Category: Twins

You gotta be kidding me? They postponed the game in Chicago because the forecast was for “cold and blustery” weather? They made this decision in the late morning or early afternoon?

I just checked three different reports and not one of them said anything about rain.

Come on. It’s April. It’s the freaking Windy City. Bundle up and play ball.

Pussies.

Now how the hell am I supposed to piss away a Friday night? I guess I’ll just stumble around my apartment listening to T.Rex and gobbling microwave burritos and Swedish Fish.

God almighty, did you see poor J.D. Durbin’s pitching line for the Diamondbacks last night? It was mind boggling: two-thirds of an inning pitched, seven hits, seven earned runs, and a walk (2007 ERA: 94.50).

This wasn’t a mop-up performance, by the way; Arizona brought Durbin into the game in the eighth, trailing 4-2.

It’s pretty sad, actually. This was a kid, after all, who gave himself the nickname “The Real Deal,” and he was the rare case of a professional athlete whose cockiness was so dorky it was charming.

The Diamondbacks designated Durbin for assignment this morning, which means they have ten days to trade him, release him, or put him on waivers.

Ugly game for Baltimore: six walks, eleven hits, three errors (should have been four); a horrendous start for Jared Wright, and an even more horrendous start for the Orioles, who started a season 0-3 for the first time since 1995. This team looked bad enough in this series to challenge the 1988 O’s, who lost their first 21 games and finished at 54-107.

Ramon Ortiz was pretty damn good, but I don’t think anybody should get too excited until he faces a better lineup. Still, seven innings pitched, five hits, four strikeouts, and a walk isn’t too shabby, even if his ratio of ground balls (6) to fly balls (11) wasn’t exactly what you’d like to see from him. There were a bunch of pop-ups in there, though, so it wasn’t like Baltimore was hitting rockets all over the Dome.

A nice series for the Minnesota bullpen: eight innings, four hits, seven strikeouts, three walks, no runs allowed, and a new baby (Joe Nathan’s wife, Lisa, gave birth to a baby girl named Riley Grace at 8:34 pm tonight at Fairview Southdale).

I listened to this one on the radio, and hearing the Twins on KSTP just doesn’t seem right. Also, the reception over here in South Minneapolis is lousy. This is the first game I’ve heard since the Twins bolted from WCCO, and the whole package seemed sort of cheesy. It reminded me of growing up listening to Twins games on Austin’s KAUS. I don’t know; maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all.

I’m using some new-fangled technology to write this swill live from the Dome. I’m pretending to be a real writer, in other words.

Some sort of big white creature –it appeared to be a dog, with a Target logo on its chest– threw out the first pitch. I guess I wasn’t aware that Target had a mascot, but I’m officially on record as being opposed to the idea of any sort of anthropomorphized creature, no matter how cuddly (or padded with corporate cash), throwing a baseball.

Boof rolled through the first inning in impressive fashion, striking out two and throwing just eleven pitches, but he started to struggle with his control in the second, and gave up a couple runs in the third on a Melvin Mora home run, and an RBI single by Aubrey Huff. He had 81 pitches through four, despite which the Baltimore hitters inexplicably came out hacking in the fifth, and were retired on six pitches. They didn’t fare much better in the sixth, going down 1-2-3.

That was it for Boof: six innings pitched, three hits, two runs, three walks, six strikouts, a home run, and a 2-2 game to turn over to the bullpen. I think the Twins would take that from any one of their starters every night of the week.

[This from the scoreboard between innings: “Johnson Brothers: Proud Sponsors of the Foul Pole.”

Okey dokey.]

Baltimore starter Daniel Cabrera was 2-0 with a 2.13 in two starts against the Twins last year, and entering tonight’s game was 5-1 with a 3.25 ERA in seven career starts against Minnesota. This is a guy who is 31-31 (4.75) overall. He was pretty damn effective again tonight, but the Twins kept chipping away and finally went up 3-2 on Jason Bartlett’s 7th-inning RBI single, scoring pinch runner Jason Tyner (in the final innings of the game Minnesota’s seven, eight, and nine hitters were all Jasons), who had just nabbed second –one of five Minnesota stolen bases on the night.

At which point I said to myself: Game over, I’d say.

Game over. Neshek gets the win, Nathan notches his second save in as many games.

See you tomorrow night.

This just seems so wrong on so many different levels.

I mean, seriously, what the hell?

Well, other than a nine-pitch first inning Johan’s performance wasn’t exactly pretty, but it was more or less in keeping with the way he usually starts the season. Kind of a strange pitch selection in the early innings –Santana just kept pounding away with the fastball, and didn’t go to the change-up until the Orioles started teeing off on the heater. I suspect he recognized in the bullpen that he didn’t have good command of the change, and when he finally started mixing it in he was missing with it much of the time.

Still, he was just good enough to keep his Dome streak alive: dating back to 8/1/05 Santana hasn’t lost at home, and in the 24 starts since his last home loss he is 17-0, 2.08 (169.0 ip, 39 er) with 182 strikeouts

The key inning, of course, was the fifth; after the Twins scratched back to tie the game on a Jeff Cirillo single punched through the right side of the infield, Johan came out and worked only his second 1-2-3 inning of the game (thanks in large part to Rondell White’s splendid diving catch of Melvin Mora’s hooking drive down the left field line). The Twins then came back and scored three runs in the bottom half of the inning to put it away.

