Down Two Games.

I know. Carlos Gomez shouldn't have taken such an overzealous turn at second. Jason Kubel should not have turned into Delmong Young (1-for-10, 6 K's). Delmon Young should not have been Delmon Young (0-for-8, 4 K's). Joe Nathan should not have thrown a 3-0 hanging fastball down the heart of the plate to A-Rod (Nick Blackburn owes Nathan a good solid cock-punch for spoiling that outing). But dammit all, it feels good to blame outside forces, don't it?

The Inning.

    Ron Gardenhire had run through relievers like a cold victim runs through Kleenex.  A comparison fitting in the context of the dreary exterior weather.  Inside the bubble, Twins fans were hoarse, jittery and alternating between waves of ecstasy and anxiety.  

    Either way, they were on their feet for a third extra inning of tiebreaking baseball.  The Twins manager used three pitchers to deliver a 1-2-3 inning in the 11^th, the first of such since the Twins went down in order in the eighth.  Some might argue over-management, but with Tigers center fielder Curtis Granderson scheduled to hit second – a man that had hit 86 of his career 102 home runs off of right-handed pitching while striking out in a quarter of his plate appearances against left-handed pitching  – it was a sage decision to remove Jesse Crain for LOOGY Ron Mahay. 

    In many ways, Mahay is Granderson’s pitching counterpart.  Just as Granderson is only useful against righties, Mahay preferred to victimize his left-handed comrades.  While in Kansas City, Mahay demonstrated that coaxing outs from right-handed batters wasn’t one of his stronger skills.  In fact, as a demographic, those righties had slugged .608 off of him.  Lefties meanwhile were stifled by his fastball-slider combo, striking out in 20 percent of all match-ups.  Like many specialist pitchers, you have to employ their use carefully.  The Royals, an organization that has made heaps of bad decisions, frequently used Mahay against righties – nearly 60 percent of batters he faced where of the right-handed variety.  The Twins, on the other hand, recognized the value of his platoon advantaged and squared him off against lefties in 27 of the 39 batters faced since being acquired.  Not surprisingly, his batting average allowed dropped from .313 while toiling away in Missouri to .206 while in Minnesota.  As if it were already preordained simply by the percentages, Mahay struck out Granderson thus concluding his job for the night. 

    Gardenhire trotted out quickly to the mound to remove Mahay and signaled for his eighth reliever of the night.  Gardy called upon his last right-handed reliever, Bobby Keppel, who disposed of Placido Polanco on a 1-2 pitch that he laced to the waiting Nick Punto on a line.  The game stayed knotted at five as the Twins followed suit by going down in order during their home-half hacks. 

    As the game bled into its fourth hour of play, fans were continually re-energized by potential Twins rallies and squelched Tigers opportunities.  High-fives were exchanged over several rows to random strangers bonded together by unfolding events. Hankies whipped around causing blizzard conditions in the stands.  Bathroom runs were made out of kidney-saving necessity (although the numerous pitching changes provided ample cushion to relieve one’s self as well).  If the Dome’s 54,000 patrons had anything to do about it, the Tigers were not going to march out of here with a victory.     

    All that was left was Bobby Keppel.  The game hinged on Bobby Freakin Keppel.  The same Bobby Keppel who had allowed 5 runs on 12 hits in his past six outings.  The same Bobby Keppel who had not sniffed a high leverage situation since September 9^th in Toronto.  That Bobby Keppel.  Bobby FREAKING Keppel.  He was the Twins’ Coast Guard, the last line of defense in the 2009 season, and like the Coast Guard, you certainly did not want him to be facing the heavy artillery.  Every one with access to a scorecard knew the task at hand.  Two late inning replacements sandwiching the powerful Miguel Cabrera.

