Game Recap: Twins 8, White Sox 5

[Jamie Cameron]

The best start of Bailey Ober's young major league career paced the Minnesota Twins to a 8-5 win over the White Sox on Monday, just their second in ten tries against Chicago this season.

Box Score

Ober: 5.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 7 K

Home Runs: Kepler 2 (9)

Top 3 WPA: Ober .252, Rogers .226, Kepler .185

Win Probability Chart (via Fangraphs)

A sweltering Minneapolis evening was the scene of the tenth matchup of the season between the Twins and White Sox. It was Lynx night at Target Field, the Twins rose to the occasion of being in the presence of a successful Minnesota sports team.

Entering Monday’s contest, the Twins were a hapless 1-8 against the Sox in 2021. As has become custom in any 2021 Twins game, a review of the lineup was in order.

 

The Twins entered Monday missing Josh Donaldson, who is still dealing with hamstring soreness and recently 41 year old Nelson Cruz, struggling with a bad chest cough which led to a stiff neck (insert old person jokes here).

The only thing hotter than the oppressive Minneapolis temperatures Monday night was Bailey Ober, who came out of the blocks firing on all cylinders. With the earlier start time leading to tougher conditions for hitters seeing the ball out of the pitcher’s hand, Ober struck out five White Sox hitters looking in his first two innings. Ober, resembling an enormous, austere bird of prey on the mound, continues to show the stuff, the temperament, and plenty of flashes of excellent upside which should give Twins fans reason for optimism on a pitching staff which has dramatically lacked it in the first half of the season.

Meanwhile, White Sox starter Dylan Cease was less impressive: 

 

In the top of the second inning, Alex Kirilloff crushed a ground rule double to center field. Max Kepler immediately followed up with a 107 mph, 396 foot home run to right field, his eighth of the season, giving the Twins a 2-0 lead.

 

The Twins added on in the third, a Trevor Larnach single scoring Andrelton Simmons. Minnesota will have been disappointed however, not to add to their lead, with runners on the corners, one run in and nobody out. They headed to the fourth inning with a 3-0 lead.

Ober ran into trouble and began to run out of gas in the fifth. After two quick outs, a walk and a single gave the White Sox runners at the corners. Ober got Yoan Moncada to line out to right field to end the threat and put him in position for his first major league win.

 

Caleb Thielbar relieved Ober in the top of the sixth and immediately surrendered a monstrous solo home run to Jose Abreu, cutting the Twins lead to 3-1. Thielbar, however, recovered to strike out the side and preserve the Twins lead.

In the bottom of the sixth, the Twins led off with a hit batter (Kirilloff), a wild pitch, and a walk, leaving Kirilloff and Kepler on first and second with none out. Nick Gordon smoked a two run triple to the right center field gap, increasing the lead to 5-1 and knocking Cease out of the game. Gordon scored on a wild pitch to increase the lead to 6-1. Surely a safe lead, right? Wrong.

 

Thielbar struggled in the bottom of the seventh, giving up two doubles and a single back to back to trim the Twins lead to 6-3. Thielbar was replaced by Tyler Duffey. Duffey surrendered a two run triple to Yoan Moncada, cutting the lead to 6-5. The Twins bullpen, handed a 6-1 lead, again capitulated, again allowed every inherited runner to score in what has become a tiresome, never ending game to game groundhog day. Taylor Rogers relieved Duffey and struck out the next two batters, preserving a razor thin Twins lead at 6-5.

Rogers was back out for the eighth, and finished with four strikeouts in 1.2 innings pitched, lowering his ERA to 2.52. How isn’t this man an All Star? The Twins added to their lead in the eighth, Kepler hit his second home run of the night and Sano scored, stretching the lead to 8-5.

 

Hansel Robles came in to close the game in the 9th, ending the game on a Billy Hamilton double play, giving the Twins just their second victory of Chicago this season.

Finally, a challenge for the creative readers and writers of Twins Daily! Drop your suggestions for nicknames for the Kirilloff/Larnach duo in the comments.

