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Friday, July 02, 2004
SweptOne mistake.That's all Johan Santana made yesterday. In the first inning, Santana retired the first two batters he faced, walked Frank Thomas with two outs, and then gave a two-run homer to Carlos Lee that just cleared the outstretched glove of Lew Ford in left field. After that, Santana was just about unhittable. In fact, I'm going to say that, aside from the one pitch to Lee, Santana was as good as he has ever been. He finished the game with the following outstanding line ... IP H R ER BB SO HR PITSantana's fastball/change up combination had the White Sox, owners of the best offense in the league, completely baffled. Consider that, after the first inning ... ... Chicago managed just two harmless singles and one walk. ... 12 of the 24 batters Santana faced struck out. ... 72% of the pitches Santana threw were strikes. ... Santana retired 11 straight hitters at one point, including four straight on strikeouts. ... Santana needed just 93 pitches to complete seven innings, or 13 pitches per inning. Now, clearly Santana didn't have "no-hit stuff," even after the first inning, and it's silly to simply ignore a home run, no matter how early in the game it came. That said, it was amazing to watch him pitch yesterday. Of course, since Santana made the mistake of pitching brilliantly for a team without an offense, he was rewarded with a loss for yesterday's effort. One pitch. That's all the separated Santana from a win and a loss yesterday. Hell, it's all that separated him from just another "tough loss" and perhaps one of the best pitching performances in the history of the Minnesota Twins. Here are the facts from the Chicago series: The White Sox came into Minnesota down one game in the standings and swept the Twins, dominating them in the first two games and eking out the third game, despite Santana's amazing performance. The White Sox beat the Twins in a normal game (6-2, Game 1), a slugfest (9-6, Game 2) and in a pitcher's duel (2-1, Game 3). Ron Gardenhire didn't have to do a whole lot in Game 3, since Santana was just about all the pitching he needed, but the few decisions he was faced with resulted in his totally mismanaging the game. Consider ... Bottom of the 9th inning, Chicago up 2-1, left-handed reliever Damaso Marte pitching. We know Marte is either going to close out the game or lose it himself, because the White Sox didn't have anyone warming up in the bullpen at any point in the final two innings. Due up for the Twins ... 1) Torii Hunter, RH 2) Jacque Jones, LH 3) Michael Restovich, RH 4) Joe Mauer, LH Now, Marte is a sidearming lefty who came into the game having held left-handed hitters to a measly .111 batting average and .200 slugging percentage this season. He's also very tough on righties, but they did manage to hit .230 off him, with a .378 slugging percentage. From 2001-2003, Marte held lefties to a .183 batting average and a .185 GPA, while righties hit .223 with a .223 GPA. So, clearly, you want as many right-handed hitters as possible up there when Marte is on the mound. Meanwhile, Jacque Jones, the second batter of the inning, is a left-handed hitter who has never hit lefties in his entire career, including this season, as he came into the game hitting .259/.337/.294 against southpaws. From 2001-2003, Jones hit .231/.274/.336 against lefties. The third hitter due up, Michael Restovich, is a big right-handed slugger who, as I discussed in some length earlier this month, has a long history of doing very well against left-handed pitching. In his limited big league experience, Restovich has hit .290 with a .452 slugging percentage against lefties. While at Triple-A in 2002 and 2003, Restovich combined to hit .317/.408/.574 against lefties. So, to recap: - A sidearming left-handed pitching is on the mound and he has a history of doing much better against left-handed hitters. - The second batter up is a left-handed hitter who can't hit lefties to save his life. - The third batter up is a right-handed hitter with a good track record against lefties. A normal person faced with this situation and the decisions involved with it might think, "I'll pinch-hit for my left-handed hitter who stinks against lefties, and let my right-handed hitter hit." Ron Gardenhire thought exactly the opposite. He allowed Jones to make his out (on one pitch, no less) and then pinch-hit for Restovich, sending Michael Cuddyer, another right-handed hitter with a track record of bashing lefties in the minors, to the plate. In that same article in which I discussed Restovich's prowess against lefties in the minors, I also showed that, from 