Month: April 2012

Let’s look at the numbers so far

The Twins have crawled out of the starting gate at a 2-7 clip and now are headed for New York and Tampa. I know that they have played just nine games but let’s look at some of the numbers that the Twins have put up so far in 2012. I know there will be fans that say that it is too early to get a good feel for what this team can accomplish this year and that the sample size is real small and I agree, but no matter how you color it, this team is playing poorly and under performing in all three categories, hitting, pitching and fielding.

  • The Twins starting pitchers are 0-5 and are the only team in the American league without a win to their credit. By contrast, Texas Rangers starting pitchers are 6-0.
  • The Twins starting pitching ERA is 5.54 with the opposition hitting at .284 clip. The Yankees starting pitching ERA is 5.26 and opponents are hitting .308, it will be interesting to see if the Twins hitters can take advantage of this.
  • Twins starting pitchers have only walked 12 batters, only Cleveland has been better this year.
  • Twins starters as we know are not strikeout pitchers and their numbers back that up with the lowest number of strikeouts in the league at 24 in 52 innings.
  • Twins relievers are in the middle of the pack with a 2-2 mark and a 4.50 ERA and only four teams in the league have thrown fewer innings than the Twins bullpen has (that surprises me). Opponents are only hitting .250 against the Twins relief staff.
  • Twins relievers have only given up three home runs, it just seems like more.
  • Twins pinch-hitters are 0 for 5.
  • Twins DH’s are among the worst in the league hitting a combined .206 scoring 2 runs with 1 home run and 2 RBI’s.
  • The Twins are hitting .258 (fifth best in the league) but are tied with Seattle for fewest home runs with 7.
  • The Twins have stolen 4 bases in 5 attempts and have hit into a league leading 13 double plays.
  • Twins hitters have left 63 runners stranded as compared to the White Sox fewest at 49. The Yankees have left a league leading 76 “ducks on the pond”.
  • Scoring runs continues to plague Minnesota as they have scored just 28 times tieing them for league worst with Oakland.
  • The Twins fielding percentage is .980, the third worst in the league and the team has turned just 6 double plays. As a team they have committed nine errors in nine games.

What are the Twins going to do with Justin Morneau? The last few days you hear that Justin is unhappy as a DH and wants to play 1B. This is a no brainer, send the guy out to play first, what have you got to lose? The man is hitting .206 with one home run and two RBI’s as a DH and claims he is still feeling his way in the DH role. He has been DHing for a month now in Florida and here, how tough can it be to get a routine?. Oh, and slide Morneau down to the fifth spot in the order and move Willingham up one spot, seems like another no brainer. Put Parmelee in right and Doumit at DH and then you don’t have to worry about that catchers back-up role and you can use Clete Thomas as a defensive sub for Willingham or Parmelee when the Twins have a late inning lead.

Maybe the Twins can play a bit better on the road and take a couple from the New York Yankees who have probably already put 3 wins in their win column knowing the Twins are coming to town. I sure hope that the Twins can turn things around soon.

The Yankees and Twins will meet four times at Yankee Stadium this season, all in this series. The home town Yanks are 28-5 in home regular season games vs. Minnesota since the start of the 2002 season (33-7 including home postseason games). In 2011, went 3-1 versus the Twins at Yankee Stadium. In season series play, the Yankees have won the last 10 consecutive home season series when playing the Twins (2002-11).

This Day in Twins History – April 15, 1962

Jim Manning became the youngest Twins player to appear in a MLB game when he came in to pitch in relief at the tender age of 18 years, 8 months and 25 days against the Los Angeles Angels at Met Stadium. Manning had been signed as a free agent prior to the 1961 season and pitched in just 45 innings in a dozen class D ball games in 1961 before make his major league debut on this date in 1962. Jim made four more appearances for the Twins before being sent down to the minors and he never made another big league appearance again. Manning pitched in the Twins minor league system through 1965 but did not get above AA ball. In 1966 Manning pitched in the Washington Senators AA team in York before walking away from baseball at the age of 22.

Don’t forget to check our Today in Twins History page each day, there are all kinds of interesting facts out there.

Twins Minor League Player of the Week

Brian Dozier

This week (April 5-13)  the Twins Minor League Player of the Week is none other than Rochester infielder Brian Dozier. Dozier,  24, appeared in six games hitting .391 (9-for-23) with three doubles, a home run, four RBI’s and three walks. Dozier, who was drafted by the Twins in the eighth round of the 2009 amateur draft.  The right-handed swinging Dozier hit .277 (13-for-47) with three home runs and nine RBI’s in 22 spring training games. Dozier was drafted out of the University of Southern Mississippi and signed by scout Earl Winn.