    In the bottom of the 11^th, Tigers’ manager Jim Leyland removed Magglio Ordonez, who had been hitting .439/.486/.571 the final two months of the season and had punctuated this resurgence by slamming a go-ahead home run off of Matt Guerrier several innings prior, from right field.  In his place, Leyland dispatched Clete Thomas as a defensive replacement to help the Tigers retain the one-run lead.  Thomas was certifiably better with the glove than Ordonez but hollowed at the plate by comparison.  Obviously Leyland did not anticipate a scenario where left fielder Ryan Raburn would misplay Michael Cuddyer’s single into a triple, one more assistance from the Dome Gods.  "Typical Metrodome ball," Raburn would later comment. "I was right on it until it went in the lights. I just kept hoping it'd come out, and it never did.”

    Nor did Leyland expect that Matt Tolbert’s bounding groundball – one that would have made a nice tailor-made doubleplay had it been several millimeters to the right – slip through the middle infield.  Had he had any intuition that the Tigers would forfeit the lead for the second time he would have left Ordonez in.  Instead, it would be Thomas to open up the 12^th inning against Keppel.  Thomas sent a rocket out on a line to Carlos Gomez, another defensive replacement for a superior hitter, that Gomez snared.  One out. 

     In the midst of the Tigers’ epic collapse, Miguel Cabrera had turned in what could be construed as his worst month of the year, acting as the rallying point for all of Motown’s woes.  His 865 OPS in September/October was his lowest to date in spite of negotiating 22 walks (seven of which were intentional) and he was on a 0-for-14 streak prior to Tuesday’s game.  While the rest of the AL pitched to the big righty gingerly or not at all, the Twins game plan was to face him head-on.  That decision received mixed results.  In his first at-bat, he laced a double to left-center.  With a showering chant of “AL-CO-HOL-IC” filling the Dome in the top of the 3^rd, Cabrera had sent a moon shot to the left of the baggy to put the Tigers up three-nothing.  In his next couple of at-bats, Cabrera hit sharp groundballs that were turned over for outs.  Keppel, however, worked too delicately to Cabrera and allowed him a free pass of first base. 

    The ubiquitously named Don Kelly, perhaps more suitable for a used tire salesman rather than a baseball hero, drove Keppel’s third pitch into the left center field area where Delmon Young cut it off.  Cabrera boisterously took towards third base and drew the throw from Young.  As the throw overshot Orlando Cabrera manning the cut off, Kelly alertly advanced to second.  With the potent bat of Ryan Raburn (.378 wOBA) due up looking to atone for his 10^th inning defensive sins, the Twins opted to put him on first to fill the bases to face Brandon Inge instead. 

    True, Inge’s season was derailed by injuries and had hit just .188/.250/.299 since August 6^th, but it was also Inge who had pissed on a Jesse Crain offering into the left field corner to score the pinch running Don Kelly two innings prior.  Now he had the opportunity to regain the lead with the bases loaded and just one out.  Inge and his floppy jersey took a Keppel pitch inside, one that he insists and TV replays showed, grazed his jersey.  Rather than push Cabrera home with the go-ahead run, umpire Randy Marsh said it got past Inge without making contact. “It definitely hit my jersey,” Inge said after the game, “It’s human error.  Everyone makes mistakes.”

    That human error resulted in Inge several pitches later bounding a ball towards the middle of the infield – certainly not hit hard enough to inspire confidence that the Twins could turn two.  Twins’ fans favorite pariah, Nick Punto, fielded the ball cleanly and spun a throw towards home for the force.  If the throw were a little up the line, in the dirt or over Joe Mauer’s head, the score might have changed.  If Cabrera were Kelly or Raburn or Granderson or anyone else with an ounce of speed, the score might have changed.  Punto bullet was true and nestled into the catcher’s glove ahead of Cabrera to get the inning’s second out.  The crowd let out shrieks of excitement.  The roar increased.  Fans ignored their seats and stood at attention all the way around the stadium.  One more.

