The Twins are coming into their home opener on top of the AL Central (albeit tied with the pesky White Sox) and a game and a half ahead of Cleveland, which is a nice place to be.
RHP Lance Lynn started his last tune up game at Fort Myers with the Rochester squad against the Red Sox' AAA team five days ago and gave 5 runs in the first inning. He repeated the feat with the Twins at the Pirates' home opener on Monday. Lynn indicated that he was a bit behind in his preparation due to late signing.
Despite the efforts for a comeback, which are great to see, the Twins fell short, like at the Baltimore Opener by one run losing 4-5. Again, great to see the Twins not going belly up for the second time this season, but good teams win some of the close games. The Twins are 0-2 under these circumstances this season.
C Mitch Garver who was hit on the head with Manny Machado's bat, thankfully seems ok and will not need to go to the concussion DL.
On Tuesday the Twins beat the last undefeated team in the majors, the Pirates, in a snowstorm, mainly due to Miguel Sano's, bat, base running and defense. He went 3 for 5, blew threw a stop sign to score the tying run and made some serious defensive plays, including the last play of the game. The final score was 7-3.
This was an ultra cold game and neither of the two starters could get comfortable; so other than Sano, no names need to be named. Or maybe two: Logan Morrison got his first hit of the season, and I thin that he does not deserve the Lo Mo moniker. It is more like Slo Mo. And if Molitor has not brought Rule 5 pick Tyler Kinley yet in the blow outs, I am not sure when he will do so. Competing teams cannot afford to hold players they will not play.
In order for the Twins to compete, they need to win series, and they did that at Baltimore, winning 2-1. They are second in the AL Central, trailing the White Sox (the only undefeated team in the AL) by half a game. They are one game ahead of their main competition for the division, Cleveland, which lost their series at the Mariners 1-2.
RHP Kyle Gibson pitched like a first round draft pick against Baltimore on Saturday. He mixed his fastball that he threw up to 94 mph, with a pretty nasty mid 80s changeup and a high 70s slurvy breaking ball to keep the Baltimore hitters off balance and induce strikeouts. He struck out 6 Orioles in 6 no-hit innings; he walked 5.
RHP Ryan Pressly and LHP Gabriel Moya were serviceable behind him to preserve the win.
The long ball helped in that game with Miguel Sano, Jason Castro, and Max Kepler hitting one each.
If Gibson pitched like a top of the rotation pitcher on Saturday, RHP Jose Berrios pitched like a true ace on Sunday, completing a shutout allowing only 3 hits and one walk and striking out 6. All of the sudden, the Twins rotation seems like a strength of the club. But it is a long season.
On Sunday, the Twins hit another whole bunch of home runs: a couple by Brian Dozier including one in the first pitch of that game, and one each by Sano, and Eduardo Escobar. Only 1B/DH Logan Morrison who played in all 3 games and C Mitch Garver who appeared only in the Sunday game are hitless, as far as position players go.Morrison walked twice.
The Twins' players were unhappy that on top of the 9th and with Berrios having an one-hitter going, Orioles' catcher Chase Sisco bunted for a hit beating the shift. Well, if you shift, you better not be unhappy if someone bunts, because you caused it. If the Twins thought that it were a blow out game, they had no business shifting...
The Twins' minor league Spring Training ended last Saturday. RHP Phil Hughes threw 50 pitches for the AAA Twins' squad in the final day and could pitch again next Thursday in the Fort Myers Miracle opener, with the idea that he will be available to pitch next April 11th when the Twins need a fifth starter.
Twenty nine percent of the players on the MLB Open Day rosters are foreign-born. The Twins are tied for fourth in the MLB with 11 players or 44% of their roster.
The Twins, along with the Athletics, Brewers, Marlins, Rays, and Reds, will have the highest 2018-2019 international free agent bonus pool with $6,025,400 allowance.
Phil Miller has an article in Baseball America regarding last winter's creativity by the Twins' Front Office with their international pool money.
If you are planning on driving to a game at Target Field, you might want to check this new Twins' partner, as far as finding and paying for parking goes.
The Twins' A league affiliate Cedar Rapids Kernels' roster is full of talent.
Former Twins' prospect AJ Pettersen's brother, Luke, is one of the top hitters of the University of Minnesota. Also a middle infield, he might be drafted by the Twins, like his older brother.
It is Opening Day today and based on feedback, I have decided to continue the note posts I started this Spring (you can find them all here), during the season as well. The last time I seriously attempted something like that was 5 years ago, with the once weekly and unfortunately named Random Tuesday Twins Thoughts and Tidbits (you can find all the posts of that series here). These notes will be at irregular intervals, since I would like them to be somewhat substantial in content; however hopefully frequent, pretty much like the Spring Training ones were. I would love to hear feedback and whether there are certain things you would like to see or not see.