The BPP All-Time Dream Project

If you are a long time baseball fan and enjoy baseball history you should take a few minutes and check out fellow Baseball Bloggers Alliance member Graham Womack’s of Baseball: Past and Present story called The BPP All-Time Dream Project. According to Graham, “Over the past two months, I conducted a project having people vote on nine-player all-time dream teams. The idea was for voters to pick a team to win a one-off, sandlot game, the ultimate cosmic playoff. This wasn’t about a 25-man roster or designated hitters or relievers, just finding nine players to win a game. I received more than 600 votes in all from a mix of baseball figures, fellow writers, and others. To help with the presentation and do justice to the subject matter, I recruited a number of my favorite baseball writers and hired an illustrator, Sarah Wiener to create trading cards for each player. Like the cards? A complimentary set can be had for the first 100 people who donate $25 to 826 Valencia, a non-profit that teaches journalism to kids. We’re looking to raise $3,000 and, as of press time, we’re about halfway there. If everyone who reads this post donates even a dollar, we’ll shatter the goal. To donate, go here.”

Can you imagine what it would be like to watch this team play? No Minnesota Twins made the team but Washington Senators Walter Johnson is the teams starting pitcher. Some Twins that did receive votes are Joe Mauer, Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, Paul Molitor, Graig Nettles, and Dave Winfield. Check out the story, you won’t be sorry.

Twins claim Clete Thomas on waivers from Tigers

Clete Thomas

The Twins announced today that they have claimed 28-year-old outfielder Clete Thomas (bats left and throws right) on waivers from the Detroit Tigers who had designated Thomas for assignment on April 12th. The Twins expect Thomas to be at Target Field tonight prior to Sunday’s game against the Texas Rangers. The Twins made room on their 40-man roster, by transferring right-handed pitcher Scott Baker to the 60-day disabled list. The Twins will make a corresponding roster move prior to adding him to the 25-man roster.

Michael Clete Thomas was first drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the fifth round of the 2002 amateur draft but did not sign and ended up being drafted by the Tigers in round six of the 2005 draft and he signed with the Tigers at that time. Thomas worked his way up through the Detroit minor league system before making his major league debut on March 31, 2008. Thomas appeared with the Tigers in 40 games in 2008, 102 games in 2009 and then spent 2010-2011 with the Tigers AAA team in Toledo. This season he appeared in 3 games with Detroit but had no plate appearances. In the big leagues, Thomas has appeared in 145 games hitting .253 with 8 home runs and is 5 for 5 in stolen bases. Thomas has played all three outfield positions while with the Tigers. In the minors, Thomas has shown the ability to steal a base with 148 steals in 192 attempts. In 2011 Thomas hit a career high 12 home runs with Toledo.

You have to wonder what the Twins see in Thomas and why they want to put him on the 25 man roster. Who will the Twins send down to make room for Thomas? My guess is that Ben Revere may well be Rochester bound if indeed the Twins keep Thomas. The other option of course is that the Twins are going to make some kind of a deal, maybe with Boston since the Red Sox just lost Jacoby Ellsbury for 6-8 weeks due to a shoulder injury yesterday and there have been rumors floating around that Clete Thomas was someone that the Red Sox were interested in. Were the Tigers trying to slip Thomas past everyone on waivers so that they could make a deal with Boston? Who knows.

Here are some thoughts on Clete Thomas from a Tigers blog at Motor City Bengals.

UPDATE: The Twins announced that Ben Revere was optioned to Rochester after Saturdays game.

How is Brian Dozier doing you ask

Brian Dozier

I have had a couple of people ask me recently how shortstop Brian Dozier is doing at Rochester and my response would be that he is doing OK, he is hanging in there. In this case OK means that Dozier has played in 6 games (5 at short and 1 at 2B) through April 11 and here are his stats.

AVG = .524
AB = 21
R = 3
HITS = 11
2B = 3
3B = 0
HR = 1
RBI = 4
TB = 17
BB = 3
IBB = 1
SO = 2
SB = 0/1
OBP = .583
SLG = .810
OPS = 1.393
Errors = 1
 

Not bad for the first week in AAA right? No way Dozier can keep up this pace but some interesting numbers never the less. Do you think some Twins infielders are getting nervous?

Good, Bad, and Ugly

Yesterday was an interesting day for the Minnesota Twins and their fans with the news being good, bad and ugly.

