So, I missed yesterday’s game because I went to the MN Swarm game with the SO and his entire family as part of his birthday celebrations… I have to give him a lot of credit because when we spotted TC Bear was in attendance, it was HIS idea to have us wait in the hallway for an opportunity to grab a picture since he knows how excited I am for baseball to start!!!
And Beloit is teasing us poor Minnesotans because they put in their homeplate today:
But back to the baseball game today! Yes, it’s another Monday Lunch broadcast on FSN.. I really don’t get it. Even the Red Sox announcers on Saturday night were commenting on the lack of MN broadcasts for important/watchable games. I really wish one of the insiders somewhere would find out what’s going on with the schedules and tell us why it’s been so … inscrutable.. during this year’s spring training.
A) it’s GREAT that we got the win!! Especially in the 9th inning after being down the whole game.
B) it was fun that it was the young guys that won’t be with us at the start of the season that got to have the glory. (This was Danny Lehmann’s SECOND walk-off hit in the past two weeks!)
C) Liriano had a great start! He needed to go 6 innings like this for me to feel a little bit better. He knows what to do to extend his starts deep into the game and I am glad to see him doing it.
Let’s be clear about one thing… the Twins’ ultimate success or failure is not going to be determined by who they leave Ft. Myers with as their last bench player or their last arm in the bullpen. That said, I think Ron Gardenhire’s decisions on those two spots were bad choices and he’s going to regret them at some point pretty soon.
This morning, reports from Ft. Myers are that Matt Tolbert has won the utility infield position and Luke Hughes has been optioned to Rochester. In addition, Jim Hoey has been sent down, so assuming Scott Diamond is either returned to Atlanta or kept via a trade of some sort, Glen Perkins, Jeff Manship and Dusty Hughes will fill out the bullpen.
I really don’t want to make too much of these final cuts because, as I said, the choices for the last cuts seldom play a major role in deciding a team’s ultimate fortunes. But I think not having Hoey and Luke Hughes around is going to cost a couple of ballgames.
Neither of those guys is destined for the Hall of Fame. There are reasons they were competing for the last roster spots and not headlining some team’s lineup. Hughes demonstrated he can hit big league fastballs very, very hard. He also demonstrated he can strike out a lot. Hoey showed he can throw a baseball harder than anyone in the Twins organization and maybe as hard as anyone in Major League Baseball. He also demonstrated he doesn’t always throw it exactly where it needs to be thrown. He’s not a prototypical Twins pitcher.
But think back to when everyone was assuming Jim Thome may be signing elsewhere and people thought the Twins should be looking for a right handed hitter with some pop in his bat. The guys people were writing about didn’t profile a whole lot differently than Luke Hughes. The first time a situation arises late in a game when a right handed pinch hitter with power would be nice to have and the best Gardy can do is send Matt Tolbert to the plate, people will be writing about how he could have had Luke Hughes available. I know they will, because I’ll be one of the people writing exactly that.
Same with Hoey. I know the Twins like to promote from within and there’s a lot of sentiment that it’s Jeff Manship’s “turn”. That’s fine. But there are going to be situations… probably many of them… when you want someone with high-90s velocity to take the mound. When you look to the bullpen and see a batch of middle relief arms that all throw the same low-mid 90s fastball, remember there WAS another option and he didn’t get the gig because he’s not the kind of pitcher Gardy and Rick Anderson “like”.
I hope both Hughes and Hoey take their demotions in stride, work their butts off and show the organization they made a couple of mistakes. Then when someone, hopefully, realizes they made those mistakes and brings those guys up, they take advantage the way Denard Span did when he was among the last cuts a couple of years ago. Hughes and Hoey could both still prove to be important cogs in the Twins machine if they go to work to improve their games… and the Twins braintrust wakes the hell up.
A) I just love that the regular season is less than a week away!!! I’m very excited about that.
B) Tonight’s game has the Mayor’s Cup riding on it – once again we’re down to a final game series decision. Since the Red Sox have won the last 4 years in a row, I really do think the Twins are due – I hope they play like it!