 

Bullpen Usage Chart

	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN	MON	TOT
Jax	0	0	88	0	0	88
Rogers	0	22	0	20	31	73
Law	32	0	34	0	0	66
Robles	34	0	0	19	12	65
Alcala	19	0	0	18	0	37
Duffey	0	13	0	0	17	30
Thielbar	0	0	0	0	29	29
Coulombe	0	16	7	0	0	23
Colomé	0	17	0	0	0	17

What’s Next?

On Tuesday, the Twins will continue their three game set against the White Sox. José Berríos will take on Carlos Rodón. First pitch is at 7:10 CST.

 

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[darwin22]

Very nice to see one of our potential young guns, take a stand and show some backbone against the Sox.  Very impressive performance for Ober as his previous 2 starts were U-G-L-Y to put it nicely.  

Count me in the "Ober camp" as a legit option for our 2022 starting rotation.

Not intending to be overly negative, as I know Thielbar has been above average all season, but he sure appeared to be doing his best early season "Colome impression" in his 1 inning of work.  Not making the call right now, but with additional outings of this nature (hoping this is not the case), I believe Jovanni Moran would make a viable replacement.  

Always nice to see anyone against the Sox.

Nice to shut Ozzie Guillen's piehole...at least for 1 night.

 

[minman1982]

I was there tonight and it was a fun and exciting game.  A little bit of everything.  What was up with the White Sox backup catcher?  He allowed the Twins to advance four bases on passed balls.  What you probably didn't see on the television broadcast was that the Twins runners on bases clearly smelled the blood in the water and were taking huge secondary leads at every opportunity.  Gordon's triple was a thing of beauty.  I look forward to seeing him in the lineup for years to come.  I think Thielbar was left in too long and Duffey just looked terrible.  Rogers really deserves the credit for preserving the lead and saving the game.  Robles was alright but he had some margin of error to work with. 

What you are missing is the Sano at bat after Kirilloff's HBP and Kepler's walk.  Sano looked lost up there.  Sure, he got a hit later in the game and eventually scored a run but you need to advance the runners with two on, no one out in that situation.  Put the ball in play.  Don't worry about swinging for the fences.  Bunt the ball, if you need to.  I was not surprised he struck out on 3-2 (in fact, I commented to the person next to me that Sano wasn't going to take this pitch so why throw him something in the zone).  If I know it, every pitcher on the planet knows he wants to swing on that count and is going to throw him something low, probably out of the zone.  That is exactly what happened.  

[Whitey333]

Nice win.  I know it's only one but that's all we got last week.  Hope Berrios rebounds from his last start.  Trade deadline in about 3 weeks

[farmerguychris]

I like his starts, but is anyone else wondering if its just a matter of time until batters start to figure him out? His slider did look very legit at times last night however and that should continue to play well.  

 

[bighat]

Nice to see Kepler with those 2 HR and Sano with a 2-for-4 day. It wasn't long ago that we expected those guys to be the core of this lineup, the fact that our expectations are so low for those two is unfortunate. Maybe they can turn it around in this otherwise lost season.

Wish we could see Gordon every day. He didn't get an AB in the last Sox-Twins series, what a crime.

Can't go down the rabbit hole that is the Twins bullpen, but let's just say I don't think any Twins fan felt that a 6-1 lead was safe and we were all correct.

A win's a win. Go get 'em tonight.

[MABB1959]

They gave losing a good shot in the 7th!

[Dman]

I felt one of the bigger things that happened last night was Kepler's opposite field homer.  Nice to see he doesn't need to be pull happy to get them and the more he goes oppo I think his BABIP will improve and with it his average.  Here's hoping he has turned a corner.

[Dodecahedron]

39 minutes ago, Dman said:

I felt one of the bigger things that happened last night was Kepler's opposite field homer.  Nice to see he doesn't need to be pull happy to get them and the more he goes oppo I think his BABIP will improve and with it his average.  Here's hoping he has turned a corner.