GOOD – On a cool crisp spring evening at Target Field the Twins finally got off the snide and posted their first victory of 2012. After a 0-4 start to the season and not having the lead in any game since the season began, the Twins finally took their first lead of the season in the fourth inning on Josh Willingham’s third home run of the season.  Willingham by the way, has a hit in every game this season. With the 6-5 victory the Twins became the last team in major league baseball to post a “W” in the win column. Hopefully the Twins can now relax a little and start playing some good baseball. I can see it taking a some time for this Twins team to gel as it has a number of new pieces as Chris Parmelee or Joe Mauer covers first base, Jamey Carroll gets acclimated over at short, Josh Willingham takes over left field and Ryan Doumit, Trevor Plouffe, or Ben Revere play in right field. Not counting the changes to their pitching staff, that makes four new players in the eight positions on the field. It takes time to learn each other strengths and weaknesses and to play well as a team. The Twins will need to play some good ball because the Texas Rangers come to town on Friday and then Gardy’s boys play the Yankees and the Rays on the road before returning home to face the Red Sox and the Royals.

Bad – The bad news is that the Twins honeymoon at Target Field is over. Yesterdays crowd of 31,413 was the smallest crowd in Target Field history. With the team coming off a 63-99 mark a year ago and a tough 0-4 start in 2012 the fans have not been beating down Target Fields gates to buy tickets. You could see this situation developing late last season when the Twins were playing out the string and there were empty seats all over but at least those seats were bought and paid for and the fans stayed out because they had better things to do on nice fall days then to follow a baseball team that was playing poorly but the empty seats this year are just that, empty seats. If the Twins don’t put a winning team on the field, the empty seat count will rise, the revenue will decrease, and in turn the payroll will have to shrink. Twins fans have become accustomed to winning baseball and last years losing season was a tough pill to swallow but yet the fans still had hope entering this season as they expected their walking wounded in Mauer, Morneau, and Span to return true to form. Then the 2012 season opened and the Twins lost their four games. A tough break for the Twins for sure but it was not the poor start to this season that is causing the empty seats, it is last years record and the off-season acquisitions or lack there of that has the fans hesitant to open their wallets for Twins tickets in 2012. The new ballpark “smells” don’t last forever and now the Twins have to earn their ticket sales on the field.

Scott Baker

UGLY – The ugly news yesterday was the announcement by Twins starting pitcher Scott Baker that he will undergo season ending surgery to repair the flexor pronator tendon in his right elbow before he has even thrown a single pitch that counted in 2012. The expected recovery time for this type of surgery is about six months.

The 30 year-old Baker was drafted by the Twins in the second round of the 2003 amateur draft and made his big league debut in May of 2005. Scott has a 63-48 career mark in 159 starts during hs seven seasons in a Twins uniform. Although I have gotten on Baker for his lack of emotion and how he slows the game to a crawl when he gets runners on the bases, I consider Baker to be the Twins number one starting pitcher. Francisco Liriano probably has better stuff that Baker does but he does not seem to be as mentally savvy on the mound as Baker is. Sure, Baker takes a trip to the DL now and then but when Baker is healthy, he is a very nice pitcher who unlike most Twins pitchers can strike out a batter when needed. From Baker’s point of view, the timing couldn’t be worse as the Twins hold a 2013 option for $9.5 million that is now really in question. The risk to pick up the option is huge but can the Minnesota Twins who always seem to struggle to find starting pitching pass on a proven big league pitcher?

The Twins will miss Scott Baker in the starting rotation but there is always a silver lining, when one door closes, another opens and we will have to wait and see who will latch on to Baker’s spot in the starting rotation and run with it.

According to Elias

The Twins, who lost their home opener on Monday to the Angels, 5-1, became only the third major-league team in the past 40 years to begin a season with four consecutive losses while scoring two or fewer runs in each game. The other teams to do that over the last four decades were the 1988 Orioles (who started the season with 21 consecutive losses on the way to a 54-107 record) and the 2003 Tigers (who finished 43-119, the worst record for any major-league team since the 1962 Mets).

With the Atlanta Braves beating the Houston Astros 6-4 on Tuesday night, the Twins are now the only team in major league baseball without a win.

Swept out of Baltimore

As I was preparing to write this post just before the Twins/Orioles game today, I had a sudden bloody nose. I seldom get a bloody nose but for some reason today was that day and I just could not get it to stop bleeding. We were supposed to go to out for Easter dinner prepared by our son and his wife but my wife had to go alone because the blood just kept coming. I spent three hours in front of the television watching the Twins lose to the Orioles and almost get no-hit in the process all the while applying pressure to my nose to stop the bleeding. I even called a doctor for advice but all he told me to do was to keep applying pressure or to go to an urgent care center. He did not specify if he was talking about the Twins game or my nose. The bleeding in my nose finally stopped but I don’t think the Twins are as lucky as they ended up getting swept in Baltimore and now they have lost seven straight to the Orioles over two years and scored two runs or less in each game. Before all you Twins fans jump off the nearest bridge, you should be aware that the Twins are not the only team to get swept this week-end, the Yankees and Red Sox join the Twins at 0-3 in the American League and in the National league the Braves and the Giants are also without a win in 2012 with 3 losses. What are the odds huh? But we need to keep in mind it is only three games and if this is the longest losing streak the Twins encounter in 2012, we will be ecstatic. On the negative side you can say we have played three games and are already 3 games down in the standings to the Tigers who stand at 3-0. Let’s hope the team can turn it around at Target Field but it will not be easy against the Angels and the likes of CJ Wilson, Jared Weaver, and Dan Haren on the mound. We will be out there cheering the home team on.