    Keppel had to navigate around catcher Gerald Laird.  As a hitter, Laird was anemic (.287 wOBA) and like all of his other teammates, Laird was putrid in the season’s last month, hitting .227/.310/.273.  Keppel started him with a slider for a ball, the spotted him a second ball with a sinker in the dirt.  At 2-0, Keppel fired a 92-mph called strike but then came back with a third ball that was well off the plate.  The Metrodome crowd pleaded for Marsh to open up his strike zone however Keppel’s command did little push the official in his favor has he was all around the strike zone.  At 3-1, with no where to put Laird, Keppel got Laird to foul of a pitch to bring it to a full count.  On the payoff pitch, Keppel released a 94-mph sinker that darted quickly below the strike zone, if Laird had the wherewithal/cojones to hold his swing, it would be ball four and Laird would be on first.  Laird could not.  As he swung over the sixth pitch, the Dome erupted.  The Twins had somehow wiggled out of a no-out, runners on second and third proposition unscathed.  

OtB Twins Notes: 10.05.09

“Maybe we’ll have a whiteout on Tuesday.  Maybe it’ll look like winter in here. This place is a different animal when it comes playoff time.”  - Michael Cuddyer. Without a doubt, this needs implemented.  I don't know how these things start but word needs to be spread that Tuesday's game at the Dome is a whiteout.  White shirts.  White Homer Hankies.  Blind the Tigers with blaring nothingness.  Who is with me?

  

Charley Walters draws attention to a goofy clause in Michael Cuddyer's contract that states the Twins have five days after the conclusion of the 2009 World Series to decide if they want to pick up his 2011 option year worth $10.5M.  Cuddyer, who was hitting .286/.344/.571 with nine homers since September 1st coming into Sunday's game, has his 2009 season valuated at $9.5 million dollar according Fangraphs.com's metrics.  Considering this has been the best year of his career, the Twins will undoubtedly choose to pick up this option year.  However, what should be approached as an easy decision, the organization should anticipate some degeneration in his skills as he ages.  This late season surge notwithstanding, Cuddyer is easily an asset as he is a career 848 OPS hitter against LHP - a trait not shared by any current right-handed batting member of the team.     

 

After a huge month of August facing left-handers when Jason Kubel went 8-for-19 (.421), the left-handed DH has gone 11-for-43 (.256) since the start of September.  Subtracting August, Kubel is hitting .214 against same-sided pitching on the year.  Meanwhile, since moving into September, Cuddyer and Delmon Young are 28-for-79 (.354) with five homers.  Although it would be beneficial to insert Kubel into the DH slot day-in and day-out and he has improved against left-handed pitching (which is good when relievers come in), in 2010 if all the personnel remains the same, Cuddyer or Young should be the designated hitter when scheduled to face a lefty starter to take advantage of the platoon split.  Yup, I'm thinking that far ahead. 

 

Who are these guys?

    Player A: 45 games, 7 HR, 31 RBI, 28/4 K/BB ratio, .305/.324/.492 (816 OPS)

    Player B: 46 games, 6 HR, 25 RBI, 34/10 K/BB ratio, .291/.337/.442 (797 OPS)

Give up?  They are both Delmon Young.  The former is the current streak he is on (excluding Sunday's numbers) since August 1st, 2009.  The latter is his August 8th to the end of the season in 2008.  So as Sid Hartman tries to tell you that the Young-for-Garza trade is starting to look good, tell him we've seen this act before.   

 

Speaking of the future, I like Josh Johnson's optimism since the Miguel Sano signing.  2013 Twins baseball is going to be a thing of beauty to see...that is, if we are not all killed off by the toxins we breathe in emitting from the garbage incinerator adjacent to Target Field in the next several years. 

 

KFAN and Minnesota Poker Magazine's Phil Mackey eats crow. Hey PMac. What goes better with crow?  Red or white? 

 

Because Joe Mauer is probably going to get $18 million a year starting in 2011, look what kind of a team that would have bought you in 1988.

 

How about some good 'n random Metrodome quotes and memories to wrap this up so I can focus on Tuesday's game?

 

"It tore just like a bed sheet." Don Poss, executive director of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission after 11 inches of snow tore huge gaps into the fabric in November, 1981.

