2 out of 3 ain't bad

Coming into the series, the Twins were really struggling, and that was with those games coming at home. So to go to Detroit and take 2 of 3 (and be in the 3rd game), well, gotta like that.

Torii Hunter continued his great hitting, showing no ill effects from the ball in the face via Zack Greinke. After hitting his 5th HR Sunday (to go along with the 13 doubles), he is now slugging over .650. That's really, really good.

Also a great series for Jason Kubel, who is playing everyday and starting to be more consistent in showing some of that great potential. He's batting .333 over the last 6 games with 3 doubles, and had a really big hit Friday. More ABs for Jason Kubel and less for Jason Tyner is something I can support.

But it wasn't all good... once again, Jesse Crain struggled, giving up the walkoff HR Sunday. Crain's ERA is now at 6.30, and he only has 5 strikeouts through 10 innings. It's early obviously, but does anyone have any confidence when he enters a game? I know that I just do not at this point.

Twins take on the Devil Rays Tuesday... could it be Sidney Ponson's last start? If he struggles again, I don't see how they can justify keeping him up.

3 Reasons We Lost This Series

Obviously things can be broken down deeper, but in my mind, there were three key reasons that not only did we lose, but we got swept. I hate to harp on negatives at the end of the year, but I'll just do it quickly.

1) Pirahnas have no bite
Cheesy headline aside, the so-called "Pirahnas" did little to nothing this series. Luis Castillo, Nick Punto, Jason Bartlett, and Jason Tyner combined to bat .200, with a .289 OBP, and a .225 SLG. Pathetic effort over the 3-game series.

2) Bad hitting with RISP
I don't even know how things finished up here, and it's too depressing to look. All that you need to know is the Twins were 0/18 at one point, and their first hit with RISP was in the 6th inning of Game 3.

3) Bullpen Mismanagement
Joe Nathan, one of the best relievers in the MLB, pitched 2/3 of an inning this series. In Game 1, he should have come in in the 9th instead of Jesse Crain. In Game 3, he should have come in in the 7th inning when there were 2 on and 2 out. Although I suppose I can't blame Gardenhire... he's just doing what all managers do. And It's logic I can't understand. Biggest situation of the game, the Twins had to hold Oakland, and they go with their 4th or 5th best RP. But hey, at least Joe Nathan's rested!

Anyway, not a good series all-around. Oakland played very well, but the Twins practically handed them this on a silver platter. A disappointing end to a great season.

Well, that was deflating

Gone is the home-field advantage. Gone is the Twins Ace in the Hole, Johan Santana, a man who had not lost a game at home since last year. Gone seemingly are the Twins bats.

So what went wrong? First and foremost, the offense.

Barry Zito is obviously a good pitcher and he had his off-speed stuff working well, but I think a lot of this was because of the Twins approach at the plate. To say that it was bad is an understatement. Simply put, against a guy that did not have good control and struggled locating his fastball, the Twins chased balls out of the zone early in the count, which is why Zito kept such a low pitch count even without great control.

Things started out rocky in the 1st inning. Luis Castillo walked to leadoff the game (which should have been a lesson to other Twins hitters... TAKE SOME PITCHES), and then Punto worked the count to 2-1. Then, i'm not sure if it was a hit & run or what the call was, but Punto swings at a ball out of the zone, Castillo and his bad knee is running, and he's thrown out at 2nd. So instead of having a runner at 1st with no out and a 3-1 count, there's 1 out and it's a 2-2 count. That's a good way to ruin a potentially good inning. And while we're at, will someone please tell Nick Punto to stop sliding into 1st base. I think everyone in the world other than Punto knows that that slows you down.

As far as Gardenhire, there were some questionable calls I thought, but none bigger than going with Jesse Crain in the 9th. Crain has been solid in the 2nd half of the year, but Pat Neshek has been lights out since his callup. Seriously, every single stat says that Neshek is the better pitcher. And it's not like Crain has loads of postseason experience... before this outing he had gotten 1 out in postseason play in his career. This isn't even hindsight bias, I swear... I just don't understand going with Crain over Neshek.

By the way, a memo to the Twins:
Frank Thomas - 3/4
Everyone else - 4/30

As for the game coverage on ESPN, I'll leave it to Bat-Girl:

...but listening to these guys is like listening to the two drunk guys who sit behind you who've seen two games all season and are trying to impress each other with how much they know.... And I know I should get used to it, but this interviewing the managers while the game is going on is disgraceful. If you're borrowing techniques from Fox's coverage of the All-Star Game, it's probably a bad idea.

Sadly, Fox's coverage isn't any better.

Anyway, time to move on and forget about Game 1. Boof Bonser gets the start in Game 2 against Esteban Loaiza, a guy that the Twins have generally hit well against. I have confidence in Boof, but scoring sometime before the 7th inning would be nice too.

In other words, Game 2 would be a perfect time for The Sabean Special!

It's been so long I almost forgot what it was called...

Oh yeah, offense. That was nice.

