Game Recap: Twins 8, Cleveland 2

[Matthew Lenz]

The Twins beat Cleveland taking the rubber match of what turned into a three game series and improving to 7-3 in their last 10 games. J.A. Was dealing and the offense was bombing…that and more in today’s recap!

Box Score

J.A. Happ: 6.0 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 7 K (65.7% strikes)

Homeruns: Simmons (3), Donaldson (11), Cruz (17)

Top 3 WPA:

Win Probability Chart (via Fangraphs)

Happ First Quality Start Since April 28th

It’s been an up and (mostly) down year for Happ but the lefty was dealing today en route to his fourth victory on the season. Originally slated to face the White Sox on Monday, who slaughter left-handed pitching, he was bumped up a day to face a much less powerful Cleveland team. Turned out to be a smart move as Happ struck out his second most batters of the season by living on the edge of the strike zone.

His lone mistake was to former Twins Catcher, Rene Rivera, when he left a 91 mile per hour fastball middle-middle on an 0-2 count.

Whether you still believe in the 2021 Twins or believe them to be sellers, Happ will need more strong outings like the one he had today to be of value to the Club. Speaking of, one way or another, providing value to the Club...Tyler Duffey came in and pitched a scoreless seventh inning lowering his June ERA to 2.00 but has yet to have the strikeout numbers he boasted over the last two seasons. Hey, if you're getting outs then who cares how you do it but worth noting his strikeout numbers remain down despite a significant improvement from May to June. Finally, Caleb Thielbar came on in the 8th to pitch two scoreless, hitless innings to seal the victory for the Twins.

Twins Offense Blasts Off

Andrelton Simmons ignited the Bomba Squad with a two-run homerun to the left field bleachers in the second, which was followed up with Donaldson and Cruz second deck, no-doubters in the third and fourth, respectively.

Homeruns accounted for three of the seven hits and six of the eight runs on the day, while the Cleveland pitching staff helped the Twins by walking eight base runners. Of those eight walks, you might be surprised that Miguel Sańo had two free passes on the day AND didn’t strike out!

In all, rookie outfielder Gilbert Celestino, was the only Twins batter to not reach base today while Cruz and Arraez were the only other Twins to not reach base twice.

Bullpen Usage Chart

	MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SUN	TOT
Jax	0	0	0	0	75	0	75
Coulombe	0	16	0	0	32	0	48
Colomé	7	30	0	0	7	0	44
Shoemaker	32	0	0	11	0	0	43
Thielbar	19	12	0	4	0	30	35
Rogers	16	0	0	8	9	0	33
Robles	0	21	0	0	10	0	31
Alcalá	20	0	0	10	0	0	30
Duffey	0	11	0	0	0	23	11

 

The Twins will continue facing AL Central foes for their next 14 games heading into the All-Star Break on Monday, July 12th. If there are still those of you out there that believe in this club, the Twins likely need to go at least 10-4 to while getting within single digits of the division lead.

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[insagt1]

If Sox lose the 2nd game today and the Twins move to 10 1/2 behind...there is this: an improbable sweep of the Sox could  get them to within 6 1/2. If that happens, I have to believe the narrative must change. Thats not an insurmountable mountain to climb. If they win 3 of 4, they will be 8 1/2 behind. Still not undoable, but certainly more difficult. Anything else would basically be marching in step, going nowhere.

These next 4 games are pretty important for a team trying to find itself. Should be very interesting. Can't give up hope.

[insagt1]

22 minutes ago, Matthew Lenz said:

The Twins beat Cleveland splitting the two-game series and improving to 7-3 in their last 10 games. J.A. Was dealing and the offense was bombing…that and more in today’s recap!

Box Score

J.A. Happ: 6.0 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 7 K (65.7% strikes)

Homeruns: Simmons (3), Donaldson (11), Cruz (17)

Top 3 WPA:

Win Probability Chart (via Fangraphs)

Happ First Quality Start Since April 28th

It’s been an up and (mostly) down year for Happ but the lefty was dealing today en route to his fourth victory on the season. Originally slated to face the White Sox on Monday, who slaughter left-handed pitching, he was bumped up a day to face a much less powerful Cleveland team. Turned out to be a smart move as Happ struck out his second most batters of the season by living on the edge of the strike zone.

His lone mistake was to former Twins Catcher, Rene Rivera, when he left a 91 mile per hour fastball middle-middle on an 0-2 count.