 

"It was like hot air from the dome was just shooting up and fabric was going straight towards the sky." - Kevin Bjornson, December 1982. I don't know who Mr. Bjornson is either but he was apparently one of the residents near the Metrodome who was watching the lunar eclipse at 4 AM when he saw the Dome's roof tear for the second time in a little over a year.

 

"Some fans took off their shoes and waded through while others braved the puddle, shoes and all."  - At the home opener in 1982, sewage water poured out from the restrooms onto the concourse due to sand and debris obstructing the plumbing.  Apparently, when you gotta go, ya gotta go. 

 

"The ball jumps out better here than any park I've ever been in.  You know if you get the ball up here it's got a chance.  I'd like to have seen Harmon Killebrew and those guys here.  He would have hit a thousand." - New York Yankees third baseman Graig Nettles, May 1982, under headline "Yankes Just Love New Dome." 

 

"If Harmon Killebrew were active today, he'd hit 125 homers a season." - Oakland A's manager, Billy Martin, 1982.  

"The only time this has given me trouble is when the ball is against a background of a similar color." Twins outfielder, Dave Engle, echoing every visiting outfielder for years to come.  May 1982.

 

"This place is the big leagues.  I feel like I'm in the Guthrie Theater, like I have to give a performance, not play baseball." - Roy Smalley, Twins shortstop.  April 6th, 1982. 

  

"The only thing that can solve the Metrodome's problems is a nuclear bomb." - Then-Royals GM, John Schuerholz, in 1984.

 

"I don't think there are good uses for nuclear weapons, but this stadium might provide one." - Royals closer Dan Quisenberry in 1984.

 

"Playing indoors reminds me of when I was a kid and you had to go to your room and you couldn't go outside. It was like you were being punished." - George Brett, 1985.

 

"If I wanted my players to be Ping Pong players, I would send them to China to play the Chinese National Team."  A racially-sensitive New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner fumed after a particularly bad bounce loss to the Twins in 1985.

 

"It's a little league ballpark.  What a joke."  New York Yankees manager, Billy Martin, May 1985.

 

"It's like a magic trick.  I said I wasn't going to take my eye off of it. I didn't and it still disappeared on me." - Yankee shorstop Bobby Meachan, May 1985, lost two balls in the Dome's ceiling. 

 

"What takes place in the Metrodome is not a ball game, it is a circus." - Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in a prepared statement after New York filed a formal complaint to the American League that the Metrodome was a substandard baseball facility, May 1985. 

 
"Just as important, though, was the fact that the Angels were in Chicago."  -  on April 14th, 1985, the Twins postponed an indoor baseball game due to blizzard conditions.  The organization says it was because they were worried about the well-being of the fans on their travels to the Dome.  Nevermind the fact that the visiting California Angels were circling over the Minneapolis-St Paul Airport for over an hour and unable to land at 5 AM.  April 14th in 2010 will be the second game at Target Field against the visiting Red Sox (if they are able to land). 

"I can't understand how they designed this place with a white roof." - Lloyd Moseby, Toronto Blue Jays, April 1984.

 

"My suggestion is to get David Copperfield here to see how it happened.  He can have it in his next TV special." - Umpire Jim Evans.  The official that awarded Dave Kingman a ground-rule double on what would have been an infield pop-up that disappeared into the Dome's drainage hole in the roof.

"The ball just bounced over my head." - Chicago White Sox, Harold Baines, after Twins second baseman Tim Teufel's blooper bounded over the outfielders head leading to an inside-the-park-home run. 

 

"You are a great pitcher with a 6.00 ERA in this dome." - Oakland A's pitcher, Joaquin Andujar. 

