Month: June 2011

Keep’em Dancing

Jim Kaat

To be a good pitcher they say, you need to keep the hitters off-balance and you can’t let the hitters get comfortable at the plate. If you look at the Twins pitching history, you will see that some of the Twins top pitchers were not afraid to plunk a hitter now and then. I can’t tell you for sure if these pitchers threw at batters on purpose or if they just felt that they owned the plate and they were not afraid to pitch inside, but either way, the pitchers on this list hit their share of batters and a number of these pitchers pitched in the days when they themselves had to step up to the plate to hit. Jim Kaat hit the most batters when he pitched for the Twins, hitting 89 batters (plus 7 more as a Washington Senator before he became a Minnesota Twin) but he also pitched just under 3,000 innings and he averaged a hit batter once every 33.25 innings. Mike Smithson, who certainly was not afraid to pitch inside hit 46 batters in his time with the Twins and he did this in just 816 innings so he hit a batter every 17.74 innings, far and away the most hit batters per innings pitched. Let’s take a look at the Twins top ten.

  Name Batters hit Innings Innings per hit batter
1 Jim Kaat 89 2,959 33.25
2 Bert Blyleven 80 2,566 32.08
3 Brad Radke 62 2,451 39.53
4 Jim Perry 50 1,883 37.66
5 Mike Smithson 46 816 17.74
6 Kyle Lohse 44 908 20.64
7 Scott Erickson 42 979 23.31
8 Dave Boswell 34 1,036 30.47
9 Frank Viola 29 1,772 61.10
10 Johan Santana 27 1,308 48.44

Now let’s take a look at the Twins current starters and see how they compare.

  Name Batters hit Innings Innings per hit batter
1 Scott Baker 25 915 36.60
2 Francisco Liriano 20 617 30.85
3 Nick Blackburn 17 668 39.29
4 Carl Pavano 12 397 33.08
5 Brian Duensing 6 289 48.17

 

Cuddyer Homers off Buehrle in a 1-0 Game

Michael Cuddyer homered and singled off Mark Buehrle in the Twins 1-0 win over the White Sox yesterday. Cuddyer has 33 hits in 96 career at-bats against Buehrle. That ties Cuddyer with Johnny Damon (33-for-97 vs. Roy Halladay) and Todd Helton (33-for-71 vs. Livan Hernandez) for the most hits by any current major-league batter against any current major-league pitcher. It was the second time in Cuddyer’s career that he homered in a 1-0 game. (He also did that on Aug. 19, 2007 vs. Texas.) In franchise history, only two other players have done that more than once: Harmon Killebrew (three times) and Steve Braun (twice). Source: Elias

Twins 2011 Draft Results

 
Shortstop Levi Michael – 2011 first round pick

The Twins drafted 52 players in the 2011 First Year player draft. Picking 30th, the Twins selected Levi Michael a switch-hitting shortstop from North Carolina with their first pick. Here is how the rest of their draft selections breakdown.

Position College High school Bats right Bats left switch hitter LHP RHP
C 2 0 2 0 0 n/a n/a
1B 0 0 0 0 0 n/a n/a
2B 0 2 1 0 1 n/a n/a
SS 5 1 5 0 1 n/a n/a
3B 0 1 1 0 0 n/a n/a
OF 4 2 3 3 0 n/a n/a
P 23 12 n/a n/a n/a 17 18
TOTALS 34 18 12 3 2 17 18

 

Twins minor league player and pitcher of the month

Ft. Myers (Single-A, Florida St. League) infielder Brian Dozier is the Twins Minor League Player of the Month for the month of May. In 27 games for the Miracle, the 24-year-old Dozier batted .337 (33-for-98) with seven doubles, three triples, 11 RBI and 14 walks while scoring 14 times. Dozier had an on-base percentage of .426 while posting an OPS of .895. Dozier was the Twins eighth round pick in the 2009 First-Year Player Draft.

New Britain (Double-A, Eastern League) right-handed pitcher Steven Hirschfeld is the Twins Minor League Pitcher of the Month for May. In five starts with the Rock Cats, he was 2-2 with a 2.93 ERA (30.2 IP, 10 ER). Hirschfel struck out 23 while walking just eight and holding opponents to a .196 batting average. Hirschfeld, 25, was drafted by the Twins in the ninth round of the 2007 First Year Player Draft out of San Diego St. University. Source: Twins Presspass

Minor league player of the week is Aaron Bates

Aaron Bates

Rochester first baseman Aaron Bates is the Twins Minor League Player of the Week for May 28-June 3. Bates hit .545 (12-for-22) with four runs scored in six games for the Red Wings. Bates, 27, was selected by the Red Sox in the 3rd round of the 2006 First-Year Player Draft out of North Carolina State and signed with the Twins as Minor League free agent on May 8. Bates has appeared in 23 games with the Red Wings this season and in 98 at bats Bates is hitting .349 with three home runs and nine RBI’s. Aaron had a cup of coffee with the Red Sox in 2009 getting four hits in 11 at bats.