Whether you still believe in the 2021 Twins or believe them to be sellers, Happ will need more strong outings like the one he had today to be of value to the Club. Speaking of, one way or another, providing value to the Club...Tyler Duffey came in and pitched a scoreless seventh inning lowering his June ERA to 2.00 but has yet to have the strikeout numbers he boasted over the last two seasons. Hey, if you're getting outs then who cares how you do it but worth noting his strikeout numbers remain down despite a significant improvement from May to June. Finally, Caleb Thielbar came on in the 8th to pitch two scoreless, hitless innings to seal the victory for the Twins.

Twins Offense Blasts Off

Andrelton Simmons ignited the Bomba Squad with a two-run homerun to the left field bleachers in the second, which was followed up with Donaldson and Cruz second deck, no-doubters in the third and fourth, respectively.

Homeruns accounted for three of the seven hits and six of the eight runs on the day, while the Cleveland pitching staff helped the Twins by walking eight base runners. Of those eight walks, you might be surprised that Miguel Sańo had two free passes on the day AND didn’t strike out!

In all, rookie outfielder Gilbert Celestino, was the only Twins batter to not reach base today while Cruz and Arraez were the only other Twins to not reach base twice.

Bullpen Usage Chart

 

	MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SUN	TOT
Jax	0	0	0	0	75	0	75
Coulombe	0	16	0	0	32	0	48
Colomé	7	30	0	0	7	0	44
Shoemaker	32	0	0	11	0	0	43
Thielbar	19	12	0	4	0	30	35
Rogers	16	0	0	8	9	0	33
Robles	0	21	0	0	10	0	31
Alcalá	20	0	0	10	0	0	30
Duffey	0	11	0	0	0	23	11

 

The Twins will continue facing AL Central foes for their next 14 games heading into the All-Star Break on Monday, July 12th. If there are still those of you out there that believe in this club, the Twins likely need to go at least 10-4 to while getting within single digits of the division lead.

 

View full article

 

Didn't Twins win this series 2-1? Lost 4-1, then won next 2?

[mnfireman]

This..... the Twins likely need to go at least 10-4

[sampleSizeOfOne]

41 minutes ago, insagt1 said:

Didn't Twins win this series 2-1? Lost 4-1, then won next 2?

All depends how you look at it. 

They split a two game series Thursday-Friday, then they won a one game series Sunday. 

 

Or maybe not playing is obviously not winning, so they split the four game series? That has one yet to be made up?

 

Whatever. Confusing, and i certainly didn't help. Just glad we won.

[Monticore]

Is Buxton out for the season?

[Dan Engebretson]

1 hour ago, insagt1 said:

If Sox lose the 2nd game today and the Twins move to 10 1/2 behind...there is this: an improbable sweep of the Sox could  get them to within 6 1/2. If that happens, I have to believe the narrative must change. Thats not an insurmountable mountain to climb. If they win 3 of 4, they will be 8 1/2 behind. Still not undoable, but certainly more difficult. Anything else would basically be marching in step, going nowhere.

These next 4 games are pretty important for a team trying to find itself. Should be very interesting. Can't give up hope.

To clarify, if the Twins do take 4 from the Sox the Twins would be 6.5 games behind the Sox, not necessarily 6.5 games out of first.  If Cleveland has a synchronous 4 game win streak with the Twins, then the Twins would be 9 games behind Cleveland (9 games is the current deficit between Cleveland and the Twins) and Cleveland would be the division leader (nobody could overtake them).

But, your point is spot on; to have any chance the Twins must win the games they play.  How many games you must win gets murky when there are multiple teams between you and first place.

[Tibs]

The Twins after going 7-2 in their last 9 games

 

[Otto von Ballpark]

White Sox won their nightcap, although a late 7-1 lead turned into a save situation and they had to use Hendriks to close it out, final 7-5.

Twins are 11.5 games back, same as KC and DET. (Tied with KC for last place, percentage points behind DET.)

[Matthew Lenz]

2 hours ago, insagt1 said:

Didn't Twins win this series 2-1? Lost 4-1, then won next 2?

Yes, thank you!! Fixed.

[theBOMisthebomb]

"If there are still those of you out there that believe in this club, the Twins likely need to go at least 10-4 to while getting within single digits of the division lead."

 

? Don't stop believin'
Hold on to that feelin'
Streetlights, people
Don't stop, believin'
Hold on
Streetlights, people

Don't stop believin'
Hold on to that feelin'
Streetlights, people ?

[VivaBomboRivera!]

9 hours ago, insagt1 said:

Can't give up hope.

[roger]

Read in the Strib about Donaldson's pregame talk to the team.  Yes, they play Chicago ten times in the coming weeks.  Win 7 and there could be hope.  But if they don't win 7 or more, hopefully, that will be the final deciding factor for management to get to work on the phones.