OtB Quick Links (09.30.09)

We (John Bonnes, Nick Nelson, Seth Stohs and myself) are putting the finishing touches on the second TwinsCentric offering that should be available shortly after the season ends.  This will be a beast of a book, encompassing all the decisions and pratfalls of being in the Twins GM position this offseason.  As opposed to the first foray into the e-book market, the TwinsCentric Trade Deadline Primer, this publishing will be available in both tree-saving e-book form as well as an easily transportable hard-copy made only from evil trees.  Check in over at TwinsCentric website or the TwinsCentric Facebook page for further details on the forthcoming book.  Because of this project, content here has been sparse.  For now, gnaw on some links and tidbits until tonight's game three showdown:

Those of us watching at home would notice that the turnover at Comerica appeared a little light.  Detroit Free Press columnist Drew Sharp questioned Tigers' fans fortitude during this October-like baseball in September.   

ESPN's Jerry Cransick fawns all over Justin Verlander's 129-pitch outing last night.  Taking a look at his speed graph, you'll notice that Verlander was not only very good at altering his velocity, able to go from a low of 78 to a high of 99-mph:

I do believe in the use of flexible yet moderate pitch counts prevent injuries.  In the same way you wouldn't red-line your engine on a cross-country vacation, pitchers need the throttle taken up every so often.  Verlander has had three-straight starts with at least 126-pitches and a minimum of 120 in six of his last ten outings.  Yes, Jim Leyland likes to elude to Verlander's strong frame and conditioning however that does not necessarily shield from overuse and throwing when tired.  The Twins' manager was certainly in awe as well. "There were innings where we didn't have much of a chance," Ron Gardenhire said. "And, he was still winging it at 98 after 120-some pitches. That guy's a stud."  What is frequently mistaken as being studily, is known as a pitcher's "dead cat bounce".  The dead cat bounce is a finance term that means as something approaches a decline or recession, there will be a quick uptick before dropping back down.  If that doesn't help, imagine dropping a cat out of a skyscraper and then seeing the feline smash the ground, only to bounce back up a few feet before coming to rest in a bloody heap.  Got it?  Applying that theory to a pitcher, we find that around 100-pitches, a his velocity declines.  Likewise, at the 96-pitch mark, Verlander was no longer throwing as hard has he did from pitch number 50 forward.  Then around pitch number 120, he's rearing back and firing 98-mph peas.  Verlander was most likely fatigued.  His arm was no longer able to sustain an effortless fastball like he did from 50-100, but was now reaching back to gain that added velocity, working against his muscles natural instincts that say he should be finished.  It is under these circumstances that shoulder and arm injuries begin to occur.                

The debate between whether Ron Gardenhire is a legit candidate for Manager of the Year or the largest impediment to becoming the a post-season lock (personally, I believe it is the former rather than the latter) but Yahoo!Sports Jeff Passen undoubtedly believes that Gardy's command has been a central reason why the Twins are still in this race.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Dejan Kovacevic says that the Pirates can on a little strong in their efforts to sign Dominican super-prospect, 16-year-old shortstop Miguel Angel Sano, that Pittsburgh's aggressive courtship drove Sano right into the arms of the Minnesota Twins.  "I'm very thankful to get this chance to sign with the Twins," Sano said. "I'm going to work very hard to try to get to the majors in two years."  With the current lack of system depth at short, Sano does have the opportunity to make a meteoric rise, however, with $3.5 million invested, the Twins will handle him with care.  Nick Nelson takes an in-depth look at what the signing means to this organization.

During the Twins visit to Canada a few weeks ago, you may have noticed two Umpires sitting in the front row in Toronto emulating all of the motions of a real umpire on the FSN broadcast.  Baseball Digest Daily's Matt Sisson reports that the duo, Tim Williams and Joe Farrell, have had quite a bit of success with their bit.  As a day job, the pair work as traders on the Toronto Stock exchange but acquired the official umpire equipment after running into real umpires at a steakhouse.  Since then, they've been guests at Yankee Stadium, Dodger Stadium and now, Fenway.

Strib columnist Jim Souhan is right, the Twins are right back were we started from but with fewer games. 

At SI.com, Joe Posnanski looks at the Twins-Tigers series and declares "m'eh."

John Dewan releases his MVP winners based upon Total Runs.  (Spoiler: It's not Joe.)

