Bang the Drum Slowly

Johan's back in the Cy Young form we're used to, cruising through 7 2/3 innings, before giving up a couple of 2-out runs in the 8th. He struck out 10 for the first time since mid-September. Pretty much all the stats are improving each start:

DATE	IP	H	BB	SO	HR	ER
4-Apr	5.2	10	1	3	1	4
9-Apr	5.1	4	3	5	1	3
15-Apr	6.1	8	2	4	0	4
21-Apr	7	5	3	6	1	2
27-Apr	8	7	1	10	1	3

To see the strikeouts gradually improving is a nice sign, especially with only one walk this week. Had Johan not gotten into a little trouble in the 8th, he would have pitch a complete game. Too bad he didn't get another chance to pitch to Reggie Sanders! Sanders was absolutely brutal vs. the Twins. Look at these stats:

0-13
1 RBI (a groundout to SS with a runner on third, 0 out)
10 runners stranded, and one wiped out via a double play
7 strikeouts (4 swinging, 3 looking)

It looks like the Twins will escape Kansas City with a Thursday afternoon win. Former Twin Mark Redman was unable to dominate the Twins' batters the way Elarton and Hernandez had in the past two days. The Twins jumped to a 5-0 lead in the top of the second, and Johan seems to be cruising along (a solo HR by Angel Berroa has accounted for the Royals' lone run)- 40 pitches through 4 full inings.

Unless Silva and Radke figure out how to make batters hit the ball at Twins defenders, however, the Twins may be conceding the AL Central very early this year. It will be interesting to see how early it is before Ryan decides to move Torii Hunter and Kyle Lohse. I would have to imagine Francisco Liriano will get a shot at the rotation soon enough, and Boof Bonser might get an audition before the All Star break, as well.

Yoda: "I cannot teach him. The boy has no patience."


Obi-wan: "He will learn patience."



While watching one of the Twins-A's games last week, I was noticing how A's batters never seemed to swing at the first pitch, something I'm used to the Twins doing constantly. With the A's using the Billy Beane (aka Moneyball) approach to baseball, patience at the plate should be expected. For years, the Twins have used the TK/Kirby Puckett approach: Be aggressive! With Luis Rivas and Jacque Jones gone, Luis Castillo aboard, and Joe Mauer continuing to mature as a big league hitter, we can expect the Twins to show a little more patience than in years past. I decided to take a look at some of the numbers.

I don't know of a place to find the statistics I was looking for (taking first pitches, pitches per at bat, etc.), so I looked back at all of the at bats in the Oakland-Minnesota series, and tallied whether batters took or swung at the first pitch. Oakland's numbers were not very surprising:
79 of the 110 batters took the first pitch (71.8 %)

What did surprise me was the lack of Twinkies swinging at the first pitch- 74/110 batters took the first pitch (67.3%). Part of this can be attributed to a discriminating eye: the Twins took first pitch balls 46 times (28 strikes), while the A's took first-pitch strikes 42 times (37 balls).

The top three guys in the Twins' batting order are definitely the most patient. Through the first 9 games of the season, Stewart took 30/38 (79%) first pitches, Castillo took 28/33 (85%), and Mauer took 23/30 (77%). Of the 7 first pitches Mauer swung at, three were hits, and one was a sacrifice fly, which brought home a run. Of course, the rudimentary stats I'm using don't take into account hit-and-run calls, pitchouts, etc.

It turns out espn.com does track pitches/plate appearances. The Twins rank 8th out of 14 teams. Looking at the AL leaders, Justin Morneau ranks 15th overall (4.06 P/PA), Tony Batista is 23rd (3.98), and Castillo is 25th (3.93). It's surprising to see Batista's name listed there, since he definitely doesn't have a reputation for drawing many walks (only twice in his career has he eclipsed 30 BBs). However, his career 3.87 P/PA isn't that much lower than what he's averaging right now. However, f a guy is know for only one thing, blasting home runs, it makes sense that he'd be pitched around a fair amount.

Not surprisingly, Torii Hunter is last among Twins regulars (3.33 P/PA). Of the 16 first pitches he's swung at however, he's connected for 4 singles, a double, and a home run, and only 4 outs.

