GameChat – Minnesota Twins @ Texas Rangers #4, 2:05 pm CDT

The Minnesota Twins have not won a game since Monday, August 20, and the closest they’ve come was the following day in a 4-1 loss to the Oakland Athletics.  Since then the Twins have lost by 4, 4, 8 and 6 runs, bringing their season-long run differential to -111, only the Cleveland Indians (-134) have a worse run differential in the American League.

A win today does nothing to help Minnesota in the standings, but it will go a long way toward bringing up morale in the clubhouse of a team that’s been clobbered for the better part of a week.  Cole De Vries has a 10.64 ERA over his last 3 starts, he will need to turn things around this afternoon or the Twins will be in another big hole against a high powered Rangers offense.

 Minnesota Twins

@

 Texas Rangers
 Span, CF  Kinsler, 2B
 Revere, RF  Moreland, 1B
 Mauer, 1B  Hamilton, LF
 Willingham, LF  Beltre, A, 3B
 Morneau, DH  Cruz, N, RF
 Plouffe, 3B  Murphy, Dv, DH
 Carroll, 2B  Soto, C
 Butera, C  Gentry, CF
 Florimon, SS  Hernandez, L, SS
 _De Vries, P  _Feldman, P

Let’s get it!

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Minnesota 1 1 1 0 2 1 0 0 0 6 11 0
Texas 2 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 5 6 2

Here is something that happened earlier today: The Minnesota Twins, previously referred to as a professional baseball team, won a contest of baseballing against an actual real-life baseball club.  A club, known as none-other than the Texas Rangers.  It was pretty fun.

BOD Voting?

Ben Revere had his 6th career 4 hit game and was on base 5 times, despite only hitting the ball out of the infield once.  For his performance this afternoon the fans in the Knuckleballs blog GameChat (BaseballPirate and myself, though BaseballPirate was inactive, so really I just picked whoever I wanted), decided to give Ben Revere a nice warm German style beer.  Enjoy that beer, Ben.

Jeff Gray pitched a third of an inning and gave up 3 runs, which was pretty impressive for a guy who has no business being on a Major League Baseball team.  Anyways, his run-surrendering performance woke up the bullpen and then Casey Fien, Jared Burton and Glen Perkins closed out the game against the high-powered Rangers offense without surrendering another run.  For his wake-up performance, Jeff Gray is the BOD.  Hopefully he woke up Terry Ryan and Ryan outrights Gray and assigns him to some lesser level of baseball, perhaps Triple-A baseball.

Anyways, enjoy it Gray, you earned it.

Jeff Gray, IRONIC HIPSTER BOD SELECTION  (Photo: Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)

GameChat – Twins @ Rangers #3, 3:05 pm (FOX)

Of course, the big news in baseball today is about the trade that’s gone down between the Red Sox and Dodgers, with Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and former Twin Nick Punto all headed straight in to a pennant race. while the Sox get James Loney and a number of minor leaguers in return. The amazing part of this deal, tome, is that the Red Sox were able to not only shed over a quarter of a billion dollars of future payroll (they are only sending $12 million to the Dodgers), but also get several supposedly quality players on top of the salary relief. Are the Dodgers becoming the “new” Yankees?

The LA Times story on the trade also mentioned that the Red Sox went after Gonzalez after efforts to acquire Justin Morneau from the Twins last week were unsuccessful. I haven’t seen any confirmation concerning exactly how those discussions played out. I suspect the Dodgers weren’t offering a whole lot for Morneau over and above taking on his salary. Then again, they had to take on a lot more salary in the Red Sox deal and still gave up some good young pitchers. Then again, perhaps the Twins simply don’t want to part with their first baseman. That would certainly say something about their confidence level in Chris Parmelee, wouldn’t it?

The other possibility would be that the Twins hadn’t yet sent Morneau through waivers when the Dodgers approached them and someone else claimed Morneau ahead of the Dodgers, nixing a potential deal.

In any event, I have to admit I find it amusing that Nicky Punto finds himself once again in a position to make a deep playoff run. Talk about a guy who just seems to find himself in the right place at the right time.

Anyway… on to the Twins. Scott Diamond has been suspended for six games for throwing a ball near the head of Josh Hamilton. Seems a little harsh and he’ll appeal, but in the end he’s going to end up missing a start at some point.

The Twins face Ryan Dempster this afternoon. Dempster hasn’t been terrific since being traded to the Rangers, but he did pretty much shut the Twins down earlier in the season when he was still wearing a Cubs uniform.

Josh Willingham is back in the Twins lineup, as is Denard Span, so I guess that’s something.

TWINS

@

RANGERS
Span, CF Kinsler, 2B
Revere, RF Andrus, SS
Mauer, DH Hamilton, LF
Willingham, LF Beltre, A, 3B
Morneau, 1B Cruz, N, DH
Doumit, C Murphy, Dv, RF
Plouffe, 3B Soto, C
Carroll, 2B Gentry, CF
Florimon, SS Moreland, 1B
  _Duensing, P   _Dempster, P
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Minnesota 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 3 12 2
Texas 2 3 4 0 0 0 0 0 x 9 14 0

I’m going to be honest, I stopped listening to the Twins game when it was 9-0 after three innings. I have no idea what happened after that, but looking at the boxscore, it’s clear that nothing good happened. Though I suppose the fact that the Rangers ended up with just those nine runs would indicate the bullpen did a job, so there’s that. Way to go bullpen.