Charley Walters informs us that Ron Coomer is potential yet another former Twins first baseman to own a pub-restaurant in the Target Field neighborhood.  

Starting with strikes big for Twins

This was not how the Twins rotation was supposed to look come September.

 

Back in April, the prevailing assumption among Twins fans was that a combination of Scott Baker, Francisco Liriano and Kevin Slowey would be headlining any sort of playoff push, acting as the key ingredients to the must-win series.  The year certainly has not played out as scripted.  Flash forward to the season’s final full month where one is post-operative (Slowey), one is battling to regain his rotation spot (Liriano) only because it became abundantly clear that a kid who started the year in AA was over his head and the other is Scott Baker, who has been as advertised.  Replacing Liriano and Slowey is Carl Pavano, who was left-for-dead in Cleveland (wasn’t he the one that - almost - no one in the Twin Cities wanted?), and the other, Brian Duensing, has made just eight starts in double-decker stadiums.

 

Yes, the threesome has gone 6-3 with a 2.92 ERA in 13 September starts but this is a month that is hard to gauge true performance.  A large swath of teams have checked out of the Hotel Pennant Race and provide innings for guys that were taking buses through Appalachia at the beginning of the summer.  The Cleveland Indians are one such club.  Since the beginning of the month, the last place Tribe has rotated in members of both the CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee trades.  Pitcher Carlos Carrasco, a member of the Phillies until this past trade deadline, had his fourth start which exemplifies this.  After making most of his previous two years of starts in Lehigh Valley and Reading, the wayward Indians allowed the 22-year-old to get some on-the-job training against the Detroit Tigers.  Predictably, after three decent innings, the Tigers eventually got to the youngster, denting him for four runs in five innings and walked away with a one-run victory and a full three game lead over the Twins.

 

Thanks to the division-heavy schedule, games against playoff-ready teams like New York, Los Angeles and Boston seemingly transacted eons ago, leaving the soft underbellies of Chicago, KC and Cleveland remaining.   The only challenge left is the tough, chewy meat of the Tigers sandwiched between two Wonder Bread weekends against the Royals.  To tame the Tigers, the Twins will unleash that trio of Duensing  (9/29), Pavano (9/30) and Baker (10/1) in Detroit for the final three games of the four-game series.   Again:  Perkins Nouveau, Sneery McSneerson and Big Spot Scott.

 

What Twins fans can cling to is the fact that these three have thrown strikes - especially that all-important FIRST STRIKE.  Yes, Bert Blyleven yammers on about the significance of that first-pitch strike during broadcasts but what does that actually do?  

 

Month of September	First  Pitch Strike %
Baker	69.7
Pavano	68.4
Duensing	60.3
League Average	58.2

 

For those that are unfamiliar, the difference between starting 0-1 and 1-0 is night-and-day.  Nah, that’s not even a good comparison.  It really should be two incomparable items, like night-and-pants.  For instance, when American League hitters fall behind in the count 0-1, they tend to hit .640 OPS.  That turns hitters essentially in Tigers’ offensively inept Gerald Laird (.637 OPS).  That is a manageable prospective.  Meanwhile, when the pitch flints outside the strike zone, hitters average a .863 OPS after the count starts with a ball.  This gives hitters the opportunity to hit like Jim Thome did for the Sox (.864 OPS). 

Baker, Pavano and Duensing have excelled in this arena, jumping on hitters and holding them to a .270 batting average this month thanks to their strike zone aggression.  Conversely, part of the reason Jeff Manship scuffled so much in his four September starts was his inability to get ahead of hitters (a 43.2 first-strike percent) and wound up posting a .950 OPS.  His most recent outing was brutal in that context.  This has left the door open for the return of Francisco Liriano, who since his August start in Texas, has struck out six in 5 2/3 innings.  Fear not, as Liriano, in his limited duties, is right behind Baker and Pavano in first pitch strikes in September (his 68 percent this month is far better than his year average of 55 percent).  If the lefty can maintain this control, he gives the Twins a fourth strong starter to enter the final week with.