Although Morneau's pitches/plate appearance is tops on the team, he has only 1 walk, to go along with 13 strikeouts. It's good to see him working the count, but I hope he can learn to lay off some of those ball fours.

Following a 1-5 road trip to start the season, the Twins are now a game away from .500, after sweeping the Oakland A's at the Dome. After scoring 27 runs in 6 games vs the Blue Jays and Indians (with half of those runs coming in one game), the Twins scored 21 runs in 3 games against A's- the odds-on favorites to win the AL West.

Lohse rebounded nicely, pitching 6 solid innings, then Liriano came in for two innings which I wished I could have seen (especially the Seventh!):

7th Inning
Kendall- strike looking, strike swinging, strike swinging SIT DOWN!
Johnson- strike looking, ball, strike swinging, foul tip SIT DOWN!
Scutaro- ball, ball, strike looking, strike swinging, strike swinging SIT DOWN!

That's 12 pitches, 3 Ks- the only bat-on-ball contact was the foul tip strikeout. Must have been a fun 7th-inning strectch! His second inning was just a tad less dominant:

8th Inning
Swisher- ball, ball, double
Crosby- strike swinging, ball, line out
Perez- strike looking, ball, strike swinging, strike looking SIT DOWN!
Thomas- strike looking, foul, strike swinging SIT DOWN!

He's just continuing what he's done throughout the minors- here are his combined numbers from AA and AAA last year: 168 IP, 204 K, 126 H, 50 BB, 2.63 ERA. Wow. You've gotta imagine we'll see him in the soon enough (although you never know with the Twins).

On the downer side, Rondy White continued his putrid play. Here's what he did today:

1st inning (1 out, runner on 2nd): fielder's choice. [Hunter follows with HR]
3rd inning (1 out, runners on 1st and 3rd): inning-ending DP
5th inning (0 out, runners on 1st and 2nd): fly out (runners don't advance)
7th inning (0 out, no one on base): strikeout

Ugh. His numbers on the season? 3-34 (.088 avg), 10 Ks, 0 BB, 1 HBP. He's gotta come around soon enough, doesn't he?

Bring on the Yankees!

The Twins home opener against the A's was on WFTC last night, which meant Jen and I were able to watch the game. After nearly four years of paying $12/month for basic cable, but getting all the channels free (even HBO in Denver), the freeloading train has come to a halt. This means no FSN, which means I won't be watching many Twins games on television this year. That's not a huge blow to me, since 1) It frees me up to do other things with my time; and 2) What I really enjoy about following the Twins is tracking stats, reading commentary (online & print), and going through the season-long ritual of being a baseball fan. Baseball is also fun to listen to on the radio (although Gladden drives me nuts at times), and the Web makes it so much easier to follow games these days.

Having said that, there are so many important game details that don't show up in the boxscore. Sportsline keeps pitch-by-pitch logs, which are nice, but they still don't go into enough detail to get a feel for the game. Were the singles line shots, bloopers, or grounders that Tony Fatista didn't get to? Was a pitcher particularly wild, or was the ump's strike zone just really tight? Mainstream media coverage doesn't really go into any of this either- they usually just provide recaps of the major plays of the game.

There were a few plays last night that didn't show up in the boxscore, but were very important.

*Joe Mauer made two great baserunning decisions. He was on first base with one out in the 3rd, and Rondell White hit a blooper into center that Mark Kotsay was charging. Mauer made a perfect read on the ball, and motored around second, into third. Kotsay didn't quite get to the ball on time, so Mauer was easily safe. With two outs in the fourth, Mauer hit a line drive to right center that wasn't hit hard enough to get to the wall, but was placed in between two outfielders. Mauer again read it perfectly, and sprinted around first, sliding in safe at second. Watching him bat and run the bases, you can tell he has a great feel for the game- incredible instincts.

*Luis Castillo looked pretty good in the field, showing good range. He had a couple nice diving stops. Castillo also showed off some of his patience at the plate. He took the first pitch in all four of his at bats, the hlighted was an at bat where he took two strikes, followed by four straight balls.

*Juan Castro made one nice play in the field, but also went 0-4. Meanwhile, Jason Bartlett is leading the AAA Rochester Red Wings in most offensive categories (including a .924 OPS).