Here is the latest installment of Twins Notes:
The 2018 season started with a bang, when Cubs' lead off hitter Ian Happ hit the first pitch of the season from Marlins' starting pitcher Jose Urena for a home run to the right field (video link.) Last time that happened was in 1986 when Boston's Dwight Evans hit a home run off then Detroit (and in 1991 Twins') starter Jack Morris in 1986
The MLB celebrated Opening Day (which was the earliest ever and the only one that all 30 teams had scheduled games; the ones in Cincinnati and Detroit were rained out) with special bases.
Opening Day Twins Trivia: This was be the 118th Opening Day for the Twins franchise. The first one ever was also against the Orioles on 4/29/1901 in a game the Senators won 5-2. The Twins franchise Opening Day record against the Orioles after today's game is 5-2, 2-1 since the move to Minnesota. The only AL team that the Twins franchise teams have not faced on an Opening Day is the Houston Astros. On the other hand they faced the Athletics (both Philadelphia and Oakland) a record 28 times (won 18). The Twins franchise record on Opening Day is 63-55 after today.
The Twins needed extra innings in their 2018 Opening Day at Baltimore. The last time the Twins had an extra inning game in their season opener was in 2004 when they beat Cleveland 7-4.
Starting RHP Jake Odorizzi struck out 7 Orioles in 6 scoreless innings. Refreshing to see a Twins pitcher induce swinging strikes by throwing pitches outside the zone and throwing high fastballs, after years of futility with having everyone in the organization force-throwing sinkers and pitching to contact.
LHP Zach Duke struck out 4 men in the 7th inning, but allowed 2 runs, moving runners with wild pitches (including one who struck out), a walk and a hit that scored both. RHP Addison Reed, probably the best pitcher in the Twins' pen, pitched a perfect 8th and 9th, striking out 2.
If you cannot throw strikes against little leaguers, minor leaguers or in Spring Training, there is no reason to believe that you can throw strikes in the majors when games matter. RHP Trevor Hildenberger who came in the bottom of the tenth and walked two hitters is hurting the Twins and needs to be demoted until he can find the strike zone.
Thankfully RHP Fernando Rodney and brilliance by manager Paul Molitorto play with 5 infielders (having Eddie Rosario as an extra) paid off with a double play after the bases were loaded in the 10th. Unfortunately Rodney was the goat today, allowing the losing HR to the Orioles' Adam Jones with his first pitch, a 92 mph fastball in the middle of the plate, on the bottom of the 11th.
The Twins bats were silent in the first 8 innings, having the Orioles with 96.3% probability of winning the game in the top of the 8th when Molitor's moves having PR Ryan LaMarre in place of DH Logan Morrison and having OF Robbie Grossman pinch hit for CF Byron Buxton, and drive two runs to tie the game, proven also brilliant. Molitor was definitely on a roll today, other than trusting Hildenberger.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune had a live Twins' Opening Day blog with live Twitter input here during the whole day. I hope that they continue this at least on special occasions throughout the season.
Here is a picture of all the Twins' players on the Opening Day 25-man roster. Can you name them all?
Also the best pictures of each of the Twins' 25-man roster players from Spring Training by Twins' team photographer Brace Hemmelgarn is here. A must see.
RHP Lance Lynn finished his last Spring Training tune up in a AAA game against the Red Sox' AAA team with mixed results.
The Twins are admitting that unfortunately RHP Ervin Santana is behind schedule on his rehab from a finger surgery.
On the other hand, RHP Phil Hughes is "making enough progress" to be available to potentially start the April 11th game against the World Champions Houston Astros. This would likely mean that either one of the Twins' relief pitchers with options will get demoted or Rule 5 draft pick Tyler Kinley will be returned to the Miami Marlins.
The Twins had not published extension talks with 2B Brian Dozier, which seem to broke down very recently.
One Twins player made it to number 25, and a surprise another one to number 95 in the mlb.com list of the 100 people who will influence the 2018 season the most.
The second player mentioned above, who is not currently on the Twins' 40-man roster, was also picked as the 2018 breakout player (need to scroll down) by Ryan O'Hanlon, Senior Editor of The Ringer.
This blog contains eclectic musings about baseball, mainly centering on the Minnesota Twins and are mainly numbers-driven. I anticipate a few Vikings tidbits here and there, a bunch of historical statistical analysis, some emphasis on minor leagues and prediction of prospect development and production in the majors... just a place to place some thoughts.
I am a Twin Cities expat and SABR member, living on the right coast and have good access to both Twins' AAA and AA teams, albeit not necessarily their home fields.
Feel free to commend in the blog or email me at thetenthinningstretch at gmail.com