2001-2003, Cuddyer hit .363/.458/.674 against lefties in the minor leagues. And wouldn't you know it? Cuddyer came off the bench with a pinch-hit double down the right field line. Only problem was, since he did it pinch-hitting for Restovich and not Jones, there were already two outs in the inning and, instead of having Restovich up to try to drive him in from second with the tying run, he had Joe Mauer, a left-handed hitter with a grand total of two hits off southpaws in his entire big league career. Mauer struck out and the game was over. To me, there is just no way to excuse the sequence of events that took place in the bottom of the 9th inning yesterday. Now, if Ron Gardenhire does things differently and pinch-hits Cuddyer for Jones and leaves Restovich in to hit, it's certainly possible that the end result would have been the same. However, the job of a manager is to make the decisions that give his team the best possible chance to win games, and Gardenhire certainly did not do that yesterday. If you're not sick of the Twins after their awful series against the White Sox and you're not sick of me talking about them after this latest rant, I have a brand new, Gleeman-length article about the team over at The Hardball Times. Here's the link ... The Hardball Times: The Minnesota Twins, by Month (Through June) Oh, one more thing before I say goodbye for the holiday weekend ... Last night's Boston/New York game was very likely the best regular season baseball game I have ever seen. It had everything. The best rivalry in sports, Yankee Stadium, Pedro Martinez going against a rookie pitcher who looks like he's about 12 years old, extra innings, back-and-forth scoring, strange plays, amazing plays, Derek Jeter getting his face busted open, weird roster shenanigans, and much, much more. I don't know where you can watch the game if you missed it last night, but there's gotta be a way to get a hold of it. I bet the YES Network is replaying it today, for those of you who get that channel, and those of you who have MLB.TV can watch it on the computer. If nothing else, make sure to catch the highlights, although I'm sure those will never do it anywhere near justice. Just amazing baseball. Sometimes people ask me why I love baseball so much or how I came to like it more than basketball or football. There's no real answer, but that game basically sums it up. Of course, I speak as a Twins fan. If I were, say, a Red Sox fan, the game might drive me to hate baseball. Today's picks: Chicago (Loaiza) +150 over Chicago (Zambrano) Arizona (Sparks) +110 over Minnesota (Lohse) Total to date: -$1,990 W/L record: 120-152 (1-1 yesterday for +5, with one no-bet because of a pitching change.) *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****     
Thursday, July 01, 2004
Game 2 to ChicagoYou almost have to feel bad for Brad Radke. He's been so good this year and gotten such crappy run support, and then he finally gets some runs last night and turns in perhaps his worst performance of the season.Radke gave up three home runs in his very first start of the season, against the Indians way back on April 5. He then pitched 97.1 innings while allowing just three homers, which is pretty amazing for someone who has a history of being fairly homer-prone like Radke. It caught up with him last night though, as he gave up three more homers on his way to allowing eight runs, all earned. The Twins' hitters hit four homers of their own and finally scored some runs, but it wasn't enough. The Twins are now out of first-place and, if Johan Santana can't come up with a big game this afternoon, I have a feeling they might be looking up at the White Sox for a while. This Twins team is very flawed and I am hoping that the bright spot in this rough patch they've hit is that it may force the decision makers into looking at the problems in a serious way. Their bullpen is now essentially two players deep, with Joe Nathan and Juan Rincon as the only guys Ron Gardenhire can fully count on. J.C. Romero was sent to the minors because he pitched so poorly, Aaron Fultz has been awful of late, and Terry Mulholland and Joe Roa were never guys to count on for big innings. Grant Balfour has looked good recently (although he gave up a solo homer last night), which is about all it takes for him to be Gardenhire's #3 option at this point. Meanwhile, Jesse Crain has a 3.20 ERA and 51 strikeouts in 39.1 innings at Triple-A Rochester. He also has 16 saves and has held opponents to a .215 batting average. Crain might not be completely ready, and I'm sure Terry Ryan would like to keep him at Triple-A for a while longer (what else is new?), but I think it's time to see if he can