 

A few notes about the Twins

The Twins sold out 10 of their 16 Spring  home games and surpassed the 100,000 mark in attendance for the 11th consecutive year and 14th time since they started training in Ft. Myers.

The Twins opened the 2012 season with 14 players on their 25-man roster who were not on the 2011 Opening Day roster: Ryan Doumit, Sean Burroughs, Jamey Carroll, Luke Hughes, Chris Parmelee, Trevor Plouffe, Ben Revere, Josh Willingham, Anthony Swarzak, Jared Burton, Jeff Gray, Alex Burnett, Liam Hendriks, and Matt Maloney. Of the players on the 25 man opening day roster, 14 players started their career as Minnesota Twins.

Manager Ron Gardenhire starts the 2012 season with 866 wins and needs 34 wins to reach 900.

Jamey Carroll’s 50 errors as an infielder since 2003 ties him for fifth-fewest in all of baseball.

Josh Willingham’s was charged with two errors on Saturday after making only two errors in all of 2011.

The Twins have now lost seven consecutive games against Baltimore dating back to last season. Oddly enough, the Twins have scored two runs-or-less in each of the seven games, having been outscored by the Orioles 37-7 during the seven-game stretch. This to one of the worst pitchings staffs in baseball.

The Twins were swept for the first time this season. In 2011, they were swept a total of 14 times, 1 one-game, 3 two-game series, 9 three-game series and 1 four-game series. The 14  sweeps were the most of a Twins team since the 1978 team when they were swept 17 times.

How Twins have fared on Opening Day

When the Minnesota Twins open the 2012 season in Baltimore on Friday, April 6 it will mark the 32nd time in 52 season openers that the team has opened their baseball season as road warriors. As a cold weather team, the Twins have only played the seasons first game at Met Stadium five times (63,65,66,71,81) and fifteen times at the Metrodome. In their short history at Target Field the Twins have never opened the season at home. The Twins have not charged out of the gate on a winning note over the years winning only won 24 and losing 27 season opening games. You can make a strong case that their first ever game as Minnesota Twins on April 11, 1961 in Yankee Stadium when Pedro Ramos shut out the New Yorks Yankees 6-0 on just 3 hits was their greatest season opener ever. The most frequest opening day opponent for the Twins has been the Oakland A’s. The Twins have played the Oakland A’s on opening day ten times (the last time in 1990), eight times in Oakland and twice at home (at the Met in 1981 and at the Metrodome in 1987) and the opening day series between these two teams is tied at five game each. The Twins have drawn the Seattle Mariners as opening day opponents four times, twice at home and twice on the road and the Twins have yet to beat the Mariners on opening day.

Pitcher Brad Radke has taken the mound for the Twins on opening day nine times including seven in a row between 1999 and 2005. Radke’s record on opening day was 4 wins, 2 losses, and 3 no decisions. Kent Hrbek has started 12 games at 1B on opening day, the most games that any Twins player has played at any position on opening day. A number of players have started opening day at their position nine times but Hrbek is still the leader in that category.

The Twins have opened the season in Baltimore only once before and that was back on April 11, 1967 in Memorial Stadium when Jim Kaat took the mound for the Twins but before he retired a single batter, the Orioles plated four runs and held on for a 6-3 win. The Twins only other season opener against the Baltimore Orioles occurred on April 2, 2007 at the Metrodome when the Twins behind starter Johan Sanatana and home runs from Torii Hunter and Justin Morneau won 7-4.

Here is who the Twins have faced and how they have fared on opening day.

TEAM WON LOST HOME AWAY YEARS
Yankees 2 2 2 2 61,65,88,89
Indians 2 1 2 1 63,64,04
Orioles 1 1 1 1 67,07
Royals 2 1 0 3 69,74,02
White Sox 1 1 1 1 70,93
Oakland A’s 5 5 2 8 72,73,77,79,80,81,86,87,90,91
Rangers 1 1 0 2 75,76
Mariners 0 4 2 2 78,82,05,09
Tigers 4 2 4 2 83,84,96,97,01,03
Red Sox 0 1 0 1 95
Blue Jays 1 3 1 3 98,99,06,11
Rays 0 1 1 0 00
LA Angels 1 1 1 1 08,10
Cal. Angels 1 1 1 1 85,94
Brewers 1 1 1 1 71,92
Senators 1 0 0 1 68
KC A’s 1 1 1 1 62,66
TOTALS 24 27 20 31