice to get (though trades for relievers often turn out poorly). If Alexi Casilla is truly done for the season (and I sincerely hope he isn't), we'll be trotting a lineup with at least 3 of the following players every game: Nick Punto, Brian Buscher, Brendan Harris, Mike Lamb, or Adam Everett.

* Buscher's really playing well, but he's really a replacement level player, and he needs to be platooned against lefties.

* Punto's redeemed himself after his abysmal 2007 season, but even the most optimistic fan has to realize that his stats will level off to some extent (my bet is that it'll happen faster, now that he'll be batting second with Casilla out).

* Harris is an okay hitter (I stress okay), but he's an anchor in the field. With him playing shortstop for the foreseeable future, Twins fans can get ready to hear "just missed the double play" a lot.

* Lamb has been a tremendous disappointment, both in the field and at bat. He's wayunder replacement value, and is looking like he's losing motivation rapidly.

* Everett was touted as an mazing defenseman, but injuries, an awful record at the plate, and even some extremely shaky defense had him almost DFA'd (until Casilla's injury). Who knows how much time he'll get to play.

Casilla's injury hurts the Twins drastically. If a trade for an infilder was important before, it became crucial once Casilla made that ill-fated headfirst slide into second. The Twins stood pat, and while I still think they can make some waves, and possibly win the division, any lineup that has to feature 3 of the aforementioned group is on shaky feet.

Gardy has to fill out just such a lineup card pretty much every game for the rest of the year if Casilla's injury is as bad as advertised.


On to brighter news. Thursday's game against the Sox was a joy to watch. Scott Baker had an abnormally rough outing, but still struck out 8 in 6 innings and kept the Twins close. Morneau hit a 3-run homer to bring us within one, setting the stage for one of the wildest innings I've seen in some tme.

Denard Span led off the 7th inning, and during a bunt attempt, he pulled his bat back (as replays showed) very much in time to avoid commiting to the pitch, which ended up hitting him. As he trotted down the line, suddenly the home plate umpire called him back, saying that he had gone too far. A horribly missed call, which Gardenhire immeadiately came out to argue. Gardy was ejected almost instantly, which sent him into a fury. After giving up on the umpire, he vented some frustration by dropkicking his cap. Unfortunately, doing this prompted the already agitated home crowd to start throwing their caps onto the field (a poor choice... those things are expensive), and when they ran out of caps, they started throwing whatever else they could get their hands on. Ozzie Guillen (rightfully) got his players off the field, and (bizzarely) got into a shouting match with a couple fans above the visiting dugout. The dome announcer threatened that if everyone didn't stop, the Twins would have to forfeit, but eventually, order was restored. Span came back to bat and ended up coaxing a great walk, then took second on a wild pitch, and scored the tying run on a hard ground ball which Orlando Cabrera wasn't quite able to snag. Jason Kubel tacked on a 3-run homer later in the inning. The Sox got a couple back in the 8th, but the Twins picked up 3 more in the bottom of that inning, securing a win.

Overall, it was a hard fought game against our biggest rival (a game which happened to bring us to 1/2 game back of said rival in the central division standings). It was the type of game that reminds a person why baseball is sch a great game...

Wow... Really?? I Mean, Really??

Twins general manager Bill Smith, on Livan Hernandez, who improved to 10-6 with a 5.29 earned-run average with Saturday's victory over Texas: "I'll take the (10) wins. Who do you want, a guy who's 10-15 with a 2.80 ERA or a guy who's 16-8 with a 7.00 ERA? I'll take the 16-8."

Source

 

Oh no Bill, not cool... I guess the saying goes 'I'd rather be lucky than good', but as a GM wouldn't you rather draft good, seeing as how it's a little bit more repeatable?

Let's put it this way. If I were to pitch in the major leagues, I'd understandably have a complete inability to get anyone out. I'd give up 96 runs in the first inning, and I'd only start people out when their arms were literally too tired to swing the bat. However, for the sake of this hypothesis, let's also say that my younger brother is toeing the rubber against me. He give up his 342 runs and then he starts walking people. The result is a thrilling 956-872 game, and I end up winning.

Now let's say that the very next day this happens. Scott Baker goes out and gives up 2 hits, one of which happens to be an unlucky home run. He loses because of his offense's innate disability to score runs behind him (this is actually the THIRD time he's lost 1-0 in this not-at-all-hypothetical-all-too-real world).

Who pitched a better game??

Exactly. Wins are overrated. A pitcher can pitch the game of his life, but unless the strikes out every single hitter, he's not in complete control of the outcome - and even then he still has to get some hitting behind him. Seeing how no one has ever done that, (not even Ron Necciai, though that one game was one of the greatest feats anyone has ever accomplished in sports), there has not been a single instance where a pitcher has won a game all by himself. A win is supposed to be a nice indicator of which pitcher pitched better on a given day, but it's a horribly flawed stat. I fear for the Twins, who seemingly have a GM who doesn't grasp that concept at all.

 

Coincidentally, Livan earns his own tag with this post. I'm kind of shocked he didn't already have one. His name has also been added to my computer's dictionary. Truly we live in harrowing times.