OK, maybe it doesn’t warrant THAT much enthusiasm, but since it’s the last Mayor’s Cup, it means the Twins take permanent possession right?
The Red Sox move to their new Lee County complex next season and apparently since it’s outside of Ft. Myers, itself, there will be a new trophy involved in the annual spring training series between the Twins and Red Sox.
I’m not sure if the late come from behind win for the Twins gives us much confidence when facing the Red Sox this season, but at the very least you have to like Rochester’s chances against Pawtucket! It also was pretty funny to see the young kids knock around old BitchSox closer Bobby Jenks, too.
I’ve already posted several photos taken during my trip to Ft. Myers, but I thought the weekend would be a good time to put up a couple of slideshows.
So here they are… old friends like Tom Kelly, Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Paul Molitor, and Tom Brunansky… future Twins like Aaron Hicks, Joe Benson, Max Kepler and James Beresford… along with all of the current Twins we’re going to be watching at Target Field all summer long. Most you will recognize instantly… others you’ll have to learn to get to know.
I would really like to see Baker have a good outing today as he’s been announced to close out our starting rotation. And I would also like to hear a little bit better baserunning than yesterday.
Well it’s fun to win, I wish we could have scored some more runs after that 2nd inning spectacular but knowing baseball, you take what you can get. It’s fun to see these guys just about ready. Baker still had the weakness for the long ball but the rest of his pitching was pretty good. I think Cuddyer and Morneau are still getting their rhythmn down on swinging the bat but it’s pretty obvious that the rest of the lineup is falling into tempo. So excited for the regular season!!!!
I’m not sure what, if any, media is carrying the Twins/Phillies game today or where exactly to go to find out. I know I’ll be having to follow on GameDay while I get some work done.
Several of the Twins’ regulars made the 2+ hour bus trip up the Florida Gulf Coast to Clearwater for the game today, including Lexi, Nishi, DY, Valencia, Cuddyer and Thome. It’s a little unusual to see Thome go for a bus ride in ST, but I imagine he wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to see old friends like Phillies manager, Charlie Manuel. I’m willing to bet that Thome and Cuddyer didn’t have to “double up” on the bus seats, though.
The bullpen is loaded today, as well, with Joe Nathan, Matt Capps, and Jose Mijares, in addition to Jim Hoey, Carlos Gutierrez and Glen Perkins, all making the trip to back up Nick Blackburn. This late in ST, though, you won’t necessarily see every pitcher get in to the game. It just kind of depends on how many innings Blackie goes.
This is another one of those funky AL @ NL games where the AL team is using a DH while the NL team wants to get their pitchers some ABs in preparation for the season.
Make no mistake, the worst part of spending a week hanging around the Twins Spring Training site in Ft. Myers is the first day back at work when you get home. But as bad as that is, it’s well worth it to have made the trip.
Channeling the inner child in me, today I thought I would reflect and write a bit about what I learned on my vacation, much the way my 2nd grade teacher asked the class to do upon the start of a new school year.
I attended five “official” spring training games, as well as parts of a few minor league games, several of which included appearances by various members of the Twins MLB club. I arrived at just about the right time to start getting looks at Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, who hadn’t taken part in games before I got down there. On the other hand, I only got to see Michael Cuddyer face minor league pitching and take batting practice (which, let’s face it, is pretty much the same thing for a hitter of Cuddyer’s abilities). So, what have I learned?
Tsuyoshi Nishioka looks like the real deal. He’s riding a ten game hitting streak and he’s been very impressive at second base. He and Alexi Casilla are looking very smooth turning double plays, as well.
There actually is a very real and very close competition for the utility infielder spot on the roster. Most of us just assumed Matt Tolbert would be handed the job, but Luke Hughes has hit five home runs and three doubles in 19 games. He’s also leading the team with 15 strikeouts, but the prospect of having a right handed hitter with some pop on the bench has to be pretty attractive for Ron Gardenhire. That said, over the past few days, it has been Tolbert that’s looking better at the plate and he’s certainly more accomplished and versatile with the glove. This race is still too close to call, though if I were the one getting to make the decision, I think having that strong righthanded bat available off the bench would nudge me in the direction of giving the job to Hughes.
