Twins Hitters, the Pitchers They Crush, and Beer in the Morning

[Patrick Wozniak]

This article is the byproduct of a little experiment I ran. You see, I don’t drink much these days, but the combination of strange times and available beer in the fridge led me to crack an a.m. beer. The cool, crisp and refreshing taste of cheap Thai beer inexplicably led me to Baseball Reference (I know how to party!) which in turn led to this article. Good times…now let’s talk about Twins hitters and the pitchers they’ve murdered!I went through Twins hitters' records versus individual pitchers and tried to combine the best results with the most acceptable sample size. Since many of the “starting nine” are young and haven’t accumulated tons of plate appearances the sample sizes are relatively small and AL Central heavy. What can you do?

 

Max Kepler vs. Trevor Bauer

 

.351/.400/.811 – 40 PA, 13 H, 2 2B, 5 HR (straight, homey!), 9 RBI, 3BB, 9 SO

 

We’ll start with Max Kepler, because let’s be honest, we don’t really even need a stat line for this one. Five. Straight. Home. Runs. Kepler OWNS Bauer! So much so that Bauer recently made a video about it. If you don’t feel like sitting through a 30-minute breakdown (I don’t), Do-Hyoung Park of mlb.com breaks it down in a nice little piece complete with highlights of all five home runs. Or, if you really want 34 minutes and 48 seconds of Trevor Bauer talking about it, eat your heart out…

 

 

Nelson Cruz vs. Ricky Nolasco

 

.448/.484/.966 – 31 PA, 13H, 3 2B, 4 HR, 7 RBI, 2 BB, 8 SO

 

Did you know that Ricky Nolasco hasn’t thrown an MLB pitch since 2017? I guess this really shouldn’t be all that surprising, but somewhere in the back of my slightly-warped brain he was still battling it out in the back end of some godforsaken rotation for some desperate team. But I digress.

 

As you can see from the numbers, Cruz has owned Nolasco. As you can probably also piece together based on the fact that Nolasco hasn’t thrown a pitch in the big leagues since 2017, Cruz didn’t do this damage as a Twin. If you haven’t been fortunate enough to block out the fact that Ricky Nolasco pitched for the Twins, you probably realize that some of this damage came at Minnesota’s expense. Don’t worry kids, Ricky Nolasco will never throw another pitch for the Minnesota Twins! Now go out and do whatever you need to do to erase the Nolasco years from your memory.

 

Mitch Garver vs. Matthew Boyd

 

.417/.533/1.167 – 15 PA, 5H, 1 2B, 1 3B, 2 HR, 4 RBI, 3 BB, 1 SO

 

Ah, Matthew Boyd, everyone’s favorite perennial breakout ace candidate. He’s going to need to find some kind of Garv-sauce elixir first! Keep in mind that the 1.167 in Garver’s triple slash is his slugging percentage and not OPS.

 

Byron Buxton vs. Dylan Bundy

 

 

.417/.462/.750 – 13 PA, 5H, 1 2B, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 1 BB, 3 SO

 

As I typed in Buxton’s name I was excited to see Boyd’s name atop the list again, but I quickly remembered that the list is ordered according to plate appearances. Boyd has actually owned Buxton (.048/.091/.139). But you know who hasn’t owned Buxton? Dylan Bundy. Buxton will no longer have the benefit of facing the homer-prone Bundy in the homer-friendly Camden Yards as Bundy was traded to the Angels, but at least he’s still in the AL.

 

Miguel Sanó vs. Josh Tomlin

 

.316/.381/.842 – 21 PA, 1 2B, 3 HR, 7 RBI, 2 BB, 4 SO

 

With Sanó you have to scroll down a ways to get to the first semi-decent sample size (relatively speaking). Josh Tomlin gets us over the 20 PA threshold so he’ll do. He’s of the soft-tossing variety that you’d expect Sanó to crush and so it is. I noticed quite a few Cleveland starters who Sanó has hit well (including Shane Bieber and Mike Clevinger) so I figured I’d do my due diligence and check out his career vs. Cleveland. Not exactly what I was hoping for: .194/.309/.376. While Sanó hasn’t exactly crushed Cleveland and Tomlin’s no longer with the organization, we’ll always have this:

 

 

Jorge Polanco vs. Trevor Bauer

 

.241/.324/.690 – 35 PA, 7H, 2 2B, 1 3B, 3 HR, 5 RBI, 4 BB, 6 SO

 

With Polanco some tough choices needed to be made. He has better results against some slightly smaller sample sizes, but we’re trying to find a happy medium here, so have another serving of Trevor Bauer (he will be missed).

 

Josh Donaldson vs. Jake Odorizzi

 

.259/.394/.815 – 33 PA, 7H, 5 HR, 7 RBI, 6 BB, 9 SO

 

Donaldson has been an absolute Twins killer over the years. However, the fact that he’s hit well at Target Field can now be viewed as a positive. And while he won’t be facing Jake Odorizzi this year (though that could change as Odorizzi will become a free agent in 2021), he may still face several other former Twins that he’s terrorized over the years, including Kyle Gibson and Martín Pérez.

 

Eddie Rosario vs. Josh Tomlin

 

.500/.500/.955 – 22 PA, 11H, 1 2B, 3 HR, 6 RBI, 3 SO

 

It was tempting to mix it up a bit and go with another Cleveland pitcher that Rosario has destroyed (Shane Bieber and Cody Allen fit the bill), but his largest sample size was against Tomlin (we’ve got principles) along with the best results. Speaking of principles, I promised my mother I would never reference Josh Tomlin more than twice in anything I write and my beer is empty, so it’s time to say goodbye.

 

P.S. Did you notice the ordering of the hitters doesn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason to it? Good job. You passed the test. Now go grab a beer, kick your shoes off, and enjoy that Trevor Bauer video. You’ve earned it!

 

MORE FROM TWINS DAILY

— Latest Twins coverage from our writers

— Recent Twins discussion in our forums

— Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email

 

Click here to view the article

[jimbo92107]

Been drinking a few daytime beers myself, which I hadn't done literally for decades. Also figured out that any decent IPA will make a tasteless Costco brat into a good beer brat. But you needn't bother, if you can find Johnsonville beer brats on the empty shelves of your local store. Oddly, I found a treasure trove of them at Target. 

 

How bored am I? I just watched Trevor Bauer's entire video, and I was almost sad to see it end. Do all pitchers agonize over at bats this way? 

[Darius]

The only thing better than morning beers is the afternoon nap that inevitably follows.

[DocBauer]

Ahhh....beer. Breakfast of champions.