Hey guys, long time-first time here with the game thread!  It was so nice to see the boys break out of that funk and take out some the Yankee frustration on the Orioles last night.  I was mildly worried I would be looking at my first game thread with a 4 game losing streak and an angry mob of Rally Rogers wielding pitchforks....with unparalleled pressure to start a thread that broke the streak.  But.....I can breathe a sigh of relief.

 

Growing up my father was an Orioles fan and I always heard the stories of Brooks Robinson, the 69 O's that lost to the amazing Mets and my favorite piece of trivia, the 1971 O's staff, the first and only staff to have 4, 20-game winners.  Palmer, McNally, Cueller and Dobson.  Those of you old enough probably knew this, but it's a nice piece of trivia.

 

This brings me to Dave McNally, who is from my hometown is by far the best player from the state of Montana, and why my father grew an Orioles fan.  He pitched for the O's from 1962-1974 and was instrumental in the clause that eventually became free agency in Major League Baseball.  I would go into that, but there are some great articles out there on it.  Going back to the 1969 WS between the O's and Met's, there was a player on the Mets who only pitched in 1 game all season and was not on the playoff roster by the name of Les Rohr.  He coincidentally enough also went to High School in Billings, Montana and though he didn't pitch in that World Series, to have he and McNally both grow up in the Billings area and on rosters in the same year is quite mind boggling when you consider there have only been 5 players make the major leagues who grew up in Billings.  Rohr stops into my bar from time to time and if you like old baseball stories, talk to someone who toured the minor league's in the 60's.  If you meet an O's fan in Montana over the age of 50, you now know why.

 

Anyways, back to modern day.

 

1.  Buxton and Sano in the same lineup.  Something that was talked about for years and finally happened yesterday and the twins dominated? Coincidence? Maybe.  Either way I think looking at lineups for the rest of 2015 and seeing both their names on the card is something all Twins fans can look forward to regardless of what is going on in the standings.

 

2. Sano.  He gets his own number.  Fangraphs had a great article last week about the great number of rookie hitters the league has seen this year.  The article can be found here. At the time his WRC+ was 162 and after today it's 165.  While it's fun to look at the future as what this kid could develop into, in reality we might be seeing one of the better offensive outputs from a rookie in the last.....70 years.  Imagine the numbers once that strike out rate starts to fall.  To say I am excited is putting very mildly.

 

3.  Tommy Milone gets the start today and while your stats like fip and xfip aren't in love with him, he has pitched fairly solid for the Twins this year.  9 of his 15 starts he has allowed 2 runs or fewer and it's apparent that his 3 post AS game starts could have been hindered because of injury.  For him to get through today he is going to have keep the sluggers off balance, he is homer prone and the middle of the order of Davis-Machado-Jones is no picnic.  Don't fall behind Tommy or it might be a long night.

 

4. Wei-Yin Chen.  I like statistics.  I know we all love small sample sizes.  Current Twins are hitting .287/.333/.506 in 87 AB against Chen.  Leading the charge are Dozier (5-13) Mauer (5-14), Plouffe (4-13) and Nunez (4-11).  Let's hope the trend continues and they knock Chen around like Gonzalez last night.

 

How about a lot more of this tonight? I love Sano's face.

 

http://i.imgur.com/R9HiDyR.jpg

--------------------

 

Game time forecast:  It should be a beautiful night in Baltimore.  81 degrees game-time, 0% chance of precipitation and a slight 6 MPH wind from the NNW.

 

Lineups:

 

Good Guys:
Buxton CF
Dozier 2B
Mauer 1B
Sano DH
Plouffe 3B
Hunter RF
Rosario LF
Suzuki C
Nunez SS
Milone P

Boo Birds:
3B Machado
RF Parra
CF Jones
1B Davis
DH Wieters
2B Schoop
SS Hardy
C Joseph
LF Reimold
SP Chen

 

I will be absent from the thread tonight as I am attending the hometown Billings Mustangs take on the Missoula Osprey tonight.  The Mustangs are a rookie league affiliate of Reds, and the Osprey of the Diamondbacks.  Let's go Twins! Let's make it a perfect 2-0 with Buxton and Sano in the lineup!

There's going to be so much damned left-handed craftiness out on the mound tonight, it'll make our heads spin.

 

Prepare yourselves for an 89mph bonanza of left-handed pluck, everybody. You may want to belt yourself to your couch because it's going to be intense out there.

Good first time, Swain! I knew you could do it!

4. Wei-Yin Chen.

 

Hu is this guy?