Gardenhire has announced that Kevin Slowey is the odd man out of the rotation to start the season, assuming everyone stays healthy over the last week of Spring Training. That makes sense to me and Slowey is handling it like the classy professional he is. His shift to the bullpen means the competition is coming down to the wire for the three remaining spots in the pen.
Depending on which media outlet you read and on which day, any one of seven candidates are “likely” to claim one of those three roster spots. Here’s a rundown on the guys still competing for those spots, including the three that I believe should… and will… open the season in the Twins bullpen.
Scott Diamond, who is the Rule V draftee that the Twins took from the Braves, is a lefthanded pitcher that the Twins reportedly have long “liked”. I didn’t see enough of Diamond to really judge his abilities, but I don’t see much chance that he opens the season with the Twins. Ideally, they can send Atlanta a minor leaguer in exchange for the right to keep Diamond and send him to Rochester, but from what I’ve seen and read, if the Twins have to send him back to the Braves, it wouldn’t be a catastrophe.
I’ve seen articles indicating the Twins like Kyle Waldrop enough to keep him on the roster to open the season. Maybe. But if that’s the case, they sure have a funny way of showing it. He’s only pitched five innings in Spring Training (about half of what most of the other bullpen candidates have thrown) and while his numbers are impressive (no earned runs, 7 Ks, no walks), if they were serious about keeping him to open the season, I think they’d be giving him more opportunities to pitch. Let’s see how much work he gets in the next few games. UPDATE: mlb.com’s Rhett Bollinger reported Wednesday afternoon that the Twins announced Waldrop would be among a group of players who would make the trip to Atlanta for the final exhibition games and then be reassigned to a minor league team.
Jeff Manship is another guy who a lot of people seem to think will be sticking with the Big Club. I don’t see it, unless the Twins do trade Slowey before Opening Day. I see Slowey and Manship as potentially filling the same role in the bullpen and as long as Slowey is there, Manship would be redundent. Manship’s spring pitching line (6.30 ERA in 10 innings, 11 hits, 5 Ks, 3 BBs) just hasn’t been all that impressive when compared to some of the guys he’s competing with.
Carlos Gutierrez is the young, up and coming bullpen arm that Gardy has been hinting he’d like to keep around. It’s not going to happen. As long as there are other options, the front office is going to want to hold off on bringing Gutierrez up until at least June to keep his MLB service clock from starting until then. If he were head and shoulders better than any other option, you wouldn’t let the service time issue keep him down on the farm, but he’s not… so it will. UPDATE: mlb.com’s Rhett Bollinger reported Wednesday afternoon that, like Waldrop, the Twins announced Gutierrez would be among a group of players who would make the trip to Atlanta for the final exhibition games and then be reassigned to a minor league team on March 30.
That leaves these three guys as those I believe should, and will, fill those final three spots in the pen:
Glen Perkins is a guy a lot of Twins fans seem to love to hate. He’s certainly given plenty of reasons for us to doubt him over the past few years, but this spring, when asked to compete for a bullpen job, he’s done so and pitched well. He’s thrown 9 innings and has accumulated a 2.00 ERA, giving up 8 hits, striking out 6 and walking 3 hitters. I suggest fans put the past behind us and look forward to Perkins being in the Twins bullpen. He’s out of options and there’s no way he would clear waivers so the Twins would lose him if they don’t give him one of the bullpen spots. They could conceivably still trade him before Opening Day, but he’s clearly been one of the three best relief pitchers among the contenders listed here, so I expect #15 to open the season with the Twins.
The Twins are likely to open with three lefties in the pen because, in addition to Perkins and Jose Mijares, Dusty Hughes is going to make the team. The Twins snatched him off waivers from the Royals, largely because a number of Twins hitters confirmed to the staff that the guy is tough for them to hit. If the Twins’ own talented stable of lefthanded hitters think a pitcher is tough, he’s a guy worth taking a chance on. Hughes has proven worthy of their praise this spring, having yet to give up a run and allowing only six hits in 10 innings on the mound. He has walked five hitters, however, which matches the five he’s struck out.
