Gotta love that pitching staff

There are some days, like Tuesday, when a guy will give up 5 HR and it's easy to get frustrated with the staff. Then are days like yesterday, when a young guy throws a great game, and the bullpen does the rest.

Matt Garza got his first Major-League win by throwing 6 solid innings, giving up just 1 unearned run on 5 hits. (Aaron Gleeman has a great writeup on the start) Then the bullpen came in and did their job, to the tune of 3 perfect innings. Meanwhile, the offense wasn't very efficent but they did score 4 runs, and the formula for success was in full effect again.

I know ERA is not a great stat for relievers, but look at these things:

Pat Neshek - 0.81
Dennys Reyes - 0.96
Juan Rincon - 2.44
Joe Nathan - 1.53

Offensively, the 4-5-6 hitters supplied the power and runs, as Mike Cuddyer got 3 hits, Justin Morneau had his 108th RBI of the year, and Torii Hunter hit his 18th HR of the year. That was enough to overcome 10 men LOB for the Twins, which is not good at all.

The White Sox victory means the Twins are still 0.5 GB of the Wildcard, but only 7 out of the division lead. The Red Sox also remain in the hunt at 4 GB of the Wildcard. The rubber match of the series will feature Boof Bonser against Kris Benson in another big game for the Twins... they just have to keep winning series!

Twins Bullpen = Best in the MLB

And I have the numbers to back it up!

For one thing, they have the best bullpen ERA in all of baseball at 3.10. But even beyond that, they're just so effective because they don't walk batters and they strike a lot of guys out. And that's generally a pretty good formula. Here it is broken down, with the MLB rank in parenthesis:

ERA - 3.10 (1)
WHIP - 1.23 (1)
K/BB - 3.38 (1)
K/9 - 8.34 (3)
HR - 25 (1)
OBP Against - .304 (2)
SLG Against - .361 (2)
OPS Against - .665 (1)

Not bad. Looking at them individually almost makes things more impressive.

Joe Nathan - 51.0 IP, 1.59 ERA, 0.82 WHIP, 72/10 K/BB, 12.71 K/9
Juan Rincon - 56.2 IP, 2.22 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 50/17 K/BB, 7.94 K/BB
Denys Reyes - 34.1 IP, 1.05 ERA, 0.90 WHIP, 33/7 K/BB, 8.65 K/9
Pat Neshek - 20.0 IP, 0.90 ERA, 0.45 WHIP, 30/3 K/BB, 13.50 K/9
Jesse Crain - 58.2 IP, 4.45 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 47/15 K/BB, 7.21 K/9
Matt Guerrier - 40.1 IP, 3.12 ERA, 1.61 WHIP, 23/16 K/BB, 5.13 K/9

And when you consider that Willie Eyre and his 6.48 ERA is not pitching any more high-leverage inning, and the fact that Crain had an awful start to the year but has been very effective in the past couple of months, the 3.10 ERA doesn't even do justice to how good this bullpen is right now.

Take a look at Pat Neshek's numbers. Hardly anyone knows about this guy, but in 20 IP he has struck out 30 guys, walked 3, and allowed just 6 hits. 2 of those were solo HR, and that's the only runs he's allowed this year. If I was playing a video game, I'd be hard-pressed to replicate these numbers. And he's 25 and in his first year of service. Not bad.

Minnesota Twins: Wildcard Leader

We've got a lot of season to go, so the fact that the Twins have a 1/2 game lead in the Wildcard chase isn't overly significant. However, with the way the first two months of the season went, I never thought I'd be able to write that title (and the fact that I didn't have this blog at the time!)

But either way, after a dramatic 4-3 comeback win on Wednesday, the Twins own a 1/2 game lead on the White Sox and a 1.5 game lead on the Red Sox. For the second straight day, the Royals pulled out a win against Boston, this time using 9th inning dramatics, scoring 2 off of Papelbon in the 9th to win 5-4.

The big story, at least for the Twins, is that we finally have another 30 HR player, for the first time since 1987. Not only was it HR #30 for Morneau, but it also gives him 101 RBI for the year. Perhaps most impressive, since he had a .248 career average coming into the year is that his average currently stands at .322. I'm kinda beating this over the head, but Morneau is definitely an MVP candidate, especially for hitting one of the most memorable Twins HR since that AJ Pierzynski one in the playoffs.

Johan was dominant for 6 innings, but just lef that one pitch up to Inge, which was crushed out of the park. But he still went 7 strong innings, struck out 10, and was rewarded with his 13th win. For the 2nd straight night, Rincon/Nathan shut down the door in the 8th and 9th, although Denys Reyes did come in to get Granderson out. Nathan now has 25 saves on the year.

