Ok, it’s finally absolutely GORGEOUS in MN for a baseball game!! Seriously, our boys aren’t going to recognize Target Field!
JC made the trip up from Cedar Rapids in order to snag himself a Willinghammer bobblehead – glad he gets a nice night to watch baseball. Of course, I am not going to see it since we have a bunch of running around to – at least we’re doing all that on the motorcycle!
At any rate, with Pelfrey on the mound, I might have a chance to catch the second half when we get back around.. oh… 9’ish. But I’m going to hope that he will maintain the improved pace he showed on Sunday. *crosses fingers*
I know this isn’t something I should admit but … yeah, I fell asleep somewhere around the 7th. It was still tied last I saw the score but things weren’t headed in the right direction. Of course, given the lead that they had had when I got home, it hadn’t been going the right direction for some time. Granted, they didn’t lose the game until overtime play in the 10th inning but still.
Let’s just say that the later innings last night were just not impressive for Twins baseball fans – either on the mound, at the plate, or in the field. There were LOTS of mistakes and sloppy play from a lot of players – whether they have an excuse or not. And that’s just what I SAW! I didn’t even see the end where we allowed the Orioles three more runs, the lead and the win! That tells me 9 unanswered runs came out of the Baltimore lineup … ouch. It might have been gorgeous weather for baseball but the baseball part of it sure wasn’t pretty. Sorry JC.
The final game of the series – almost here since it’s hard to give you guys much notice with these 6pm games! – but I have to say that as much fun as the Green Monster has been for us, I’ll be glad when we’re away from these BoSox-paced games. Yeesh.
Let’s hope that Correia can continue what he’s been so good at this year so far in getting deep into the game and keeping it moving. I would really love that and I’m pretty sure our now completely over-worked bullpen feels the same.
WOOHOOO!!! It feels good to take a series on the road against an east coast team – especially one that can hit like that BoSox lineup. Considering that pitching is still likely our weakest element, I’m pretty pleased with how the majority of the pitching staff has done tonight… not to mention the whole series. I was a little worried about the freshness of what was available given the heavy use they have had this week. I wasn’t alone in that concern in the chat. So we voted that the bullpen all gets a treat after hanging in there and holding the line tonight. Given their location, they all get a nice Boston Lager!
The offense started off well early and then we fell behind again but thanks to young Oswaldo Arcia, we retook the lead and held that through the end of the game! (which came far earlier tonight than it had previously in this series) So for an outstanding offensive performance and honestly, very good timing, we voted Arcia as tonight’s BOD! Oh yeah, it just happens to be his 22nd birthday today so Happy Birthday as well!
Today’s entertainment revolved around the whole Gardy vs Hicks confrontation from last night. The Twitterverse was apparently alive with comments about an incident that probably would have gone totally unnoticed outside of Minnesota and surrounding states if not for the fact that it occurred in Boston, where everything is magnified 100 times.
Hicks is back in the starting line up tonight and playing center field, so apparently his sins weren’t fatal.
Hopefully, the Twins will do something tonight that will make everyone forget about the other nonsense (and hopefully whatever that something is will be a good something).
It was just ridiculous and I don’t care who was scoring along at home, I don’t think ANYONE has a matching sheet. In case you were wondering, here’s what the OFFICIAL MLB Play by Play has listed for the top of the 7th inning:
Despite more officiating miscues than I can count and a strike zone that traveled more than Santa Claus, the Twins were able to make significant use of the Fenway’s historic nature – and goofy field proportions! The whole team gets a beer – or two (or as many as they need to recover) courtesy of Knuckleballs. It was a lot of fun to watch the whole lineup get a hit tonight! And our sincerest congratulations to Ryan Pressley for getting the Win tonight – it was his first MLB Win and he worked hard for it tonight.
The official vote for BOD was a landslide – for the Green Monster.
But if you’re a stickler for having a person as your boyfriend of the day, second place went to Ryan Doumit – who has basically kicked ass this whole series. He kept it up tonight too so we’ll toss the alternative acknowledgement his way.
Ryan Doumit
That being said, let’s hope this officiating crew gets their heads screwed back on before tomorrow’s series finale.