Over the course of his career, Kepler's OPS has been too low considering the number of home runs he hits.  He is all power.  And, unfortunately, he doesn't have enough power to justify this being his hitting profile.

Kepler may need to do more than turn a corner.  Hopefully he is adjusting his approach.

[bean5302]

41 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

Over the course of his career, Kepler's OPS has been too low considering the number of home runs he hits.  He is all power...

Kepler gets a lot of flak on the forums for not being an All Star. I don't see him being the Twins' problem and his contract doesn't suggest to me he's being paid to be a core part of the lineup. If Kepler turns into his 2019 self, I think it's safe to say the Twins would have gotten one of the biggest steals in MLB at $7MM per year. Right now, today, he's an above average hitter for MLB in terms of wRC+, and it doesn't seem to me it should generally matter much where the production comes from. Kepler isn't an automatic out at the plate with a sky high strike out rate: he's not a swing at anything kind of guy as he walks quite a bit. Kepler's swing looks beautiful, but as a lot of analysis out there has shown, it doesn't travel through the contact zone as well as it looks and that leads to a lot more poor contact. My expectation is he's probably going to remain a relatively low average hitter with a bat somewhat above league average. I'm not sure what you're really wanting? .280/.360/.390 OPS = .750 instead of a normalish kind of line for him of like .225/.320/.430 = OPS .750?

[Dodecahedron]

2 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

Kepler gets a lot of flak on the forums for not being an All Star. I don't see him being the Twins' problem and his contract doesn't suggest to me he's being paid to be a core part of the lineup. If Kepler turns into his 2019 self, I think it's safe to say the Twins would have gotten one of the biggest steals in MLB at $7MM per year. Right now, today, he's an above average hitter for MLB in terms of wRC+, and it doesn't seem to me it should generally matter much where the production comes from. Kepler isn't an automatic out at the plate with a sky high strike out rate: he's not a swing at anything kind of guy as he walks quite a bit. Kepler's swing looks beautiful, but as a lot of analysis out there has shown, it doesn't travel through the contact zone as well as it looks and that leads to a lot more poor contact. My expectation is he's probably going to remain a relatively low average hitter with a bat somewhat above league average. I'm not sure what you're really wanting? .280/.360/.390 OPS = .750 instead of a normalish kind of line for him of like .225/.320/.430 = OPS .750?

I'm not giving him flak.  I agree he is a good baseline player and not a star.

What do I expect?  I expect a guy who hits 19/20 home runs to have a higher OPS+ than 95/97.  For 2019, I admit I have not done the research, but 36 home runs with an OPS+ of only 124 seems improbable if not bordering on impossible.  The rest of his game has to be sorely lacking to manage that!

For what it's worth, Kepler's 2020 and 2021 are now statistically identical, which is to say back at a decent baseline player, but it's been very feast-or-famine to get him here.  I think we'd all be a lot happier if he just showed consistency, we don't need him to be elite.

[chpettit19]

24 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

I'm not giving him flak.  I agree he is a good baseline player and not a star.

What do I expect?  I expect a guy who hits 19/20 home runs to have a higher OPS+ than 95/97.  For 2019, I admit I have not done the research, but 36 home runs with an OPS+ of only 124 seems improbable if not bordering on impossible.  The rest of his game has to be sorely lacking to manage that!

For what it's worth, Kepler's 2020 and 2021 are now statistically identical, which is to say back at a decent baseline player, but it's been very feast-or-famine to get him here.  I think we'd all be a lot happier if he just showed consistency, we don't need him to be elite.

For what it's worth, wRC+ (just easier for me to look up, but pretty in line with OPS+ stats) from 2019 had Kepler at 121. Tied with Story, Castellanos, and Schwarber. That's 35, 27, and 38 HR guys. Goldschmidt hit 34 HRs and had a 116 wRC+. Abreu 33 and 116. Lindor 32 and 115.

