3/1/12

Today's Twins B game recap

Today the Minnesota Twins played their first B game of the Spring Training (B-games are free to watch and do not count in the standing and the rules can be bent, and were bent today). The pitchers in order were: Scott Baker, Nick Blackburn, Liam Hendriks, Jeff Manship, Jason Bulger, Carlos Gutierrez, Tyler Robertson, Brendan Wise and Deolis Guerra will pitch an inning a piece. The Twins starting line up was:

LF- Ben Revere
3B- Ray Chang
RF- Rene Tosoni
CF- Joe Benson
DH Brian Dinkelman
1B- Aaron Bates
SS- Brian Dozier
C- J.R. Towles
2B- Pedro Florimon

here is a link to a picture of today's game.

1st Inning:

Scott Baker started the inning and allowed a HR to Lavarnway who was the only man to reach other than Jose Iglesias who led the game with a single on Baker's first pitch. 12 pitches 8 strikes for Baker.
Rene Tosoni hit a double of Alfredo Aceves after a Ben Revere single, who scored on Joe Benson's infield single. 1-1 after one inning

2nd Inning:

Nick Blackburn pitched a scoreless inning giving a lead off single to Red Sox' B Wil Middlebrooks and JR Towles caught him stealing second.
J.R. Towles hits a single off Daniel Bard to score Brian Dozier, who doubled earlier. 2-1 Twins

3rd Inning:
Jeff Manship pitched a scoreless inning

4th Inning:

Liam Hendriks pitched a scoreless inning.
Aaron Bates hit a two-run homer to dead center off lefty Jesse Carlson, former set up man for the Blue Jays, to make it 4-1 Twins

5th Inning:

Jason Bulger surrendered a run to the Red Sox. 4-2 Twins
Two-run double from Brian Dinkelman makes the score 6-2

6th Inning:

Nate Spears hits a 2 Run Triple for Boston off Carlos Gutierrez to make it 6-4 Twins. The inning was cut short, before 3 outs were made, because Gutierrez had reached his pitch limit. Walk, walk, double, walk was his day, with 2 outs in there. This can happen in a B game but not in an A game. A very bad outing for Gutierrez.

7th Inning:

Dan Butler hits a solo HR off Tyler Robertson. Robertson then picked a runner off first. 6-5 Twins.

8th Inning:

Brendan Wise pitched a scoreless 8th inning.

9th Inning:

Deolis Guerra pitched a scoreless 9th to get the save.
The Twins' batters are hitting at the bottom of the 9th so the Red Sox' pitcher is getting his work (another thing that happens only in B games.)

Unfortunately the coverage was not very good and twitter was pretty much the only source for game updates. And then you had professional journalists, who do not realize that the fans are interested in the first game of the Twins' season and it is their job to provide coverage, make asinine remarks like this.

As far as the hitters go: Aaron Bates hit a HR, Brian Dinkelman had 2 hits and 2 RBI, Brian Dozier and JR Towles an RBI single each, Brian Dozier two singles and Rene Tosoni a double. Joe Benson and Pedro Florimon stole a base a piece.

You can find all the spring training coverage in this site here

4 comments:

Andrew said...

Thanks for the recap. Boy, I just get this strange feeling that Souhan isn't too pumped for Spring Training this year.

thrylos98 said...

You know, if my company paid for me to go there, watch the games and report them, I'd be a very happy camper :)

Marv said...

As Andrew said, thanks for the recap.
Souhan... Hmmm..

thrylos98 said...

no problem Marv. Yeah... Souhan