The best news that came out of Sunday's game for me was the fine start by Happ.  Another game or two like that over the coming weeks and he just might have created some value.

[Dodecahedron]

2 hours ago, roger said:

Read in the Strib about Donaldson's pregame talk to the team.  Yes, they play Chicago ten times in the coming weeks.  Win 7 and there could be hope.  But if they don't win 7 or more, hopefully, that will be the final deciding factor for management to get to work on the phones.

The best news that came out of Sunday's game for me was the fine start by Happ.  Another game or two like that over the coming weeks and he just might have created some value.

Winning 7 out of 10 sounds nice, but they really need to sweep.  Winning 7 would only move them up 2 games from splitting the series. 

[MN_ExPat]

[Otto von Ballpark]

2 hours ago, Dodecahedron said:

Winning 7 out of 10 sounds nice, but they really need to sweep.  Winning 7 would only move them up 2 games from splitting the series. 

Because it's head to head, moving up 2 games from 5-5 to 7-3 would be a net 4 game gain in the standings.

11.5 out now, so we'd still need to make up an additional 7.5 games outside the head-to-head games, which won't be easy. But if CHW is struggling enough to lose 7 of 10 to us (with 7 of those games in Chicago), it's possible. (FWIW, we've made up 4.5 games over our last 8.)

[Dodecahedron]

9 minutes ago, Otto von Ballpark said:

Because it's head to head, moving up 2 games from 5-5 to 7-3 would be a net 4 game gain in the standings.

11.5 out now, so we'd still need to make up an additional 7.5 games outside the head-to-head games, which won't be easy. But if CHW is struggling enough to lose 7 of 10 to us (with 7 of those games in Chicago), it's possible. (FWIW, we've made up 4.5 games over our last 8.)

Yes, but let's full picture this.  4 games with each team moving 2 games closer to .500.  The Twins moving up merely 2 games does nothing for the Twins prospect of coming back.  Going 7-3 is nice, but it does little to change the trajectory of either team.  If the Twins are going to take any real ground, they have to sweep.

[Otto von Ballpark]

43 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

Yes, but let's full picture this.  4 games with each team moving 2 games closer to .500.  The Twins moving up merely 2 games does nothing for the Twins prospect of coming back.  Going 7-3 is nice, but it does little to change the trajectory of either team.  If the Twins are going to take any real ground, they have to sweep.

I'm not sure the point of the .500 framing? We need to gain ground on Chicago, not on .500 (.500 is just a marker along the way). Twins moving up 2 games and the White Sox simultaneously moving down 2 games is a 4 game swing.

The Twins are 11.5 games back of Chicago with 86 games to play. It's a tall order any way you slice it, but it's simply not reasonable to demand they must make up 87% of their deficit over just 12% of the remaining games. Comebacks like this generally don't happen all at once. 2006 Twins were 11 games back on this date, and went 6-4 in their remaining 10 games with 1st place Detroit, and 8-4 vs 2nd place Chicago. (And before anyone chimes in that the 2006 Twins were better than the 2021 club, sure they were, but the point is their standing relative to 1st and 2nd place, not absolute team quality. FWIW, 2006 Detroit and Chicago were better than their 2021 counterparts Chicago and Cleveland too.)

7-3 is simply a baseline for this 10 game slice, to get back in the hunt. (More wins are always better, of course.) If you set the bar at 10-0, just save us all the time and say it's impossible -- you wouldn't be the only one saying that.

[Otto von Ballpark]

We're 11.5 games back with 86 remaining.

If we can go 7-3 vs Chicago,

then we have 76 games to make up the other 7.5.

Still a tall order, like I said, but if these Twins actually have it in them to take 7 of 10 from Chicago (with 7 of those 10 games *in* Chicago), and Chicago has it in them to lose those games, then a 7.5 game swing over the other 76 games is not insurmountable. (Not likely, of course, but we're well beyond the point where a comeback is likely. We just have to chip away.)

[Dodecahedron]

1 hour ago, Otto von Ballpark said:

I'm not sure the point of the .500 framing? We need to gain ground on Chicago, not on .500 (.500 is just a marker along the way). Twins moving up 2 games and the White Sox simultaneously moving down 2 games is a 4 game swing.

Without going too long into it....

7-3 moves each team 2-games toward the median.  

7-3 - 2 games moving toward or away from the median.  Normal baseball, within a standard deviation for a ten game stretch.
8-2 - 3 games moving toward or away from the median.  Good for one team, not good for another.
9-1 - 4 games moving toward or away from the median.  Very good for one team, terrible for another.
10-0 - 10 games moving toward or away from the median.  Eye opening, season-defining.