[Dodecahedron]

3 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

For what it's worth, wRC+ (just easier for me to look up, but pretty in line with OPS+ stats) from 2019 had Kepler at 121. Tied with Story, Castellanos, and Schwarber. That's 35, 27, and 38 HR guys. Goldschmidt hit 34 HRs and had a 116 wRC+. Abreu 33 and 116. Lindor 32 and 115.

Very good.  Thank you for looking that up.  Do those other players seem like empty power guys too?  I admit I don't know.

[bean5302]

4 hours ago, JW24 said:

All good points made by Nick, but I think he is missing one significant point, which is, what is the plan for Nelson Cruz next season? Assuming Cruz is not a Twin (though at this point, why not offer him a 5 year extension, the man is ageless), JD could slot into the DH role more regularly to try to keep him more available. Going into next season expecting a combination of Sano/Kepler/??? to take 650 plate appearances as DH is going to be a more significant production decline than JD to the 3B depth outlined in the article.

 

6 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

Very good.  Thank you for looking that up.  Do those other players seem like empty power guys too?  I admit I don't know.

Kepler's ISO in 2019 was .267, ranking 13th in MLB of 135 qualified batters. His wRC+ was 121 ranking 49th of 135.

In 2020, he ranked 48th and 82nd of 142, respectively.

This year, Kepler is at ISO .231 and wRC+ 101 ranking 37th and 132nd out of 217 batters with 200 plate appearances or more, respectively.

Kepler is not an empty power guy (assuming you mean HR or nothing), in my opinion. There are those handfuls of players with averages across the season significantly lower than Kepler with ISO's much higher and high K rates where it's a 2-3 outcome event at the plate. Kepler's K rate, typically, isn't bad and he usually has more doubles than HRs.

[Cap'n Piranha]

11 hours ago, minman1982 said:

I was there tonight and it was a fun and exciting game.  A little bit of everything.  What was up with the White Sox backup catcher?  He allowed the Twins to advance four bases on passed balls.  What you probably didn't see on the television broadcast was that the Twins runners on bases clearly smelled the blood in the water and were taking huge secondary leads at every opportunity.  Gordon's triple was a thing of beauty.  I look forward to seeing him in the lineup for years to come.  I think Thielbar was left in too long and Duffey just looked terrible.  Rogers really deserves the credit for preserving the lead and saving the game.  Robles was alright but he had some margin of error to work with. 

What you are missing is the Sano at bat after Kirilloff's HBP and Kepler's walk.  Sano looked lost up there.  Sure, he got a hit later in the game and eventually scored a run but you need to advance the runners with two on, no one out in that situation.  Put the ball in play.  Don't worry about swinging for the fences.  Bunt the ball, if you need to.  I was not surprised he struck out on 3-2 (in fact, I commented to the person next to me that Sano wasn't going to take this pitch so why throw him something in the zone).  If I know it, every pitcher on the planet knows he wants to swing on that count and is going to throw him something low, probably out of the zone.  That is exactly what happened.  

For his career, on AB's that get to a 3-2 count, Sano has 178 bb, 205 k's, and has put the ball in play 150 times, with 64 of those going for hits.  So...not quite the hacker you want to make him out to be.  In fact, if you look at the entire league since 2016, in PA's that go to 3-2, the league records outs 54.5% of the time (27.7% in play outs, 26.7% k's).  Sano records outs 54.6% of the time (16.3% in play outs, 38.3% k's).  In other words, Sano is essentially no different than the league at creating outs in 3-2 counts.

[Cap'n Piranha]

37 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

Very good.  Thank you for looking that up.  Do those other players seem like empty power guys too?  I admit I don't know.

As the league has shifted more towards hitting homeruns, the value of an individual homerun has decreased.  As such, hitting 35 homers no longer has the same impact as it once did, and since OPS+ compares a player to the rest of the league, it's not surprising that players hitting a lot of homeruns would not have huge OPS+ numbers, unlike players in the past who hit the same number of homers.

Think of it this way--if in 1980 you had 5 TV's in your house, that would be a ton of TV's, and would give you a high "TV+".  in 2021, you would still have a "TV+" above 100, but it would not be as dramatic, as most people now have at least 2 or 3 TV's in their house.