After all the struggles on the road for the Twins, they finish up this roadtrip at 6-1. Sure, 4 of the games were against Kansas City, but now that we see what Kansas City is doing to Boston, they begin to look more impressive. And taking 2 of 3 from what has been the best team in baseball? Well, that's always nice.

Now the Twins head home for a 4-game set with the Blue Jays. The Jays have been struggling lately, but they're still a dangerous team. Although one piece of good news, Halladay pitched on Wednesday for Toronto, so hopefully that means the Twins will get to avoid him in this series. Although with a couple of rookies starting Friday and Saturday, they won't be able to take anything for granted.

Once again, The Sabean Special

We got our 5th example of The Sabean Special as the Twins beat the Indians 3-1 on Sunday, to take 2 of 3 from Cleveland in the series.

Liriano was only able to go 5 innings, as his pitch count got up to 95 quickly, but he did strike out 10 batters while giving up 1 run, to put his ERA at 1.93. Pat Neshek came on after him, and his impressive run continued with 1.2 shutout innings in relief. Dennis Reyes pitched to 2 batters and struck out both of them, Juan Rincon got 2 batters out in the 8th, and then Joe Nathan finished the job in the 9th.

Nathan allowed a leadoff single in the 9th before getting Joe Inglett to fly out. After that, he had had enough, and struck out Ramon Vazquez and Grady Sizemore to end the game.

The Win for Liriano pushes his record to 12-2, while Joe Nathan picked up his 19th save. All in all, when you can take 2 of 3 on the road against a talented team, that's something I'll take anyday.

The Sabean Special Count: 5

It must be the 2nd half of the season

How do I know? Well, besides looking at a calendar, I can just tell by the way Johan is pitching. The past of seasons he's been an unstoppable rebel force in the 2nd half of the year, and this isn't a bad start this time around. 7 IP, 2 ER, 7 K, and his 10th win of the year.

The big contributor on offense was once again Justin Morneau. 3/4 and a solo HR (#24 on the year). Wasn't it just last year that Morneau couldn't hit lefties to save his life? Good to see that Batting Average climb back over .300.

But besides Morneau and Santana, it wasn't just the usual suspects for the Twins contributing to this win. Nick Punto hit a big double early in the game. Jason Tyner had a couple more hits. Mike Redmond drove Punto in with a Sac Fly. Denys Reyes continued to mow down hitters with a scoreless 9th. It was a team effort here.

Unfortunately, some of that team may not be in the best of shape at the moment. Jason Kubel's still got sore knees, Lew Ford just went on the DL, and Shannon Stewart and Torii Hunter left the game early on Saturday. So uh, does anyone have a spare outfielder? Twins Without Spin made an interesting suggestion - maybe a little bit of Denard Span if Torii Hunter is forced to go to the DL. Sure, Span's in AA, but it might be interesting. One thing we do know is that Rondell White will be back. Let's hope he's gotten past the mysterious awfulness that plagued him earlier this year.

On another good note, the Yankees beat the White Sox again, putting the Twins just 7.5 games back of the Wildcard. So there's still a light at the end of the tunnel, however dim it may be.

Twins win in 12; Nathan finally gets the win

It took a late comeback and some dramatics in extra innings, but the Twins prevailed on Friday night with a 7-5 victory over the Orioles in 12 innings.

Before we go any further, we'd be remiss (becuase of the blog name) if we didn't mention the fact that Joe Nathan got the win. Nathan pitched 2 innings, giving up 1 hit and 1 walk while striking out 3. It was his 4th win of the year (4-0), and the 2 shutout innings lowers his ERA to 2.05, which is pretty good..

But he wouldn't gave picked up the victory without the walkoff HR from Justin Morneau, his 2nd of the night, and 13th of the year. With Nick Punto on 1st and 2 out in the 12th, Justin Morneau blasted the 2-0 pitch from Chen over the high wall in RF to end the ballgame. The 5 RBI for Morneau increased his team-leading RBI total to 43.

In what's becoming a nightly theme, Joe Mauer was very good at the plate, going 3/5 with a BB, and he scored a run. With the average sitting at .384 and the OPS up at .983, I think it's safe to call Joe Mauer the best C in the MLB.

The bullpen combined to pitch 6.1 scoreless innings, with Jesse Crain pitching 1.1 innings (to lower the ERA to 6.04!), Denys Reyes pitched 1.1 innings, and Juan Rincon pitched 1.2 scoreless innings (which lowered the ERA to 1.76).

With a loss from the Tigers, the Twins now sit 10.5 games out of place, but they can't look at that. Just have to keep plugging away, taking one game at a time, and worry about themselves. It sounds cliche, but when you're that far out, you just have to keep winning series. The Twins have a chance to take the series on Saturday with Carlos Silva taking the mound taking the mound against Daniel Cabrera (who always seems to have the Twins' number. On Sunday we will once again get to see Francisco Liriano go to work, which is always a pleasure.