give the Twins another somewhat reliable reliever to lean on. As bad as the bullpen has been, the offense has probably been worse for the past two months. They barely managed four runs per game in June and their team on-base percentage narrowly finished above .300. Just pathetic. The Twins' starting first baseman, Doug Mientkiewicz, is hitting .233/.324/.327 this year and .147/.316/.200 in June. Meanwhile, Justin Morneau, the Twins' starting first baseman at Triple-A, is hitting .323/.395/.629. Again, Terry Ryan and Ron Gardenhire clearly don't think Morneau is 100% ready, but I think it's time to find out. I know the Twins have been in tough spots before and come back from them just fine, but I just don't see it happening this year unless they take some chances. The White Sox are better than they have been in the past and the Twins are far, far more flawed. It's time to make some changes and give some new blood a chance. Just once, I'd love to see them go for talent over experience. As Dontrelle Willis, Miguel Cabrera, Francisco Rodriguez and John Lackey can tell you, sometimes a little young blood thrown into the mix in the middle of a season can make a big difference down the stretch and into October. Now, since I don't want this entry to be a total buzzkill, here's something very positive that came out of last night's loss ... Joe Mauer hit his 4th and 5th home runs of the season. This is noteworthy for a number of reasons. First is that Mauer is now hitting .282/.358/.563 in his first 24 big league games, with five homers, 11 RBIs and 13 runs scored. The second reason Mauer's five homers are noteworthy is that he hit a total of five homers in 509 at-bats between Single-A and Double-A last year, and he hit just four homers in 411 at-bats at Single-A in 2002. In fact, take a look at how Mauer's minor league and major league power numbers compare ... AB HR AB/HR ISOP*ISOP stands for Isolated Power, which is slugging percentage minus batting average. Talk about small sample-sizes all you want, that's impressive and it's great to see. It appears as though the talk of Mauer's power developing as he matured is looking pretty accurate, which is wonderful. Coming into this season, I said many times that Mauer was the total package, offensively and defensively, save for power hitting. If you project his numbers out to 140 or 145 games (about a full season for a catcher), he would have right around 30 homers, which is incredible power for a 21-year-old rookie catcher. It's looking like the package is just about complete. Now, if we could get Mauer and this Morneau kid working together in the same lineup at some point, we might have something special for a decade or so. Today's picks: Chicago (Garland) +155 over Minnesota (Santana) Texas (Wasdin) -105 over Seattle (Thornton) Boston (Martinez) -150 over New York (Halsey) Total to date: -$1,995 W/L record: 119-151 (3-1 yesterday for +215.) *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Game 1 To ChicagoNot much to say about this one. Carlos Silva didn't pitch all that poorly, giving up three runs through six innings, before nearly going the distance and finishing with 8.2 innings pitched and six runs allowed.However, it didn't much matter what type of pitching they got, because the Twins' offense continued to stink. Mark Buehrle and Shingo Takatsu combined for eight strikeouts and no walks, and the Twins managed just three extra-base hits. Meanwhile, the Chicago offense did what it usually does, hitting two homers and four doubles, while striking out just twice. I just don't know what to say. I know this is going to anger a lot of Twins fans, but I'm getting very close to the point of just believing that the White Sox have the better team. There are a lot of people who thought this in the past two years, but I haven't been among them ... until now. Incidentally, Mark Buehrle came into the game with a 7.71 ERA in his last four starts, having given up 24 runs in 28 innings against Philadelphia, Atlanta, Montreal and Cleveland. He carved up the Twins yesterday without so much as breaking a sweat. This is a key point in the season for the Twins. I have a feeling they are about to fall behind the White Sox and, unlike in the past, I'm just not sure they have the guns to catch up this time. Well, let me rephrase that: I think they might have the guns, but I don't think they are willing to use them. We'll see, I guess. They need to escape this series without getting swept and, considering Johan Santana gave up seven runs in three innings against the White Sox earlier in the year, avoiding a sweep might be on the shoulders of Brad Radke. Of course, the story of Radke's