Now THAT'S why I bought MLB.TV. If I'd been watching that on Gameday, this is what the 10th inning would have looked like...
Joe Mauer doubles (8) on a line drive to left fielder Wladimir Balentien. None out.
Mark Lowe intentionally walks Justin Morneau. None out.
Jason Kubel flies out to center fielder Franklin Gutierrez. Joe Mauer to 3rd. One out.
>With Matt Tolbert batting, Joe Mauer picked off and caught stealing home, catcher Rob Johnson to third basemen Adrian Beltre. Two out.
Matt Tolbert reaches on fielding error by left fielder Wladimir Balentien. Justin Morneau scores. Matt Tolbert to 2nd. Two out.
Brendan Harris flies out to centerfielder Franklin Gutierrez. Three out.
A satisfactory description of the inning's events? I think not. While Gutierrez was busy making a sensational catch to rob Jason Kubel of a home run, Balentien had a chance to make two plays, and failed both times, allowing the Twins to take the lead. And in between Matt Tolbert made a desperate lunging attempt to bunt a pitchout as Joe Mauer was left a sitting duck between third and home on a suicide squeeze attempt.
And just to repeat it, that catch by Gutierrez was utterly incredible.
Showing posts with label mariners. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mariners. Show all posts
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Bullpen Blows Finale
The blame for yesterday's game can once again be placed on the struggles of the Twins' relievers, as Jesse Crain, Craig Breslow, and even the latest bullpen savior Jose Mijares combined to surrender 5 runs over 2 innings to rob Nick Blackburn of a win after his best start of the season. Blackburn, who came into the game with a K:BB ratio of 13:10, struck out 6 and walked only 1 over 7 shutout innings. In order to pitch more games like this one and fewer like his previous disastrous start against the Tigers, he's going to have to continue to improve his strikeout rate and especially his walk rate, which even after yesterday is up 30% from last season. On the other side of the walk coin, the Twins drew another 9 walks in this game, bringing their total to 21 in the series. For an organization that has never taken many walks, this was a huge series in that department. Of all the players who played this weekend, only Carlos Gomez and Mike Redmond, who each only started one game, did not draw a walk; even Delmon Young took a free pass to first. And they managed to do this against a pitching staff that, even after this weekend, is ranked in the top half of the majors in BB/9. Is this a trend? Of course not. But it was still fun to watch for 3 games (oh yeah, the 7 home runs were good too).
Now, back to your regularly scheduled topic: the struggles of the bullpen. Of all the pitchers the Twins have tried in the bullpen this year, only Joe Nathan and Jose Mijares have an xFIP under 4.50, and they have combined to throw only 17 innings thus far this season. Nathan of course is a proven relief ace, but Mijares, despite his great xFIP, is likely due for a regression based on his minor league numbers, the start of which we may have seen last night. I went over the bullpen options in the minors a couple weeks ago (one of which was Mijares), and now it seems it's time to start thinking about it again. I still don't understand why R.A. Dickey is still around. Supposedly it's because of his rubber arm that allows him to save the bullpen, but that isn't really how he's been used. He hasn't pitched since Tuesday, and that includes not getting into an 11-0 blowout. Also, I just don't see the great value in being able to pitch lots of innings while also giving up lots of runs. Joe Crede could do that while simultaneously resting his sore hamstring. Unfortunately, though, I'm not really sure who the answer is at this point. The Twins could give Anthony Swarzak a chance, he hasn't pitched out of the bullpen. Sean Henn is doing well at Rochester, but he's had his chance in the majors before and hasn't done well. Anthony Slama has struggled with his control at New Britain lately. The Twins have been scouting New Britain lately, and I think Rob Delaney may be poised for a Mijares-esque AA-MLB call up sometime soon, as he has continued to maintain an excellent 24:3 K:BB ratio in AA.