Wednesday, May 8, was supposed to be a big night for fans that follow the top minor league prospects in professional baseball. Quad Cities shortstop Carlos Correa, selected with the No. 1 pick overall by the Astros in last June’s amateur draft, was set to go head-to-head against Kernels’ center fielder Byron Buxton, chosen as the No. 2 pick overall in the same draft by the Twins.
Byron Buxton
According to MiLB.com, it was the first time two position players of high school age were drafted in the first two spots in over 20 years. As a result, it is almost inevitable that Correa and Buxton will be compared closely to one another throughout their careers.
But thanks to a pitch that hit Correa in the hand a week ago and put him on the River Bandits Disabled List, their first match up on the same field will have to wait. The question is, for how long?
Correa was placed on the Bandits’ 7-day Disabled List on Friday, May 3, which would make him eligible to be reactivated for this Friday’s series finale with the Kernels. However, there’s been no indication from the team that they intend to do so.
After this series, the Kernels and River Bandits are scheduled to face one another next on June 5 in Cedar Rapids. Then again, if Buxton continues to perform at current levels, there is legitimate reason to question whether he will still be wearing a Kernels uniform at that point.
Carlos Correa (Photo: ESPN.go.com)
If Correa and Buxton don’t face one another this season, it’s unlikely they’ll match up again in a regular season game until they wear Big League uniforms for the Astros and Twins. The two organizations have no high-A, AA or AAA affiliates playing in the same league.
How rare would an early meeting of No. 1 and No. 2 picks from the same draft be? Only three times have the top two picks in the draft made their full-season debuts in the same league in the same season. It hasn’t happened in the Midwest League since the No. 1 pick in the 1983 draft, Tim Belcher*, opened the following season with the Madison Muskies and No. 2 pick Kurt Stillwell was in a Cedar Rapids Reds uniform.
It’s not difficult to understand, then, why many fans have looked forward to seeing Correa and Buxton on the same field this season.
Though we may not see Buxton and Correa share a ball field this week, we can take a look at how their first years of full-season professional baseball have compared so far.
There’s no doubt that Buxton is off to the better start. While there is already considerable speculation concerning how soon the Kernels’ center fielder might be promoted to the next level in the Twins’ minor league organization, there has been little, if any, such speculation where Correa is concerned.
Byron Buxton
Five weeks in to the season, Buxton has played in all but one of the Kernels’ 29 games and has the second highest batting average in the Midwest League at .373. Correa was having some trouble staying on the field for the River Bandits even before his current stint on the Disabled List. He has already missed 11 of Quad Cities’ 29 games and is hitting just .221 on the year.
Buxton leads the MWL with a .488 on-base percentage and also leads the league with a .647 slugging percentage. Combined, that puts his OPS (on-base plus slugging) at a league-high 1.135. Of Buxton’s 38 hits, 15 (or almost 40 per cent) have been for extra bases. He has seven doubles, three triples and five home runs. Buxton has walked more times (24) than he has struck out (21) and has stolen 13 bases in 17 attempts.
Correa has reached base at a .384 clip and is slugging just .397, for a .781 OPS. He has three doubles and three home runs. Correa has drawn just 15 walks while striking out 23 times. He has one stolen base and has been caught stealing once.
Five very early weeks in the professional careers of these two prospects mean very little, of course, in terms of predicting their ultimate success or failure as Major League ballplayers. If both men stay with their current organizations long term, fans should eventually have plenty of opportunities for side by side comparisons at the Major League level, now that Correa’s Astros are in the American League.
Regardless of whether Correa is activated in time to face Buxton and the Kernels this week, fans in Cedar Rapids should get their first opportunity to see the No. 1 pick in last year’s draft on June 5 when the River Bandits make their first appearance of the season at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
Whether Byron Buxton will still be around to greet him remains to be seen.
– JC
*As long time Twins fans know, Tim Belcher had been selected No. 1 by Minnesota in the 1983 draft and did not sign. He then was drafted No. 1 by the Yankees in the subsequent January 1984 Secondary Draft and ended up with the Athletics organization as a Free Agent Compensation selection a month later.
Ok, guys, I’m putting this up and then running off to build my puppy a sandbox. But then I will be back to catch up with the game. We can always hope that this is a bad night for Dempster but regardless I hope it’s a good night for Diamond.
That was, overall, a very professionally executed ballgame by the Twins. Not perfect, but we would take about 100 more games like that without a complaint.