Nice job Swain!

 

Hu is this guy?

http://i.imgur.com/XUOzeLu.jpg

    That Buxton kid

 seems pretty skinny

               yet

http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/buxtonChildhood.jpg

 

As, I said before yesterday's game this series can decide if, Twins are in it or not this post season....'nough said, for now.

GO TWINS!!!!!!

Since I'm not entirely sure how to edit my post, here are your lineups:

 

Good Guys:

 

Buxton CF
Dozier 2B
Mauer 1B
Sano DH
Plouffe 3B
Hunter RF
Rosario LF
Suzuki C
Nunez SS

Milone P

 

Boo Birds:

3B Machado

RF Parra

CF Jones 

1B Davis

DH Wieters

2B Schoop

SS Hardy

C Joseph

LF Reimold

 

SP Chen

Great job, SwainZag!  

So Esco goes 3 for 5 with a homer and a double, and his reward is to get put on the bench.  Does Molitor have some sort of issue with Escobar we don't know about?

Trea Turner just got promoted to the majors.

 

No Chen is left handed and Escobar bats left handed.

He is playing the percentages so more righties, Nunez is 4-11 against  Wei-Yin Chen, .A 360 plus batting average against an opponents pitcher suggests you should play the odds and in this case play Nunez.

Escobar is a switch hitter, has most of his power right handed, but his BA is higher this year as a lefty. Last year, Escobar was better in every respect as a right handed hitter, this year different story.

 

No Chen is left handed and Escobar bats left handed.

He is playing the percentages so more righties, Nunez is 4-11 against  Wei-Yin Chen, .A 360 plus batting average against an opponents pitcher suggests you should play the odds and in this case play Nunez.

 

That would be fine, except that Nunez this year in 52 PA's against lefties is hitting .196, OPS'ing .584, and has a 1/11 bb/k ratio.  I trust those numbers way more than than the extremely SSS 4-11 stat you threw out.

Twins have a 4.5% chance of making the playoffs.

 

So Esco goes 3 for 5 with a homer and a double, and his reward is to get put on the bench.  Does Molitor have some sort of issue with Escobar we don't know about?

Well, it's not because Escobar has had a lot of at bats against Chen (just 0-2).

Perhaps it's because Nunez is 4-11 with two doubles.

Who knows?

 

 

Twins have a 4.5% chance of making the playoffs.

That seems kind of low. What's your source?

 

That seems kind of low. What's your source?

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/standings/probability.jsp?ymd=20150821

 

'Postseason probabilities are courtesy of Baseball Prospectus and indicate each team's probability of winning the division or wild card, or any postseason berth. Probabilities are based on thousands of Monte Carlo simulations of the remaining season schedule incorporating each team's year-to-date run differential, current roster composition, playing time projections and remaining schedule.'

Cubs looks great.  Theo, Hoyer and company have turned that team into an exciting team.  Brought in a great manager and all that youth up.  Better record than 4 of the 6 division leaders while playing in a very tough division.

 

Cubs looks great.  Theo, Hoyer and company have turned that team into an exciting team.  Brought in a great manager and all that youth up.  Better record than 4 of the 6 division leaders while playing in a very tough division.

yeah … but they're the Cubs. 

 

yeah … but they're the Cubs. 

Can't argue with that. I remember when the Red Sox were the Red Sox.

Edited August 21, 201511 yr by jimmer

Great opener!  Hope to see more of these from you!!

 

Twins have a 4.5% chance of making the playoffs.

 

So you're telling me there's a chance!!!

 

I'm happy it's up from last year when they had a minus 78% chance

Why does anyone throw strikes to Rosario? He's a big time regression candidate next year if he doesn't learn some plate discipline. 

 

Why does anyone throw strikes to Rosario? He's a big time regression candidate next year if he doesn't learn some plate discipline. 

 

I've seen enough sophomore slumps to totally believe. 

 

So much so that I think they should just send all rookies down to the minors and leave them there for a year. 

A few more people at Camden Yards tonight.

 

A few more people at Camden Yards tonight.

LOVE Camden Yards.  Fantastic park.

Looooooooooove that bunt. 

 

Did he take 5 strides to get to first?

Great bunt (for a hit)!

 

LOVE Camden Yards.  Fantastic park.

 

I agree

 

Especially the walk behind RF. Awesome little area. 

 

It's tied for 3 on my list of Parks I've seen so far. 

 

AT&T in San Fran is #1 with some good distance

 

Fenway is #2... Just too charming.

 

PNC and Camden are tied at #3.