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled topic: the struggles of the bullpen. Of all the pitchers the Twins have tried in the bullpen this year, only Joe Nathan and Jose Mijares have an xFIP under 4.50, and they have combined to throw only 17 innings thus far this season. Nathan of course is a proven relief ace, but Mijares, despite his great xFIP, is likely due for a regression based on his minor league numbers, the start of which we may have seen last night. I went over the bullpen options in the minors a couple weeks ago (one of which was Mijares), and now it seems it's time to start thinking about it again. I still don't understand why R.A. Dickey is still around. Supposedly it's because of his rubber arm that allows him to save the bullpen, but that isn't really how he's been used. He hasn't pitched since Tuesday, and that includes not getting into an 11-0 blowout. Also, I just don't see the great value in being able to pitch lots of innings while also giving up lots of runs. Joe Crede could do that while simultaneously resting his sore hamstring. Unfortunately, though, I'm not really sure who the answer is at this point. The Twins could give Anthony Swarzak a chance, he hasn't pitched out of the bullpen. Sean Henn is doing well at Rochester, but he's had his chance in the majors before and hasn't done well. Anthony Slama has struggled with his control at New Britain lately. The Twins have been scouting New Britain lately, and I think Rob Delaney may be poised for a Mijares-esque AA-MLB call up sometime soon, as he has continued to maintain an excellent 24:3 K:BB ratio in AA.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Mauer Power
The Twins ended their offensive struggles and homerless drought by scoring 20 runs in the first two games against the Mariners. These two victories, especially the 11-0 win yesterday, helped the Twins improve their dreadful run differential, which was last in the majors prior to this series. Now, they're only out-performing their Pythagorean record by one game, which basically eliminates that anomaly. The win on Friday was easily the best game of the season for the Twins, and it came at a time when they desperately needed it. Scott Baker showed why he was the first choice for opening day starter as he turned in his best performance of the season, striking out 5 and walking none over 7 innings. Jesse Crain and Joe Nathan finished off the Twins' first shutout of the season. The offense, though, was the story in this game, as they hit 4 home runs, including three in one inning. Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Brian Buscher, and Brendan Harris all went deep on Friday.
Of course, this performance came against Chris Jakubauskas, so it remained to be seen what the offense would do against Felix Hernandez, who shut the Twins down in the season opener. That would not happen again last night, as the Twins scored early and often, including three more home runs and another back-to-back set for Mauer and Morneau. Michael Cuddyer continued his recent tear with a home run. Equally impressive for this Twins team has been their patience over these two games, as they've taken 12 walks total. You can't react too much because it's such a small sample, but for a team that perennially refuses to take a free base (other than the obvious exception of Mauer) and is ranked 25th in walk percentage, any evidence of change is welcomed. Of course, the performance of Francisco Liriano was disappointing in the most recent game after the improvement that was seen in his last start against the Tigers. Hopefully this is just a bump in the road for Liriano, who struck out 4 and walked 2 in 5 innings.
Another interesting note from today was the addition of speed score to the player pages on FanGraphs. As it sounds from the name, speed score is an attempt at statistically measuring a player's speed. It was invented by Bill James and is an average of 5 different statistics (FanGraphs uses a simpler 4 statistic version though) that are thought to be representative of a player's speed. Obviously, speed is an important attribute in measuring a player's value on defense and on the base paths, and it's also an important measure in terms of determining a player's true BABIP. Of course the problem here is that speed is very difficult to measure. James is clearly a lot smarter than me, but as I've been skeptical of some of the measures he uses for speed and his speed scores for players are hard to find, I've always wondered how accurate they would be. In other words, how would they match up with what our eyes tell us? Here are the Twins' speed scores from last season, since it's really a stat that needs a large sample size to be accurate (click to enlarge):
These numbers match up pretty well with what we've seen on the field. Though Matt Tolbert doesn't seem to be the fastest guy on the team, him, Carlos Gomez, and Denard Span as the top 3 is not unreasonable (and Tolbert doesn't have a huge sample size). Then there's a drop off before the group of Nick Punto, Cuddyer, and Delmon Young. I've always thought that Morneau looks pretty slow, and these stats confirm this as he's near the bottom. The interesting players on this list are Cuddyer, Young, and Alexi Casilla. The two outfielders have never seemed all that quick (or graceful, in Young's case) in the outfield, yet they score well in this statistic. Casilla on the other hand looks pretty quick, yet scores well below both of them. This is just a brief look at the stat of speed score, an idea which I find intriguing and hope to do more with in the future. And I think we can all agree on its accuracy in judging Mike Redmond as the slowest player on the team.