Morneau had a very good, and very curious, game: an opposite field home run and two singles against a hard-throwing lefty; both times he had to run rather than trot, he was gunned down on the base paths –at home (in a play that included a collision with catcher Paul Bako) and at second– by Baltimore right fielder Nick Markakis, who trivia junkies should note was a member of the Greek national team at the 2004 Olympics.

Check out Morneau’s career numbers against Oriole starter Erik Bedard: 8-14 (.871 BA) with two homers and eight RBIs. Fourteen of his last 35 home runs have come against lefties.

The bullpen was, as usual, splendid: Three scoreless innings (Reyes, Crain, Rincon, and Nathan) with one hit and a couple walks.

After Michael Cuddyer’s at bat in the fourth (a single), Bedard had thrown 46 pitches, and 17 of them had been to Cuddyer.

Morneau and Hunter’s back-to-back shots in the second represented the first time in club history the Twins have had back-to-back home runs on opening day.

Ceremonial first pitch: Brad Radke

National Anthem: Paris Bennett, some American Idol finalist with Minnesota ties. Better, I say, than another (to me) anonymous warbler in a cowboy hat and tight jeans.

They always seem to trot out the bald eagle and the giant flag for opening night, and Radke and his family led “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the 7th inning stretch.

As expected there were also lots of fine video tributes to Herb Carneal, and a pre-game teaser on the anniversary of the 1987 championship team.

The Cremation Society of Minnesota had a group in attendance, and Sid Hartman read the paper and indulged in his customary ice cream.

Finally, the game clocked in at two hours and 56 minutes, which is about a half hour too long for a cranky old dog like me. It was a long-ass day, but bear with me; I should be rounding into mid-season form in a few weeks.

Tomorrow: Boof vs. Oriole right hander Daniel Cabrera (6′ 9″, 269, according to the Baltimore media guide). Advantage: Boof.

I spent part of the weekend kicking around thoughts on the coming season with Britt Robson and David Brauer over at On the Ball, Britt’s new home on the world wide web (or whatever the hell you want to call this impossibly dense and increasingly confusing constellation of monkey business).

Go check it out.

I’ll be back here Monday after the game, or perhaps even during the game.

I just got word that Herb Carneal has died.

I’m sure the basic information is up at the Star Tribune by now.

I honestly don’t know what to say. Going back to my childhood the man’s voice has been a permanent fixture in my life, and he was always a model of modesty, decency, and dignity.

To me, one of the great mysteries of 2006 was how Joe Mauer, a guy who had an on base percentage of .429, somehow managed to avoid scoring or driving in 100 runs. Three guys who hit behind him combined for 337 RBI (Morneau: 130; Cuddyer: 109; and Hunter: 98). Mauer had 86 runs scored and 84 RBI. You’d have to assume that he was on base a good deal of the time when Morneau, Cuddyer, and Hunter were at the plate, and also that some of their RBIs were available to him when he was at bat.

The stats say that Mauer hit .367 with runners on, .360 with runners in scoring position, and .408 with runners in scoring position and two out. Those are some pretty astonishing numbers, and make it even more difficult to explain his run production.

Over the winter I was determined to go through every 2006 game to see if I could figure out who exactly crossed the plate on every run-producing play. In other words, who scored those 130 runs that Morneau drove in?

I kept getting sidetracked on this project –it was an extremely slow process– and didn’t end up getting very far. In the early going, at least, it was all very random, and the runs were pretty evenly distributed up and down the line-up, but that was when I was working with April’s games and the Twins weren’t scoring a whole lot of runs.

I’m still curious. Maybe somebody else has done this, or does it every year. Maybe this information is available somewhere. Anybody know?

Here’s some other random stuff that helps to put last year’s remarkable production in context:

In 2005 the Twins didn’t have a single player with 100 runs batted in or scored. It was even worse than that: the Twins finished that season 13th in the AL in runs, and didn’t even have a single player with eighty runs or RBI.

In 2004 it was pretty much the same story –not a single player with 100 runs or RBI. Lew Ford, of all people, led the team with 89 runs, and Torii Hunter was the club leader with 81 RBI.

Before 2006 the last Twin to drive in 100 runs was Hunter, who finished with 102 in 2003.

The last time Minnesota had a player score and drive in 100 runs was in 2001, when Corey Koskie pulled it off (100 runs, 103 RBI). Koskie’s 2001 season, in fact, was almost a mirror of Michael Cuddyer’s 2006. Koskie finished with a .276 BA, 37 doubles, and 26 home runs (and 118 strike outs and 68 walks). Here are Cuddyer’s numbers from last year: 102 R, 109 RBI, .284 BA, 41 doubles, 24 HR, 130 Ks, and 62 walks.

I know it’s all about money, but today’s decision to send Matt Garza to Rochester nonetheless stinks to high hell from a fan’s perspective.

Someone tell me: how exactly is J.D. Durbin worth protecting? The guy is 25 years old and out of options. I say send him packing and if somebody else wants to roll the dice and put him on their roster, well, good luck to them and good luck to J.D. As it is he’ll be around to drag his mop out to the mound every time a game gets out of hand. Silva could have just as easily served that role out of the bullpen, which is exactly where he deserves to be when the Twins kick off the regular season next week.

Anybody want to wager on how long it takes for Garza to make the return trip from Rochester? I’d also be interested in hearing whose place you think he’ll take when he does come back up. My guess is it may not even be Silva’s.

[Update: Ok, so the Twins aren’t keeping J.D. Durbin. Which means what exactly? Chris Heintz, I guess, but I have absolutely no idea at the moment. Somebody clue me in.]