We’ve kind of been waiting for Ryan Doumit to step up his game (though, admittedly, he’s been getting less regular playing time since Oswaldo Arcia’s promotion), but tonight Doumit certainly made a case for more at-bats. 2 for 4 with a double and a home run absolutely warrants some BOD support.
But Scott Diamond threw seven shutout innings and gave up only three hits in the process. He also called it a night after sitting down the last 15 hitters he faced. For Twins fans who aren’t familiar with seeing that kind of performance, that is called PITCHING. In fact, around here it’s called BOD pitching. – JC
Sorry about getting this up at the last minute. Knuckleballers are busy today!
The big news in this game is Clay Buchholz and his maybe, kinda, sorta, might be cheating by having what may or may not be a foreign substance on his non-throwing arm.
Once again, the Twins had opportunities to win this game. When you get two men on base and have your third, fourth and fifth hitters in the order coming up, it’s reasonable to expect at least one of those runners to be driven in. When all three strike out, it certainly constitutes a lost opportunity.
Brian Dozier deserves kudos for his dramatic game-tying home run, as does Anthony Swarzak for his three innings of shutout relief work. It’s a shame it all went for naught. – JC
Apparently Justin Morneau showed up at the ballpark feeling a little stiff and asked to DH today. Ironically, he may have improved the defense behind starting pitcher Mike Pelfrey in the process as Chris Parmelee moves to first base and Oswaldo Arcia moves in to right field.
Pelfrey will need all the help he can get today as the Twins attempt to avoid a sweep at the hands of the Indians this weekend.
So.. yard work took a little longer than I thought it was going to so I ended up missing the first half of the game.. I knew it was a Pelfrey start though so a) I figured that they would probably be on the 3rd inning at 1:30 and b) wasn’t sure that I would have missed anything good anyway. Imagine my surprise when I cam in and found we had the LEAD! And we never gave it up! Glad that we were able to pull a win out.
And just because it was such a great surprise, I give BOD to Pelfrey with hopes he’ll keep it up!!!
Episode 36 of the Twins baseball podcast, Talk To Contact (@TalkToContact), is now available for download via iTunes or by clicking here.
Cody Christie (2nd from left) enjoys a recent tour of the Talk to Contact office space with a few of his close, personal friends.
Talk to Contact is proud to bring you another episode packed full of Twins talk. This week Cody and Eric discuss the magic of Kevin Correia, Ron Gardenhire‘s mismanagement of the pitching staff, Gardy’s tenure with the Twins, when and why it might be time to cut ties with Mike Pelfrey, and generally blather on about all things Minnesota.
We’re joined this week by the Rochester Red Wings play-by-play man, Josh Whetzel, whose broadcasts are streamed online at Sports 1280 WHTK, www.whtk.com. He gives us a quick run down of who’s hot and who’s not in Triple-A, and identifies some names to watch for in the not-to-distant future.
More or less shennegians this week when we go Down on the Pond, take some questions from the internet, and name Brad Swanson (@bridman77) the Listener of the Week.
Tune in for almost 100 minutes of Twins radio gold.
You can follow Cody on Twitter (@NoDakTwinsFan) or read his writing at NoDakTwinsFan. You can follow Paul on Twitter (@BaseballPirate) or read his writing at Puckett’s Pond. And of course, you can find me on Twitter (@ERolfPleiss) and read my writing here at Knuckleballs!
The Hammer is back in the line up and playing left field and Kevin Correia sets out to prove, once again, he’s not putting up his numbers with smoke and mirrors.
The Twins have dropped in to fourth place in the bunched-up AL Central for the first time in over two weeks, sitting 3 1/2 games behind Division leading Detroit and our guys need a win today to pull themselves back up to .500 on the season. – JC
It’s really hard to win baseball games when you fall in to a pattern of giving up a couple of runs for every run you score yourselves and that’s pretty much what the Twins did today. They had plenty of opportunities, but couldn’t take advantage. What was most frustrating, perhaps, was that the bottom of the order seemed to do their jobs and it was the top and middle of the order that consistently failed to follow through.
Regardless, the Twins are now a couple of games under .500 and have already lost this series with the Tribe. They’ll try to avoid a sweep on Sunday.