[Dodecahedron]

23 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

 

Kepler's ISO in 2019 was .267, ranking 13th in MLB of 135 qualified batters. His wRC+ was 121 ranking 49th of 135.

In 2020, he ranked 48th and 82nd of 142, respectively.

This year, Kepler is at ISO .231 and wRC+ 101 ranking 37th and 132nd out of 217 batters with 200 plate appearances or more, respectively.

Kepler is not an empty power guy (assuming you mean HR or nothing), in my opinion. There are those handfuls of players with averages across the season significantly lower than Kepler with ISO's much higher and high K rates where it's a 2-3 outcome event at the plate. Kepler's K rate, typically, isn't bad and he usually has more doubles than HRs.

OK, but take away those home runs and what happens to his wRC+?  That's the question.  We have to compare him to other players for that.  It seems there are Kepler-like players out there, so he's not a complete anomaly.

[Dodecahedron]

1 minute ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

As the league has shifted more towards hitting homeruns, the value of an individual homerun has decreased.  As such, hitting 35 homers no longer has the same impact as it once did, and since OPS+ compares a player to the rest of the league, it's not surprising that players hitting a lot of homeruns would not have huge OPS+ numbers, unlike players in the past who hit the same number of homers.

Think of it this way--if in 1980 you had 5 TV's in your house, that would be a ton of TV's, and would give you a high "TV+".  in 2021, you would still have a "TV+" above 100, but it would not be as dramatic, as most people now have at least 2 or 3 TV's in their house.

Yes, I am aware of these things, but what you may not realize you are saying is that this means Kepler's 36 home runs was an anomaly.  This narrative has the opposite effect you think it does.

[chpettit19]

50 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

Very good.  Thank you for looking that up.  Do those other players seem like empty power guys too?  I admit I don't know.

Schwarber is a slugger over a hitter, but the rest of them are very good all around hitters. Story will likely be the #1 FA this offseason and is currently the #1 trade target. Lindor just got paid a boatload. Goldschmidt is a perennial MVP candidate (although he's not the same player anymore, getting old). Abreu won the AL MVP last "season." Castellanos is hit over power, but also brings the boom pretty good. A team with those 6 at the top of their order is sitting very well in terms of all around hitting and power.

[Cap'n Piranha]

9 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

Yes, I am aware of these things, but what you may not realize you are saying is that this means Kepler's 36 home runs was an anomaly.  This narrative has the opposite effect you think it does.

I was saying nothing of the kind.  I was saying anyone hitting 36 homers in today's game will have a lower OPS+ than someone hitting 36 homers 20+ years ago did.  I do think that Kepler had has one big year in 2019, when all the stars aligned for any number of players, and I would be surprised to see him hit 36 again, but that in no way correlates to my point that Kepler's OPS+ was not too low for a guy who hit 36 homers.

[Cap'n Piranha]

14 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

OK, but take away those home runs and what happens to his wRC+?  That's the question.  We have to compare him to other players for that.  It seems there are Kepler-like players out there, so he's not a complete anomaly.

Almost any batter's wRC+ without homers is going to be horrific, as homers carry the most weight in wOBA (which is what wRC+ is based on).  If you're saying that Kepler's 2019 wRC+ was anomalous due to a skewed HR ratio, then I would respond that we should instead be looking at his whether his HR rate would be expected to continue.  As it turns out, the 18% HR/FB rate Kepler has in 2019 has not recurred, probably due to Kepler's failure to maintain the 40%+ hard hit rate he managed in 2019.  As such, I think we can all stop waiting for 5 WAR Kepler to come back, but appreciate that he's still 2-3 WAR Kepler, which is perfectly acceptable for a guy who slots in the bottom half of your order, and is only owed $15Mish over the next 2 years.