Look at that jump in value.  10-0 is 2.5 times more valuable than 9-1.  It takes 50 games of winning at a 7-3 pace to be as valuable as going 10-0 in ten.

It's not as simple as "Beating the Sox" for the Twins.  The Twins have to surpass Winning % X to get into the playoffs.  "Beating the Sox" has the additional benefit of lowering X, but that won't be lowered by 10 games even if the Twins win them all.  Right now, the Sox are 3 games over the Indians, so "Beating the Sox" becomes less useful should the Twins go as low as 8-2 against them, assuming the Indians go 5-5.  If the Twins go 7-3, it would take luck for the Twins to gain ground if the goal is to make the playoffs.  7-3 might replace the antagonist for a moment, with bad luck because it means the Indians played well, but that is all.

[Otto von Ballpark]

9 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

If the Twins go 7-3, it would take a lot of luck for the Twins to gain significant ground at all if the goal is to make the playoffs.

I mean, no one disputes that it will take a lot of luck (plus improved play) to come back at this point.

Your 10-0 vs Chicago, with 7 of those games on the road, would represent an incredible concentration of luck and improved play. It would be great if they can do it, and they should obviously try to win as many as possible, but no, they don't "need" to do that unless you just mean to say a comeback is impossible. Very few 3 month comebacks in history have had that concentration of luck and improved play.

I think 7-3 over those 10 games represents the *minimum* amount of luck and improved play (and poor play, from Chicago's perspective) necessary to give us a fighting chance. That would leave a deficit of 7.5 for the remaining 76 games, or the need to make up 1 game on average per 10 games. If we can do that through August 11 (the end of our season series with Chicago), we'll be 4.5 games behind them with 46 to play. We've already made up 4.5 games over our last 8. Cleveland will be another hurdle, but like I said, fighting chance.

I've heard Chicago announcers making the same argument in reverse -- they really want to split the 4 game series this week to keep the Twins down and put a stop to their recent slide. They'll still be the favorite regardless, but they're not going to be comforted if they only win 1 out of 4 at home.

[Aerodeliria]

14 hours ago, Dodecahedron said:

Winning 7 out of 10 sounds nice, but they really need to sweep.  Winning 7 would only move them up 2 games from splitting the series. 

Yeah, there is massive scale problem when comparing being 5 or 6 games and 11.5 games back. Some may scoff, but IMHO it would take 8 of 10 for a serious chance--and even then, the Twins would have to start winning almost every series they played and get some help from other teams. When thinking about playing the Chisox, winning 7 against the Pale Hose would still mean 7.5 games adrift while winning 8 would mean 4.5 games back. In years past, when the Twins were in first place, I never worried about teams unless they were fewer than 5 games back because it seems to be very difficult to make up ground when for any team that is more than 5 games back.

[Dodecahedron]

15 hours ago, Otto von Ballpark said:

I mean, no one disputes that it will take a lot of luck (plus improved play) to come back at this point.

Your 10-0 vs Chicago, with 7 of those games on the road, would represent an incredible concentration of luck and improved play. It would be great if they can do it, and they should obviously try to win as many as possible, but no, they don't "need" to do that unless you just mean to say a comeback is impossible. Very few 3 month comebacks in history have had that concentration of luck and improved play.

I think 7-3 over those 10 games represents the *minimum* amount of luck and improved play (and poor play, from Chicago's perspective) necessary to give us a fighting chance. That would leave a deficit of 7.5 for the remaining 76 games, or the need to make up 1 game on average per 10 games. If we can do that through August 11 (the end of our season series with Chicago), we'll be 4.5 games behind them with 46 to play. We've already made up 4.5 games over our last 8. Cleveland will be another hurdle, but like I said, fighting chance.

I've heard Chicago announcers making the same argument in reverse -- they really want to split the 4 game series this week to keep the Twins down and put a stop to their recent slide. They'll still be the favorite regardless, but they're not going to be comforted if they only win 1 out of 4 at home.

No disagreement there.  7-3 would be the minimum, but the Twins need more than the minimum.

It may be true that they would be 7.5 games back, and would have many games to pick that up.  But they would be 7.5 games back on that day only.  If the Sox or Indians are better than .500 the rest of the season, the Twins will have to make those games up too.  Plus, the Twins would also still be competing with themselves, as any game they lose they would also have to make up.  

[Otto von Ballpark]

6 hours ago, Aerodeliria said:

When thinking about playing the Chisox, winning 7 against the Pale Hose would still mean 7.5 games adrift while winning 8 would mean 4.5 games back

8 of 10 would be 5.5 games back. not 4.5.