That leaves one final spot and this is the spot I feel strongest about. The Twins need Jim Hoey in the bullpen.
Hoey, obtained from the Orioles as part of the JJ Hardy trade, got off to a bit of a slow start this spring in his first few appearances, but over the past week, he has demonstrated why the Twins wanted him. He brings one thing that none of the other Twins bullpen arms (or starting pitchers, for that matter) have… and that is overpowering velocity. While virtually every other pitcher on this list has a fastball that tops out in the low 90s, Hoey throws 95 mph… warming up. When he’s serious, he’ll fire in there somewhere in the 97-99 mph range. His issue, early in camp, was controlling that heat, but he’s been throwing his fastballs at the knees and if he can do that regularly, look for a lot of strikeouts, ground balls, and broken bats.
And here’s the thing… when you have a guy who’s 6′ 6″ and throws the ball almost 100 mph, you don’t really WANT him to have pinpoint control. The only chance 90% of Major League hitters have of hitting a ball traveling that fast on the sweet spot of the bat is if they can dig in and swing early. If the pitcher has a reputation for being jussssssst a little wild, not many hitters will be doing that “digging in” thing. We’re not talking Nuke LaLoosh wild here, either. TC Bear isn’t going to get beaned and John Gordon isn’t going to have to be ducking in the radio booth.
Finally, while not a lot has been written about it lately, a decision is going to have to be made with regard to whether Joe Nathan or Matt Capps starts the season as the Twins closer.
The sentimental favorite is Joe Nathan. He’s certainly earned the faith and loyalty of the Twins coaches, as well as the fans’ devotion. But, frankly, he just hasn’t pitched as well as Matt Capps this spring and unless something changes over the next week, I’d have to give the closing job to Capps while Nathan serves as the primary set up arm. Nathan has an 8.53 ERA and has given up seven hits and walked three, in just 6 and a third innings of work. Granted, a lot of the damage was inflicted in one very poor outing, but as much as I wanted to see the old Twitchy out there on the mound this past week, I don’t think he’s all the way back. Capps, on the other hand, has yet to give up a run in 7 and a third innings, allowing only four hits, not walking anyone, and striking out five hitters. Sentiment aside, Capps has earned the closer role, at this point.
In the end, here’s the main thing I learned on my vacation… looking at this lineup, and even at the quality of the players who will NOT make the Opening Day roster, I see a team with the potential to be very, very good.
If you’ve been paying attention to reports coming out of Ft. Myers for the past week or so, you’ve no doubt read or heard about various Twins playing in minor league games and perhaps you’ve wondered just exactly what that means… and why these established stars would be playing in minor league games.
It seems like there has been even more of that kind of thing this spring than normal and that’s probably due to a couple of reasons. First, so many Twins missed the first several spring training games and they need to get a few extra cuts in order to get their timing down. Second, the quirks of this spring’s schedule resulted in the Twins playing most of their games over the past week or so on the road and the organization hasn’t been anxious to make stars with various aches and pains compound those issues by spending several hours on buses crisscrossing the state of Florida.
But what exactly does it mean when it’s reported that Justin Morneau or Jim Thome is “2 for 4 in a minor league game”?
As I’ve mentioned in another post, the best way I can think of to describe what happens is to envision these Major Leaguers showing up to play in your Sunday afternoon beer-league softball game. The scattering of fans who happen to be hanging out around the minor league complex to watch their games get that kind of close-up view of whatever Major League Twins might be participating in a given day.
On Tuesday, before heading to the airport for my flight home, I stopped by the Twins minor league complex to watch a few innings of the games being played there. On this particular day, there were two games going on between the Low A and High A Twins and their counterparts from the Rays camp. Jim Thome DH’d in the Low A game, while Michael Cuddyer and Justin Morneau played RF and 1B, respectively, in the High A game.
They gave those fans in attendance plenty to watch.
