I have spent
plenty of time in this space dedicated to the deterioration
of the Twins’
infield defense.
The once flourishing empire has crumbled into a shell of its former self.
We know that
the 2011 infield defense has been both porous and error-prone – a lethal combination
for the home team – but it is equally terrible at converting balls that remain
in the infield to outs just the same. Heading into last night’s game, the Twins
infield had allowed 198 infield hits, by far the most in the AL. That’s also 25
more than they allowed last season. They have allowed 17 more hits than the
next closest team, the Chicago White Sox, and a whopping 56 more infield hits
than the Boston Red Sox who have allowed the fewest hits within the infield
area.
On Monday it
was the Twins inability to turn grounders that stay within the infield dirt
into outs proved to be their ultimate demise as they allowed another FIVE infield hits.
Kevin Slowey
cruised through the first five innings while scattering several hits.
Unfortunately, some of those scattered we ones that could have been turned into
outs. With one out in the first, Melky Cabrera hit a slow chopper towards
shortstop Trevor Plouffe. Plouffe was unable to make the play on the ball and
get the speedy Cabera at first. Then, by means of small ball, the Royals were
able to move Cabrera to third and score him on an Eric Hosmer sacrifice fly.
Admittedly,
the play was somewhat difficult – especially considering from where Plouffe was
starting from – but it is not a play that we haven’t seen more athletic
shortstops make in the past. But, to be fair, the Royals are one of baseball’s
speedier team – racking up 154 infield hits of their own, the second-most in
MLB – so it’s difficult to put tonight’s five infield hits entirely on the
Twins defense.
That stood as
the Royals only run until the sixth inning. Once again it was Cabrera who
singled on an infield grounder to Plouffe and once again, the Royals moved
Cabrera around to score. Now, Slowey – who was on the brink of collapsing as he
is wont to do this season – was not helping his cause at this point either. In
fact, he threw 97 pitches and got just 4 swinging strikes (all on fastballs). At
the juncture, he was giving up loud outs and hard-hit balls all over the yard.
Kevin Slowey (2011)
|
|||||||||||
Split
|
PA
|
R
|
H
|
2B
|
3B
|
HR
|
SO/BB
|
BA
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
OPS
|
1st PA in G, as SP
|
63
|
7
|
14
|
2
|
0
|
4
|
10.00
|
.233
|
.254
|
.467
|
.721
|
2nd PA in G, as SP
|
63
|
12
|
17
|
4
|
2
|
2
|
7.00
|
.283
|
.317
|
.517
|
.834
|
3rd PA in G, as SP
|
42
|
11
|
18
|
5
|
0
|
1
|
3.50
|
.486
|
.500
|
.703
|
1.203
|
(via Baseball-Reference.com)
It is
impossible to predict the outcome if the Twins had been able to get some of
those outs. Still, you have to wonder,
if Plouffe had been able to make either play on Cabrera, the Royals would
likely have not scored – certainly not in the first. Plus, making those plays
would have shaved off possibly 10 or so pitches off of Slowey’s pitch count. Is it possible that that would have gotten him through the sixth?
Beyond just
last night, think about that on a larger scale – How many additional pitches on
the pitching staffs arms? How many runs do 25 additional base runners equate
to? Could that be at least a five-win difference on the basis of the infield
defense alone?
When the
season ends in a few days, one of the biggest offseason priorities should be to
find a way to stop the hemorrhaging in the infield.