[Otto von Ballpark]

I think we're talking about different things. If the Twins swept 10 out of 10 from the White Sox, even though it wouldn't erase the full current 11.5 game deficit, the Twins would be considered the favorites at that point -- it would obviously signify a massive CWS collapse and MIN turnaround. Heck, we might have a commanding lead by Sep. 1st in that scenario. 9-1 might have similar effects. Even 8-2 would mean at least one MIN sweep of CWS on the road -- CWS would still be favored but it would be a dramatic shift.

But my threshold here isn't a dramatic shift from just 10 games. Would be great if that happened, but that's probably not realistic with an 11.5 game deficit, and not how these comebacks generally go:

1978 Yankees went 7-3 vs BOS during their comeback

1995 Mariners went 2-3 vs the Angels in theirs

2012 A's went 7-6 in their final 13 games vs TEX

And I've already posted about the 2006 Twins comeback vs DET/CWS

So that's why I set the "getting back in the race" / " not quite done" threshold at 7-3. 7-3 won't give us good playoff odds, we'd require luck and good performance in our remaining games, and we'd still more than likely fall short in the end, maybe even require a game 163 -- that's just the reality of comeback attempts like this --  but it would represent a start at the attempt. (Obviously more wins beyond this threshold would be great, and we shouldn't concede any of these 10 games just because we hit the threshold early!)

* And that 7-3 assumes an even distribution of wins across series -- sweeping them 3-0 in August after a 4-3 July might be too little, too late. Really, we'd need to be at least 5-2 vs CWS through July 21, and make up another game or two outside of head-to-head games by that point too. Then buy at the trade deadline and try to keep it up through August and September.

[Dodecahedron]

True, but one other problem....

At 7-3, the Twins still sell at the trade deadline.

[Otto von Ballpark]

1 minute ago, Dodecahedron said:

True, but one other problem....

At 7-3, the Twins still sell at the trade deadline.

Only 7 of the 10 games vs CWS are before the trade deadline anyway.

But as I alluded to at the end of my previous post, if we can climb to around 6.5 games out after July 21st as the deadline approaches (likely aided by 5-2 or better vs CWS), I'm not convinced the 2021 Twins will be sellers. We were sellers in that range in 2017-2018 but we were in a different phase of the cycle then (pre-Donaldson, lots of young players, etc.). Selling in that spot in 2021 (or just failing to get back in the race) may just be setting up the front office and/or coaching staff to lose their jobs if 2022 isn't a massive rebound.

I think they've got to try to make a good run here at the end of 2021, even if they ultimately fall short, to reclaim a little leash for 2022.

[Dodecahedron]

9 minutes ago, Otto von Ballpark said:

Only 7 of the 10 games vs CWS are before the trade deadline anyway.

But as I alluded to at the end of my previous post, if we can climb to around 6.5 games out after July 21st as the deadline approaches (likely aided by 5-2 or better vs CWS), I'm not convinced the 2021 Twins will be sellers. We were sellers in that range in 2017-2018 but we were in a different phase of the cycle then (pre-Donaldson, lots of young players, etc.). Selling in that spot in 2021 (or just failing to get back in the race) may just be setting up the front office and/or coaching staff to lose their jobs if 2022 isn't a massive rebound.

I think they've got to try to make a good run here at the end of 2021, even if they ultimately fall short, to reclaim a little leash for 2022.

You're too fixated on GB.  If the Twins are 6.5 games out, the Twins are under .500.  Under .500 teams do not consider themselves in the hunt.

[Otto von Ballpark]

1 minute ago, Dodecahedron said:

You're too fixated on GB.  If the Twins are 6.5 games out, the Twins are under .500.  Under .500 teams do not consider themselves in the hunt.

I think you're too fixated on .500.

.500 isn't great but it's not particularly meaningful without context. Not all .500 teams/records are in equal circumstances.

The Twins would still be under .500 through July 21st with a 15-6 run in our next 21 games. But a 9-10 White Sox record in the same time period (with Cleveland no better than 11-8) would put us 6.5 games back. I highly doubt the Twins FO would say "welp, under .500, have to sell" at that point. At the very least, they'd let things play out closer to July 30.

2017-2018, they may approach that record with an eye to sell, but not 2021 -- they've invested too much in contending already this season to give up that easily.

[Dodecahedron]

9 minutes ago, Otto von Ballpark said:

2017-2018, they may approach that record with an eye to sell, but not 2021 -- they've invested too much in contending already this season to give up that easily.

The safer way to recoup their investment is to sell things.  Remember, this is a business.