season is that the team hasn't scored him any runs, so it could be more of the same today. You can talk about "pitching and defense" as much as you want, and you can certainly win with pitching and defense. To be honest though, I don't think the Twins' pitching or defense are all that great. They're going to have to do something to improve this offense, because right now it just sucks. Speaking of guys who can't hit, I have a brand new, Gleeman-length article over at The Hardball Times ... The Hardball Times: The Bizarro World All-Stars Today's picks: Montreal (Day) +135 over Philadelphia (Abbott) New York (Glavine) -120 over Cincinnati (Lidle) Chicago (Garcia) -110 over Minnesota (Radke) Texas (Rogers) -125 over Seattle (Nageotte) Total to date: -$2,210 W/L record: 117-150 (2-1 yesterday for +210.) *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
PatienceOne of the things that has always bugged me about the Twins, or at least this current, 2001-present version, is that a large number of the hitters seem to have no discernible plan when they step into the batter's box.Minnesota has some patient hitters, of course, but they also have some first-class hackers, guys who swing at anything that moves way too often. As someone who is a big believer in working counts, taking pitches, drawing walks and getting on base, this infuriates me. Today, I thought I'd take a look at the actual numbers this year, to see if they matched up with my personal observations. So here are the pitches seen per plate appearance by Twins hitters (with at least 50 at-bats) this season ... P/PAThere are, I think, some interesting stuff to be found in those numbers. For one thing, my frustration with the at-bats of Cristian Guzman and Luis Rivas is probably warranted. They are the only two guys on the whole team seeing significantly fewer pitches than the team average. Jacque Jones is third-worst as far as seeing pitches, and he's probably the #1 offender when it comes to what my eyes see, but his actual numbers are significantly better than Guzman's or Rivas'. Corey Koskie is fourth-worst, with just 3.68 pitches seen per plate appearance, and that really surprises me. I went and looked at his previous seasons and here's what I found ... YEAR P/PAHis 2002 and 2003 P/PA numbers would have ranked him right at the top of the team leaders, and that's where I would have expected him to be this year. Instead, his 3.68 P/PA is the lowest total in his entire career, as he came into this season having seen 3.90 pitches per plate appearance. Going up to the top of the list, I see something I love ... Joe Mauer is second the team (and first among everyday players) with 4.11 P/PA. Mauer has done about a million things to impress me already this year, so this just adds to the list. Still, a 21-year-old rookie being second on the team in P/PA looks pretty good to me. Mauer's P/PA numbers definitely match my personal observations of him -- he strikes me as incredibly patient. Mauer almost always takes several pitches in an at-bat and it seems to me that he has zero fear of falling behind in the count or hitting with two strikes. Once he's been in the league for a while and the umpires start to respect him a little more (and they will, once he starts making All-Star teams and such), I could see Mauer getting tons of calls in his favor and really becoming a walking machine. As it stands now, he doesn't seem to be getting the borderline calls in his favor, which is perhaps why he only has eight walks in 73 plate appearances, despite being so selective. Here's an interesting fact that agrees with the P/PA data ... Mauer has swung at and put in play the first pitch of an at-bat exactly one time all year, and he hit a single on the pitch. He's hitting .321/.441/.643 once he gets ahead of the count 1-0 in an at-bat. Some other stuff from the team P/PA numbers ... Jose Offerman is actually leading the team with 4.13 P/PA, which is probably to be expected. At this point in his career, Offerman is basically looking to draw walks. He can't hit any more (hasn't hit above .270 since 1999) and doesn't have any power (has never slugged above .450), so getting to first base via four balls is his goal. To his credit, he has accomplished his goal so far this year, with 22 walks in 128 plate appearances. That's .173 walks per plate appearance, which is nearly 60% higher than Mauer's walk rate. Offerman's please-walk-me approach is basically the only thing keeping him from being a huge disaster, because while he can't hit, play defense or run, at least his .346 on-base percentage means he does a decent job avoiding outs. The other team leaders in P/PA are Doug Mientkiewicz