However, I did see the Beloit Snappers beat the Cedar Rapids Kernels 13-2 and it didn’t start raining until about the 6th inning. It was a good time, even though the game wasn’t terribly exciting. – JC

GameChat – Twins @ Rangers #2, 7:05pm

So apparently I’m the only one who is around to post gamechats on Friday nights..  we’ll see if there is any one there to do the chatting! LOL

So there was more roster change activity today.. Matt Carson was sent back down and we brought Kyle Waldrop is up. Yes, that means we are back to 13 pitchers and down a person on the bench. At least Span is playing again???

Let’s see how Deduno does tonight and if he plunks anyone…

Minnesota

@

Texas
Revere, CF Kinsler, 2B
Mastroianni, RF Andrus, SS
Mauer, C Hamilton, DH
Morneau, 1B Beltre, A, 3B
Doumit, LF Cruz, N, RF
Plouffe, DH Murphy, Dv, LF
Carroll, 3B Moreland, 1B
Casilla, A, 2B Martinez, L, C
Florimon, SS Gentry, CF
  Deduno, P   Harrison, P

 

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

R

H

E

Minnesota

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

3

1

Texas

1

5

0

0

1

0

0

1

x

8

15

1

Yeah, THAT was ugly. Funny, Deduno hit two batters tonight and he didn’t get ejected or suspended for 6 games like Diamond.. anyone else think there’s something a little goofy in baseball sometimes?

Fantasy Football Season

I was VERY amused last night at the blogger meetup because the bar was pretty packed – with a bunch of guys all doing their fantasy football drafts.. yeah, it made me giggle just a little bit but I can only make so much fun since I’m the commissioner of a little league myself. But I, for one, do not take it so seriously!

After all, baseball fans need something to do in the off-season right? No, the season isn’t over yet but Twins fans more than almost any others, know it’s coming all too soon.

Several years ago, I decided that fantasy football was taken entirely too seriously by those around me who participated. I had experienced first hand how hard it was for a beginner to be competitive in, much less someone who didn’t know football very well. So I started an easy & FREE league intended to allow a competitive environment whether you understood all the facets or not. And then I bought a traveling trophy!

It’s an auto draft league so you don’t have to know anything about the players (but it still always helps if you do) and you don’t have to be a fan of any particular team (it helps if you aren’t). You sign up, & it does most of the work for you!

The reason I’m bringing this up now is that we have a couple openings in the league this year! If you are interested in participating or want to know more about our rules & set up, contact me and I’ll fill you in. Most of the Knuckleballs staff here are participants so you would have at least some baseball fans in the group. And unlike fantasy baseball, which needs almost daily attention, football is only a weekly time commitment!

But make up your mind quickly! I plan to set the league to draft on September 1!!!

GameChat – Twins @ Rangers, 7:05pm

So KL and I are headed out to Park Tavern to gather with a few of the other local Twin Cities Twins bloggers and associated hangers on.. but of course I’ll be attempting to live blog from the event with the chat window. It should be a fun evening and if you are a twitter follower, keep your eyes open for various pics for the geek with the laptop on the bar table.. yeah, that will be me.

Tonight should be about as good a matchup as it will get for the Twins against the Rangers – Scott is our best guy and Oswalt kind of sucks lately. Let’s cross our fingers.

Minnesota

@

Texas
Span, CF Kinsler, 2B
Revere, RF Andrus, SS
Mauer, C Hamilton, CF
Willingham, DH Beltre, A, 3B
Morneau, 1B Cruz, N, RF
Doumit, LF Young, M, DH
Plouffe, 3B Murphy, Dv, LF
Carroll, 2B Soto, C
Florimon, SS Olt, 1B
  Diamond, P   Oswalt, P

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Minnesota 1 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 2 6 12 2
Texas 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 6 x 10 10 2

I guess you could say that game was at least entertaining in a depressing sorta way.

Roy Oswalt intentionally drills Joe Mauer in the back. Scott Diamond throws a ball over Josh Hamilton’s head and gets ejected, along with Gardy.

The Twins somehow manage a 4-4 tie heading to the bottom of the 8th inning… and give up six runs… only one of them earned. Yeah, ugly inning.

Our guys push two runs across in the top of the 9th, but Joe Nathan enters and retires Ben Revere to end the game. By the way, if you ever needed an example of how stupid the “save” stat is, consider this… Nathan entered the game with a 4-run lead, pitched to one hitter and gets credit for a save.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings. – JC

Guest Appearance

On Monday night I was lucky enough to be a guest on the Phil Naessens Show.

I joined him to talk about the successes and failures of the 2012 Twins and a little bit of other AL Central news.

