Article: MIN 6, DET 4: Twins Match 2016 Win Total With 46 Games Left to Play

[Tom Froemming]

Sunday’s win over Detroit wasn’t pretty, but after what Twins Territory had to suffer through in 2016, we’ll take anything we can get. After mustering just 59 wins last season, the 2017 Twins have now hit that mark in just 116 games.Win Expectancy (via Fangraphs)

Download attachment: WinEx813.png

Brian Dozier led off the game with a home run, his sixth big fly already this month. That’s now 19 of Dozier’s 23 homers this season that have been solo shots. Miguel Sano also homered, driving a two-run shot in the third inning. In contrast, 15 of Sano’s 26 homers have been with runners on.

 

In between those two taters was a whole lotta bunting. The Twins offense has been hotter than a furnace, but they decided to give away a bunch of outs early in this one. They bunted three times in the first three innings, one of which was a successful squeeze bunt by Byron Buxton and one was an unsuccessful sacrifice by Robbie Grossman in which the lead runner was thrown out.

 

They were feeling awfully generous on defense, too.

 

Twins were up 4-1 in the fifth inning, but opened that frame with a Miguel Sano missed-catch error at first base. Things got really weird from there, as Chris Gimenez had an implosion behind the plate. Four balls got by Gimenez in the inning, three were scored passed balls and the other was credited as a wild pitch to Ervin Santana. To put that into perspective, Jason Castro has just four passed balls all season.

That fifth inning was Santana’s last, as he gave up four runs (two earned) on seven hits. He walked two batters, hit another and had six strikeouts.

 

The score stayed knotted at 4-4 until the eighth. The inning opened with back-to-back walks. Jorge Polanco, just about the hottest hitter in baseball, bunted to move the runners up before Buxton hit the go-ahead single into center field. Ehire Adrianza followed with a sac fly to put the Twins up two runs.

 

After a dreadful Saturday night, the bullpen got back on track. Alan Busenitz pitched a scoreless sixth. Tyler Duffey followed with 1.2 scoreless innings. He entered the game in a tie for fifth among AL relievers in most appearances recording more than three outs. Trevor Hildenberger, pitching for the third straight day, recorded the final out of the eighth and stayed out there for the ninth inning to earn his first career save.

 

Eddie Rosario has been outstanding this season, and added two more hits today, but he also provides plenty of “what the …” moments. Sunday, he struck out on a ball that was thrown at his face.

Postgame With Hildenberger

Twins W-L Record

Overall: 59-57 (.509)

Last 10: 8-2 (.800)

Last 20: 10-10 (.500)

Last 40: 19-21 (.475)

Last 80: 40-40 (.500)

 

AL Central Standings

Cleveland 63-52

Minnesota 59-57 (-4.5)

 

AL Wild Card Standings

WC1: Yankees 61-54

WC2: Minnesota 59-57, Angels 60-58 (tied, Sunday LAA game in progress)

Seattle 59-59 (-1.0, Sunday game in progress)

Kansas City 58-58 (-1.0, Sunday game in progress)

 

Defensive Lineups

Here’s a look at the starting lineups from the past seven games:

Download attachment: Lineups813.png

Bullpen Usage

Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days:

Download attachment: Bullpen813.png

Looking Ahead

Mon: Off

Tue: Twins (Bartolo Colon) vs. Cleveland (Danny Salazar), 7:10 pm CT

Wed: Twins (Kyle Gibson) vs. Cleveland (Carlos Carrasco), 7:10 pm CT

 

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[mikelink45]

Good game - the Twins showed a lot - getting past two straight bad starts by their two best starters and a one game bullpen implosion, some shabby defense and then the inexplicable passed balls to win the game and the series.  With a little luck they could have swept the series. 

 

What a fun year.

[Tuba]

Is it Gibson or Enns on Wed? 

 

EDIT: They are skipping Enns turn in the rotation. He still gets paid through right?

[Circus Boy]

Hildenberger not 1-2-3 in the ninth. Martinez singled.

[Tom Froemming]

 

Hildenberger not 1-2-3 in the ninth. Martinez singled.

Fixed, thank you. I was trying to work ahead a bit and had that typed up once he got to two strikes on Victor, moved on to something else and forgot to go back and update it. 

[wabene]

Busenitz, Duffy and Hildenberger ah it's about time! Let the young guys roll!

[Blake]

No matter how one slices it, this was an excellent road trip. 

 

4-1 is more than acceptable.

[yarnivek1972]

Interesting decision to use Hildenberger 3 days in a row instead of Belisle, which would have been just two days in the last 5 I believe. Was there any comment from Molitor on the subject postgame?