and Shannon Stewart, neither of whom are surprising. Mientkiewicz is, to me, the most patient hitter on the team, particularly when he's actually hitting well and pitchers aren't just throwing him strikes and daring him to hit them. His yearly P/PA numbers have been incredibly consistent ... YEAR P/PA*2000 is left out, because he only played three games that year. Mientkiewicz at his best is the guy who showed up in the second-half last year, hitting .305/.438/.433 with 48 walks and just 20 strikeouts. The guy this year is taking about the same amount of pitches and walking nearly as often, but he just can't get any hits to drop. Shannon Stewart is the guy Twins fans talk about being "patient" the most. That was apparently a big selling point when they got him last year -- that he would be so patient atop the lineup that it would rub off on other people. I really don't think it has, but that's not Stewart's fault. He's been very patient at the plate, seeing 3.95 P/PA this year and 3.76 P/PA with the Twins last season. Of course, the guy they traded for him, Bobby Kielty, saw 3.93 P/PA during his time with the Twins. And yeah, I know, Kielty has hit like Jose Offerman for the past year. I'm just saying ... How all of these Minnesota hitters compare to each other in P/PA doesn't tell us a whole lot, I suppose. I mean, if the whole team is a bunch of hackers, someone has to be the most patient hacker of the hackers, right? So let's take a look at how they match up with some other hitters in the American League ... P/PANow, Mauer doesn't have a ton of plate appearances this year, so he's not among the leaders. Still, he's taking pitches right along with the league leaders, which is fantastic to see out of a 21-year-old rookie. Incidentally, the AL leaderboard in P/PA is a pretty nice mix of power hitters, leadoff men and guys who just take a ton of pitches, which is why I think P/PA is a fun, interesting and meaningful stat to look at. Mientkiewicz's 3.84 P/PA ranks 37th in the AL, surrounded by a few Yankees; Jorge Posada (3.91) and Bernie Williams (3.89) in right in front, and Hideki Matsui (3.82) right in back. Cristian Guzman and his measly 3.42 P/PA rank fourth-to-last in the AL, while Luis Rivas would rank eighth-to-last if he had enough plate appearances to qualify. Interestingly, the majority of the other hitters among the league "trailers" in P/PA are actually very good hitters -- Aubrey Huff, Mike Sweeney, Ivan Rodriguez, Vernon Wells, Javy Lopez, Vladimir Guerrero. Guzman fits in more with guys like Alex Sanchez (seeing the fewer P/PA in the league at 3.04) and the hitter Twins fans probably wish Guzman would become, Carl Crawford (3.54). So what have we learned? Well, Offerman, Mauer, Stewart and Mientkiewicz are patient, Koskie is taking a lot fewer pitches than in the past, and my eyes aren't playing tricks on me with Jones, Rivas and Guzman. By the way, in the words of Mills Lane, Let's Get It On! Today: Mark Buehrle (7-2, 4.49) vs. Carlos Silva (8-4, 4.04) Tomorrow: Freddy Garcia (4-7, 3.20) vs. Brad Radke (4-3, 3.32) Thursday: Jon Garland (5-5, 4.84) vs. Johan Santana (6-4, 4.38) Today's picks: San Diego (Sweeney) +220 over Arizona (Johnson) Cleveland (Westbrook) -110 over Detroit (Knotts) Chicago (Buehrle) -120 over Minnesota (Silva) Total to date: -$2,420 W/L record: 115-149 (1-1 yesterday for -15.) *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
Monday, June 28, 2004
The Quotable MoviegoerI went to a movie last night and, afterwards, heard the following uttered by my fellow moviegoers as I made my way out of the theater ...- "They really should impeach that son of a bitch. You hear me? They've got to impeach him!" - "You know, republicans typically are for less government in everyone's lives." Upon hearing that second quote, one of the people I was with turned to me and said, "He couldn't possibly have been serious, right?" Okay, now anyone wanna take a wild guess as to which movie I saw? And no, I won't be reviewing or discussing the movie here. I've learned my lesson about that sort of stuff already. While I was out at the movies, the Chicago White Sox made a fairly big trade, getting Freddy Garcia from the Mariners. I have a full write-up of the deal posted over at The Hardball Times, so go check it out ... The Hardball Times: Garcia to the White Sox Today's picks: San Diego (Wells) -130 over Arizona (Reynolds) Toronto (Halladay) -115 over Tampa Bay (Zambrano) Total to date: -$2,405 W/L record: 114-148 (4-1 over the weekend for +300, with one non-bet because of a changed pitcher.) *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
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