I encourage you to listen to the entire podcast, as Phil is a great host and does an excellent job asking informed and interesting questions to all of his guests.  If you’re looking to fast forward to the Twins talk, I come on around the 1 hour and 22 minute mark.

http://phillipnaessens.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/the-phil-naessens-show-august-20-2012-new-york-mets-la-angels-and-minnesota-twins-baseball-show/

ERolfPleiss

GameChat – Twins @ A’s #3, 2:35pm

MLB finally has today’s lineups posted – odd that it took so long today but I can finally put up the nice little lineup grid when they do that.

Hard to be confident going in to today’s game – there are just so many things that seem to work against the Twins all together:

  1. It’s a day game with your typical ‘not quite our A game’ getaway day lineup.
  2. Liam Hendriks is making his return to the Big League mound – and the last time he was here was a rough experience for the guy.
  3. Still no Span and still no one sitting on the bench in his place. That tends to make me crabby.

 

Minnesota

@

Oakland
Revere, CF Crisp, CF
Casilla, A, 2B Drew, S, SS
Mauer, 1B Reddick, RF
Willingham, LF Cespedes, LF
Doumit, DH Carter, 1B
Carson, RF Smith, S, DH
Plouffe, 3B Donaldson, 3B
Butera, C Kottaras, C
Florimon, SS Pennington, 2B
  Hendriks, P   Milone, P


 

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

R

H

E

Minnesota

0

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

3

1

Oakland

1

0

2

1

0

0

1

0

x

5

8

4

To quote Lecroy24fan: “Different day, same old story.”

The Future of Ron Gardenhire

Ron Gardenhire has been managing the Twins since 2002.  Despite the terrible record the Twins have put up the past two years, he still has a .526 winning percentage, and more often than not has led the Twins to a first place finish in the American League Central.  Gardenhire certain;y has not had the post season success that Tom Kelly enjoyed as his predecessor, but Gardenhire has at least gotten the Twins to the postseason and a couple of thrilling game 163s.

Over the past two seasons the Twins are 114-169, good for a .403 winning percentage, but outside of a 79-83 blip on the radar in 2007, Gardenhire has presided over winning baseball teams.  Still, with the Twins losing 99 games a year ago, and on pace to lose 90+ games again in 2012, it is surprising that there has not been more clamoring from the fans and the media for Minnesota to start looking for someone else to perform the managerial duties.

Organizationally, the Twins have had only two managers since 1986, so changing managers after a couple losing seasons, or even eight consecutive losing seasons from Tom Kelly (1993-2000) does not fit with Minnesota’s managerial philosophy.  Furthermore, the Twins ran into a plethora of injury issues in 2011 that ultimately derailed that season, and in 2012 the Twins’ starting pitching has been terrible and Gardenhire has not had the roster depth or payroll flexibility to really deal with either of those issues.

However, if the Twins go out and grab a couple of free agent starting pitchers this offseason to go along with the position players they signed this past winter, and Gardenhire still cannot get the Twins playing winning baseball, he’ll likely be feeling a lot more heat at this time in the 2013 season.

So keep enjoying Ron Gardenhire.  Keep battling your tail off.  And keep picture Gardy dressed up as Santa Claus.

ERolfPleiss

GameChat – Twins @ A’s #2, 9:05pm

So you’ve probably already heard today’s big news but just in case, here you go: Carl Pavano has been shut down for the rest of the season with a bruised humorous – yes, he has been misdiagnosed for the last three months and he’s frustrated even if he didn’t take the step of blaming the Twins med staff, he didn’t find this out until he visited the specialist in NY.

How many times does this happen until the management takes it seriously and investigates/changes the situation in the training room? I don’t know the cause but I see the symptoms and say, “Houston, we have a problem.” And before you ask, no, Span isn’t in the lineup yet. *raises eyebrow*

[edit] Span did NOT get the MRI today as planned… turns out that he’s claustrophobic.. something about not enough valium??

Minnesota

@

Oakland
Revere, CF Crisp, CF
Mastroianni, RF Drew, S, SS
Mauer, DH Reddick, RF
Willingham, LF Cespedes, LF
Morneau, 1B Carter, 1B
Doumit, C Smith, S, DH
Plouffe, 3B Donaldson, 3B
Carroll, 2B Norris, C
Florimon, SS Rosales, 2B
  De Vries, P   Anderson, P

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

R

H

E

Minnesota

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

4

0

Oakland

0

1

0

0

0

1

2

0

x

4

10

0

Well that certainly didn’t go the way I would like it to but wow, it was weird.

  1. The Twins never left any runners on base.. I can’t personally ever remember that happening (of course I sure it must have at some point, I just don’t think I saw it).
  2. The A’s turned a triple play and that’s pretty darn rare. I hate being on the receiving end of it but still, you don’t see that every day.
  3. Twins got an odd double play call in our favor at one point because a base runner left the base path and then got hit with the throw to 1B from home plate. I think. Not really sure how that works out. Announcers didn’t seem to be any clearer.

Not a great game for all that. Kind of glad a lot of Twins fans didn’t stay up for it.