Of course, this performance came against Chris Jakubauskas, so it remained to be seen what the offense would do against Felix Hernandez, who shut the Twins down in the season opener. That would not happen again last night, as the Twins scored early and often, including three more home runs and another back-to-back set for Mauer and Morneau. Michael Cuddyer continued his recent tear with a home run. Equally impressive for this Twins team has been their patience over these two games, as they've taken 12 walks total. You can't react too much because it's such a small sample, but for a team that perennially refuses to take a free base (other than the obvious exception of Mauer) and is ranked 25th in walk percentage, any evidence of change is welcomed. Of course, the performance of Francisco Liriano was disappointing in the most recent game after the improvement that was seen in his last start against the Tigers. Hopefully this is just a bump in the road for Liriano, who struck out 4 and walked 2 in 5 innings.
Another interesting note from today was the addition of speed score to the player pages on FanGraphs. As it sounds from the name, speed score is an attempt at statistically measuring a player's speed. It was invented by Bill James and is an average of 5 different statistics (FanGraphs uses a simpler 4 statistic version though) that are thought to be representative of a player's speed. Obviously, speed is an important attribute in measuring a player's value on defense and on the base paths, and it's also an important measure in terms of determining a player's true BABIP. Of course the problem here is that speed is very difficult to measure. James is clearly a lot smarter than me, but as I've been skeptical of some of the measures he uses for speed and his speed scores for players are hard to find, I've always wondered how accurate they would be. In other words, how would they match up with what our eyes tell us? Here are the Twins' speed scores from last season, since it's really a stat that needs a large sample size to be accurate (click to enlarge):
These numbers match up pretty well with what we've seen on the field. Though Matt Tolbert doesn't seem to be the fastest guy on the team, him, Carlos Gomez, and Denard Span as the top 3 is not unreasonable (and Tolbert doesn't have a huge sample size). Then there's a drop off before the group of Nick Punto, Cuddyer, and Delmon Young. I've always thought that Morneau looks pretty slow, and these stats confirm this as he's near the bottom. The interesting players on this list are Cuddyer, Young, and Alexi Casilla. The two outfielders have never seemed all that quick (or graceful, in Young's case) in the outfield, yet they score well in this statistic. Casilla on the other hand looks pretty quick, yet scores well below both of them. This is just a brief look at the stat of speed score, an idea which I find intriguing and hope to do more with in the future. And I think we can all agree on its accuracy in judging Mike Redmond as the slowest player on the team.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Opening Day notes
- It was good to see C.C. Sabathia get bashed by the Orioles; hopefully this is a prelude to another disappointing season for the Yankees and then another long off-season explaining why they can't win with a budget as big as the recent bail-out.
- Johan Santana picked up a win in his Opening Day start for the Mets, pitching 5 2/3 innings and allowing just one run. The much-maligned bullpen showed its improvement by holding the Reds scoreless for the rest of the game.
- Kansas City and Chicago now lead the Central division thanks to their rain-out and subsequent 0-0 record. Detroit and Cleveland both got pounded.
- Mike Redmond suffered a groin injury--it seems unlikely he'll be starting tonight, given the fact that it's a possibility he's heading to the DL. That would be bad news because I have no interest in seeing Drew Butera behind the plate with any regularity.
Looking forward to game #2.
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