 

Not saying I disagree with the decision. Obviously Belisle is not a long term answer for the 9th. Hildenberger looked good obviously, but he got tagged just yesterday. I'm not sure he's a long term solution either unless he finds a way to get lefties more regularly.

 

Edit: Hmm. Not sure I'm reading his splits right. .400 ish OPS vs lefties? .800 + vvs righties. SSS, obviously. And I know I looked at his numbers some time before and was skeptical that he could get lefties. But his to date numbers don't show much of a split at all in the minors.

Edited August 13, 2017 by yarnivek1972

[glunn]

Tom, your writeups are professional quality -- better than anything else available on the internet.  

 

I also enjoy the attachments, especially the chart showing recent bullpen usage.

 

Thank you for making this so interesting! You are creating threads that are always great to read.

[Don Walcott]

This has become a must read for me after every game.  The best game recaps I've ever seen.

[carlito_b]

I don't understand why giminez us still on this roster he's hitting 200. And is hitting sixth in the lineup it's beyond frustrating having Garver sit at triple a for him.. I don't care how good he is in the clubhouse it's time for him to get dfa'd

[DocBauer]

Yeah, absolutely outstanding work. And even when I watch a game, (or mist of it), the write up still gives me tidbits I missed or forgot, not to mention statistical information, bullpen usage, etc.

[drjim]

Good showing from the squad to overcome all those bunts.

[Dantes929]

I don't know why but the loss yesterday made me think of late 2004 when the Twins were in contention and Viola was staked to a 10-0 lead and we lost 11-10.   Lost our last 6 in a row to finish 81-81 and 3 games out.       Very happy to pull this game out, again showing the resiliency of this team.

[ThejacKmp]

 

I don't understand why giminez us still on this roster he's hitting 200. And is hitting sixth in the lineup it's beyond frustrating having Garver sit at triple a for him.. I don't care how good he is in the clubhouse it's time for him to get dfa'd

 

Yeah, hard for me to understand too. That said, I think it's an argument for two weeks ago. At this point it's two weeks until rosters expand and he's got like three or four more starts before then. Then he can become the 3rd catcher and still be a clubhouse leader. So I'm fine with no DFA.

[ThejacKmp]

 

I don't know why but the loss yesterday made me think of late 2004 when the Twins were in contention and Viola was staked to a 10-0 lead and we lost 11-10.   Lost our last 6 in a row to finish 81-81 and 3 games out.       Very happy to pull this game out, again showing the resiliency of this team.

 

Viola? 2004? he retired in 1996. I think you might mean 1984?

[Old Twins Cap]

Yah, that was '84.  Gaetti made the key error on a throw.

 

When asked about it, the Rat said:  "It's pretty hard to throw a baseball with both hands around your throat."

 

Then, three years later, they win the World Series, with Gaetti MVP in AL Championship Series.

 

Takes some epic fails in order to win at baseball.

 

That said, the Twins brass has made some good moves this year, but keeping Gimenez catching is not one of them.  Putrid offense and now, alarmingly bad on defense.  What Twins pitcher would want him to catch their game?

 

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

When asked about it, the Rat said:  "It's pretty hard to throw a baseball with both hands around your throat."

Quite possibly my favorite baseball quote of all time.

[Rhino and Compass]

Hey. I've been on vacation for a week, and haven't been able to catch up, but I'm glad to see they are still fighting even though they are probably way out of the race!

[Twodogs]

Fixed, thank you. I was trying to work ahead a bit and had that typed up once he got to two strikes on Victor, moved on to something else and forgot to go back and update it.

That's a little scary, you could have half the write up done, could you imagine if things turned for the worse?? You'd have to start some of it all over.

[Tom Froemming]

 

That's a little scary, you could have half the write up done, could you imagine if things turned for the worse?? You'd have to start some of it all over.

Imagine it? That's exactly what happened last night. I basically had an article all ready to rock, then it got Justin Upton'd.

[Blackjack]

Interesting side note on Ervin.  I knew that he had changed his name from Johan because of that 'other' Johan Santana but the Strib had an interesting article explaining why he picked to change to Ervin.

 

Supposedly in his youth he was a hot-shot basketball player and his nickname was Magic, as in Earvin "Magic" Johnson, so when it came time to change his name, he chose Ervin.  Not sure why he didn't spell it the same....

[luckylager]

 

  Not sure why he didn't spill it the same....

Maybe he's not good at spilling. 

[Blackjack]

 

Maybe he's not good at spilling. 

I saw that right away and was in the process of fixing the 'spelling' when you posted...

[bluechipper]

 

Hey. I've been on vacation for a week, and haven't been able to catch up, but I'm glad to see they are still fighting even though they are probably way out of the race!

They're right in it. Just 0.5 game out of the Wild Card and even 4.5 back of the division is still well within range.