You see, the Major Leaguers hit every inning. For example, in the High A game, Cuddyer and Morneau batted second and third… every inning for as long as they stayed around. That’s how these players get 4-5 plate appearances while only playing half the game.
If course, you have to curb your enthusiasm a bit when you hear that one of these guys launched a couple of home runs in one of these games (as Thome did in one such minor league game earlier this week), because they’re often facing 19-20 year old Class A pitchers who show up expecting to face guys destined for Beloit and find themselves trying to slip an inside fastball past MVPs and future Hall of Famers!
Of course, the games aren’t all you’ll see on the minor league complex. When I arrived, a familiar face was dragging the practice infield adjacent to the minor league clubhouse and an hour or so later, a Hall of Famer was hitting ground balls on that practice field to a couple of minor league first basemen.
All of this is just a long way of letting you know that, if you ever go down to Ft. Myers during Spring Training, only to find that the Twins are playing road games while you’re there, don’t let that dissuade you from checking out the action at the Lee County Sports Complex. Not only can you watch the Twins stars of tomorrow playing games there every afternoon, but you may get a closer look at some of the Twins’ stars than you’re ever likely to get anywhere else.
A few more pictures from the Tuesday minor league games… not much for zoom lenses needed for most of these pictures.
I think I saw something in Bradenton Monday that I haven’t seen at any of the other Spring Training games I’ve watched over the past week. There were, in fact, a few clouds in the sky. I had almost forgotten what they looked like, though I suspect I’m going to be reminded pretty dramatically in a few hours, when I get back to Iowa.
I also hadn’t seen Bert Blyleven yet down here until today, though I did see Dick Bremer behind the batting cage last week exchanging a man-hug with Hall of Famer (and Bremer’s former broadcast partner) Harmon Killebrew. Not only did Dick and Bert broadcast today’s game with the Pirates to the folks back home, but Bert also threw out the first pitch. I thought that was kind of cool, given that he did pitch for the Pirates and they took this opportunity to recognize Blyleven’s recent election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
This was my second opportunity to see Brian Duensing start a game on the mound and he looked sharper today. I know there’s a lot of healthy debate around Twinsville about whether Duensing should start the season in the rotation or the bullpen, but I’ve felt strongly all along that he should be in the rotation and I’ve seen nothing this week to change my mind. It allows Ron Gardenhire to go Righty-Lefty-Righty-Lefty-Righty with the rotation and assures that teams see a variety of looks during a three-game series.
Denard Span, Joe Mauer and Delmon Young were the only starting position players to make the 90 minute bus ride up to Bradenton for the game, but they gave the sizable contingent of Twins fans in the crowd plenty to cheer about. Span had a double in four ABs, while Mauer and Young each had two hits to lead the Twins 4-1 win over the Pirates.
The Bucs’ only run was unearned, which means that, once again, the whole parade of Twins pitchers shut down an opponent. Today, in addition to Duensing, that included Glen Perkins, Matt Capps, Carlos Gutierrez and Chuck James. The relief appearances were clean, though not dominating. Perkins had a couple of balls hit hard off of him, including a line drive to first base that became a double play ball. Gutierrez was getting ground balls, while James got all three outs on fly balls.
While the Twins travel to face the Marlins tomorrow, I’ll be heading home to Cedar Rapids. I don’t leave until the afternoon, though, so I may hang out for a while in the morning at the Twins practice facility and maybe even watch some minor league games. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the Twins playing in those games, while few of the regulars make the long drive across the state to Jupiter FL where the Marlins train.
I’ve had a lot of opportunities to watch a lot of baseball this week and I’ve drawn a few conclusions concerning what I think Gardy and the Twins will be doing about those few remaining roster spots that are still up in the air… and about what I think they SHOULD do (I wish they were the same thing, but they’re not). In any event, I’ll think a bit more about that stuff and throw a post up in the next couple of days with my thoughts.
It’s been a fun trip… as always. The weather has been terrific and while I’d love to hang around here and watch more baseball, it will also feel good to get home again (at least right up until the time I have to show up for work Wednesday morning).
With that, I’ll leave you with a few more pictures from my day in Bradenton.