9 runs? Where has this offense been lately? Castillo didn't do anything at the top, but Nick Punto (welcome back!) had a couple of hits, Joe Mauer went 3/4 to increase his lead in the chase for the batting title, and Justin Morneau had a couple of big 2-out hits to get him 3 RBI, and move him into 2nd in the AL with 118 RBI on the year,

On the other side of the coin, things weren't as great as Matt Garza struggled once again. At times, he looks dominant, and shows why he was able to dominate in all levels of the Minors this year (hence, 6 strikeouts in 4.1 IP)... other times, well, it's easy to see he's a young guy. He struggled with the control - tight strike zone or otherwise - and walked 4 batters, which led to his undoing. He finished with 4 ER in the 4.1 IP.

In the pen, Pat Neshek responded nicely with 1.1 scoreless innings to get the win. Meanwhile, Jesse Crain and Juan Rincon seem to be going in the opposite directions... Crain has been excellent for a couple of months now, while Rincon has seen his ERA increase almost a run in about a month to 3.05).

With a comeback win by the Sox, the Twins are basically in the exact same position as they were when this series started a couple of days ago... 4 back of the Tigers and 1/2 game ahead of the White Sox. They need to split these final 2 games at the bare minimum, and if they can win both, well, the division race will officially become a big thing, as the Twins would be only 2 back.

But for now, the Twins just need to focus on Saturday. Boof Bonser vs. Nate Robertson. Be there or be square.

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.

3 out of 4 ain't bad

Just keep winning series'. That's all the Twins should be thinking now.

And with the 5-2 victory on Sunday, that's what the Twins were able to do on Sunday, is win the series.

They got the win thanks to good starting pitching, power from some unusual sources, and another nice night for Jason Tyner. Carlos Silva, coming off injury in his last start, Silva was on his game today, pitching 6 innings and giving up 2 runs. As it usually is when thing are going well, he didn't walk anyone. This improves his numbers on the year to [cringe] 5-9 with a 6.79 ERA. But hey, you have to start somewhere.

Offensively, the tone was set by a leadoff HR from light-hitting Luis Castillo, his 3rd of the year. Mike Cuddyer hit his 12th of the year in the 4th, and then the Twins got some luck to score a couple more in the 4th. After a Justin Morneau walk, Rondell White hit a 'Metrodome Double' to put runners at 2nd and 3rd. That was when Jason Tyner, who has been all that is man since the callup, had a 2-RBI single. Tyner is now batting .500 after 3 games.

Rondell White added an insurance run with a solo blast in the 7th (Rondell's 1st of the year, sadly), but it wasn't even necessary for the bullpen that has been stingy all year. Jesse Crain pitched a couple of scoreless innings for the hold, and Joe Nathan came on in the 9th for his 16th save, lowering his ERA to 1.66 in the process.

Around the division, Sunday was a perfect day for the Twins. The Tigers finally lost, as Joey Gathright had a big day as the Royals beat the Tigers 9-6, and the Yanks earned a sweep of the White Sox as Mariano Rivera got his 400th save.

The Twins are now 11 games behind the Tigers for the division and only 6.5 games behind the White Sox for the Wildcard (although the Yankees and Blue Jays also stand in their way.

Another positive for the Twins... if they win in the next few days, they're guaranteed to gain ground on either the Sox or Tigers, as they play each other. Scott Baker will start for the first time since he was recalled, and will go against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who will send Tim Corcoran to the mound. Other pitching matchups:

Tuesday: Francisco Liriano (10-2, 2.12 ERA) vs. Scott Kazmir (10-6, 3.27 ERA)
Wednesday: Brad Radke (7-7, 4.97 ERA) vs. Jae Seo (207, 5.07 ERA)
Thursday: Johan Santana (10-5, 2.93 ERA) vs. James Shields (4-3, 5.37 ERA)

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.

Once again, Boof (and the Twins) burned by the long ball

The Twins finally found their offense. Unfortunately, it came the same time they lost their pitching. The offense put 9 runs, but the pitching gave up 10, 5 of them from rookie Boof Bonser, who gave up 3 homeruns in his 5 innings of work, as the Twins lost 10-9 in 11 innings.

This was the second straight game Boof gave up 3 homeruns, as he also completed the feat against Oakland last week. Bonser gave up a leadoff homer to Ichiro in the 1sty, a 2-run HR to Sexson in the first, and then a 2-run HR to Yuniesky Betancourt in the 2nd, which was the source of all 5 ER.

Bonser gave up 7 hits total, while striking out 3 and walking 3. This raised his ERA to 5.48. With the late grand slam from Cuddyer, he got a no-decision out of it. For a more complete summary, you can always check out the Boof Blog.

But there were plenty of bright spots. Joe Mauer continued his torrent pace with a 2/4 day, raising his average to .371. How would this stack up against all-time great seasons by Twins hitters? Find out for yourself here.

Lew Ford was 4/6 from the plate. Torii Hunter was 3/5. Mike Cuddyer was 2/5 including a game-tying Grand Slam in the 8th. Mike Redmond had 3 hits. Unfortunately, this was all wasted when Carl Everett hit his solo jack in the 11th off Jesse Crain, with Joe Nathan still in the bullpen. As Aaron Gleeman says, we've seen this before. I thought the point of having a great relief pitcher like Joe Nathan was to use him? I guess not. Twins Without Spin saw this coming before it even happened.

Johan on the mound tomorrow night looking to salvage a game here. I wonder if Juan Castro will be the player to watch again?