Twins Video
Win Expectancy & Top 5 Plays Per WPA (via Fangraphs)
Santana just never seemed to be pitching with the count in his favor, and ended the evening with his shortest start of the season. Victor Martinez did the most damage, slugging a solo homer in the second before blasting a two-run bomb in the fourth.
This was Ervin’s 20th start of the year. He has given up two runs or fewer in 13 starts. He has given up five runs or more in seven starts. There is no in-between, he’s either been great or ghastly.
Zack Granite had a great game all around. He was 2-for-4, got his first career stolen base, scored a run and had an outfield assist. Ehire Adrianza, who’s getting more and more starts at shortstop of late, had a nice two-out, two-run single.
https://twitter.com/BaseballByTom/status/888587051905544192
Miguel Sano was 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run. The only extra-base hit the team could muster was a Joe Mauer double.
Matt Belisle was the first man out of the bullpen, and he was excellent. Really. He pitched 2.2 scoreless innings, gave up just one hit and struck out three hitters. He threw 36 pitches, which was the second time this season he broke 30. The last time Belisle had thrown more than 36 pitches was May 26, 2015.
Belisle hit a low point on June 11 when he gave up four runs to the Giants, seeing his ERA balloon to 8.59. In his 14 appearances since, the 37-year-old has given up five runs over 17.2 innings, just one of which was earned. He has a 0.51 ERA and 1.08 WHIP over that span.
What’s been the difference? Well, I’m sure it’s a combination of things, but he's clearly made adjustments. One thing I had noticed is that he’d been relying less on his slider and deploying his curve ball more frequently of late. Here’s a breakdown of Belisle’s pitch usage by month last season with Washington. Notice how he leaned more and more on his slider as the year progressed:
And here is a breakdown of this year. Notice how he has gradually gone away from throwing as many sliders:
In April, Belise threw 77 sliders and just 15 curve balls, in June that split was 54 to 28. But here's the weird thing, tonight he threw a ton of sliders, 18. Exactly half of his pitches. So maybe it's simply being less predictable and using a more diverse mix of pitches has helped Belise better keep hitters off balance.
Postgame With Santana
Bullpen Usage
Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days:
Saturday
Twins (Kyle Gibson) vs. Detroit (Jordan Zimmermann), 6:10 pm CT
Zimmermann is coming off a quality start, but over his past four appearances he’s given up 15 earned runs in 19.1 innings (6.98 ERA). In 10 starts on the road this year, the right-hander has just one win, a 6.29 ERA and a 1.62 WHIP. He’s held Brian Dozier and Joe Mauer to a combined .217 average (5-for-23) with no extra base hits or walks.
What can you say about Gibson at this point? We’ve seen him for 115 starts. He is what he is. Over his last five starts against Detroit, Gibby has yielded a 5.74 ERA with 19 strikeouts and 12 walks over 26.2 innings. Current Tigers hitters have a .267/.359/.398 (.756 OPS) line off Gibson.
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