*Joe Nathan is throwing absolute heat- close to 100 MPH. The save category is definitely overrated, but it's sure fun to watch a good closer come out and blow the ball by batters.

It looks like the Gophers might get a stadium ok'd by the MN legislature. While I'm definitely excited for a real, on-campus stadium, I just hope that priority isn't given to the University, at the expense of the Twins & Vikings. It reminds me of how I felt when St. Paul was awarded an expansion hockey franchise (great, but this better not mean we lose another team). The Gophers are here to stay, no matter what. The Twins and Vikings may not stay in Minnesota for very long if they don't get stadiums.

Intersting stuff over at Aaron Gleeman's blog today (Charley Walters gave him a shout out in today' Pioneer Press). First of all, Gleeman's goal is to devote more time to the Twins' farm system, which is great. Gleeman mentions the fact that prospect Jay Rainville had surgery, and might miss the entire season, something which hasn't been mentioned by any of the mainstream sports journalists. If you click on the "comments" link at the end of the post, you'll see that Mr. La Velle E Neal III responded to Gleeman's criticism, and Gleeman fired back, followed by La Velle responding yet again. Good stuff. La Velle was posting from the pressbox, and Terry Ryan told him "If you have time to read his blog, you have time to report on Rainville's injury." Priceless.

Lohse got pounded today by the Tribe (I would have pulled him when he loaded the bases after already having given up 4 runs), but the bright spot was Justin Morneau: 3-4, with 2 home runs.

The Twins bounced back nicely after their opening night loss, and whalloped the Blue Jays, 13-4. Radke was his typical self, giving up two dingers in the first, before settling down. Maybe they should try hypnosis on him. If he walks out to the mound in the first inning thinking it's the fourth inning, he's probably be fine. It's obviously a mental thing.

Shannon Stewart hit another home run against his former team, and Joe Mauer and Torii Hunter both had great games. Luis Castillo's steal came with the Twins up 12-4, and Molina didn't even bother trying to throw him out, so don't get too excited when you see the boxscore. Super-prospect Francisco Liriano made a relief appearance, and fanned 3 in two innings.

Jason Kubel started in right for the second straight game. Is Gardy trying out a Kubel-Cuddyer platoon? During the Twins' first game, Dan Gladden was saying that he was surprised to not see Cuddyer in the starting lineup, since he's been mashing the ball. He said Mikey put on a show during batting practice, after tearing it up in Spring Training. Now Kubel gets back-to-back starts against righties? After years of refusing to platoon Jacque Jones, which would have made an incredible amount of sense, it appears Gardenhire might finally do it with these guys. Of course, Kubel better start hitting ASAP, or they'll probably banish him in AAA with Bartlett.

Johan always leaves the gate slowly, something that local columnists fail to acknowledge. His next two starts will be against the Indians and Yankees, so here's hoping he gets back on track right away. The Twins' schedule is brutal early on: six three-game series against some of the best American League teams: Toronto, Cleveland, Oakland, New York, Los Angeles/Anaheim, Chicago. Ouch!

I caught some of the game at local watering hole Adrian's (which is no longer just a 3.2 joint!), and I have a few observations.

Tony Batista appears to have no range, or he reacts very slowly to ground balls (or, probably, both). There were two grounders that he tried to "dive" for (more like a flop), that squirted through for hits. On the positive side, he did hit a dinger. Of course, the more early-season HRs he cranks, the less likely we'll see someone else earning playing time at third. Remember last year, when Jacque Jones had a couple hits off lefties, and Gardy was so impressed? Jones reverted back to his career long suckiness vs lefties after that, but it never got mentioned.

Castillo didn't flash much of that gold glove defense we've heard about, either. The Twins didn't give up top prospects for him, but I hope it doesn't turn out he's nothing but a gimpy singles hitter with an average glove.

Rincon looked great, but Crain was a little shaky. I can't imagine Gardy will keep bringing them out in that order very long.

Shannon Stewart's at bats looked great- maybe he's determined to make fans forget about his horrible 2006 season.

I'd like to see a statistic that indicate how many of the 8 singles Johan surrendered were ground balls. He didn't pitch great, but he wasn't awful, either.