[Dodecahedron]

1 hour ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

I was saying nothing of the kind.  I was saying anyone hitting 36 homers in today's game will have a lower OPS+ than someone hitting 36 homers 20+ years ago did.  I do think that Kepler had has one big year in 2019, when all the stars aligned for any number of players, and I would be surprised to see him hit 36 again, but that in no way correlates to my point that Kepler's OPS+ was not too low for a guy who hit 36 homers.

You only unpacked half the box.

Finishing the thought:  36 home runs is not very valuable, and thus, Kepler is less valuable.

[Dodecahedron]

1 hour ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Almost any batter's wRC+ without homers is going to be horrific, as homers carry the most weight in wOBA (which is what wRC+ is based on).  If you're saying that Kepler's 2019 wRC+ was anomalous due to a skewed HR ratio, then I would respond that we should instead be looking at his whether his HR rate would be expected to continue.  As it turns out, the 18% HR/FB rate Kepler has in 2019 has not recurred, probably due to Kepler's failure to maintain the 40%+ hard hit rate he managed in 2019.  As such, I think we can all stop waiting for 5 WAR Kepler to come back, but appreciate that he's still 2-3 WAR Kepler, which is perfectly acceptable for a guy who slots in the bottom half of your order, and is only owed $15Mish over the next 2 years.

Thank you for repeating what I said, but with more words.

[KirbyDome89]

15 hours ago, darwin22 said:

Not intending to be overly negative, as I know Thielbar has been above average all season, but he sure appeared to be doing his best early season "Colome impression" in his 1 inning of work.  Not making the call right now, but with additional outings of this nature (hoping this is not the case), I believe Jovanni Moran would make a viable replacement.  

He's allowed 71% of his inherited runners to score this season. I'm sure that's factored into some performance metrics already but it's a pretty atrocious stat line if we're talking about somebody as being above average. 

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, Dodecahedron said:

You only unpacked half the box.

Finishing the thought:  36 home runs is not very valuable, and thus, Kepler is less valuable.

36 homeruns tied him for 18th in baseball in homeruns in 2019. Feels a little extreme to say they're not very valuable. They don't make him a superstar on their own (which I've never seen anyone on these forums claim him to be), but they were, and are, certainly valuable. If your 6,7,8,9 hole hitter (where Kepler belongs in a good lineup) is hitting 36 jacks a year you're in very good position as an offense.

[Cap'n Piranha]

2 hours ago, Dodecahedron said:

You only unpacked half the box.

Finishing the thought:  36 home runs is not very valuable, and thus, Kepler is less valuable.

Fully explaining the thought: 36 homeruns is quite valuable, just not as valuable as it used to be.

Put another way--$1M is still a large amount of money, just not quite as large as it was in 1980.

[Cap'n Piranha]

2 hours ago, Dodecahedron said:

Thank you for repeating what I said, but with more words.

Certainly not repeating what you said, as what you said was Kepler gets too much of his value from homeruns to be considered a good player.

I said that if Kepler stops hitting homers (which seems likely, given the stats I referenced), he goes from being All-Star caliber to simply solid regular, which still has value for the current iteration of the Twins.

Perhaps if you'd used more words, you'd have arrived at the same, nuanced, conclusion.

[Dodecahedron]

16 hours ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Certainly not repeating what you said, as what you said was Kepler gets too much of his value from homeruns to be considered a good player.

I said that if Kepler stops hitting homers (which seems likely, given the stats I referenced), he goes from being All-Star caliber to simply solid regular, which still has value for the current iteration of the Twins.

Help me out here guys.  Are these the same thing?

This is what you just wrote.

"You said:  Kepler gets too much value from home runs.
I said:  Kepler is less valuable when he hits fewer home runs."

His "solid regular" v. "not a good player" might be the line you are trying to draw?  For what it's worth, and I said this more than once on the forums yesterday, Kepler needs to show consistency to be a "solid regular."  He can't keep sucking for months and then power himself back up to a  "solid regular" statline.  This is why it's important to look deeper at a player.  Kepler has been anything but solid this year, his numbers only look "average" because of his performance this week.

Generally speaking, people don't like it when you try to put words in their mouths.  I would avoid that.