Hopefully, our friend ubelmann hasn’t joined some death cult where he has to kill himself upon the arrival of a comet or something. His whereabouts remain unknown and if he doesn’t show up by around Thursday or so, I’ll start to get worried. Thus, it’s me filling in again for the u-ful one.
Man, was last night’s game a buzz-kill. Still feeling all warm and fuzzy after Johan “El Tren Grande†Santana ran over the Rangers, I missed the top of the first and man, I’m glad I did. I happened to mention that Garza’s home run/fly ball rate was unsustainably low in the game log posting. As if on cue, four Seattle fly balls went yard. It made me feel like I was death cultist ubelmann with that call. Raul Ibanez, favorite whipping boy of the USS Mariner boys, was crushing the ball last night with two homeruns. For the year, Ibanez is at 280/.338/.468 and 18.6 VORP. Compare that to our left fielder, Ronnie White, who’s “hitting†.138/.188/.215 with a –8.9 VORP in just 69 plate appearances. I think the USS Mariner boys provide great analysis and insight, but stop whining about Ibanez. He has an OPS north of .800. We’d kill for that around here. And Jose Vidro would be a nice DH for us, too (.317/.383/.386, 22.0 VORP). No power there, but consider where we are these days. If they want someone to complain about, I mean really complain about, they should write about the Twins. We’ve been putting up with a veritable Volkswagen full of clowns in our lineup this year.
Tonight, we’ve got a Jarrod Washburn vs. Scott “Light Rail†Baker matchup. Baker’s ERA sits at 4.53, but that doesn’t really tell the story, as his FIP is, um, 4.53. Heh. Well, that’s a little misleading, because his xFIP is at, um, 4.39. How about that. I will say this, though. In his last ten starts he’s thrown 67.1 innings with a 3.49 ERA and a 3.23 FIP. There are two big clunkers in there (the 20-14 victory and a 10-1 loss to the Angels). Generally, though he’s been extremely good for a good piece of time (and I don’t see any regression to the mean coming).
Washburn, on the other hand needs to regress to the freaking mean, starting tonight. His ERA is a decent 4.16 ERA, but his xFIP is 5.15. That’s not a terrible deviation, but he’s got a HR/F rate of 8.0%. It doesn’t hurt to pitch in Seattle. He’s a fly ball pitcher (38.8% GB rate), so I’d like to see a couple of those flies get big tonight. I kind of thought that Justin Morneau would tire in the second half of the season a while back, when I set his O/U on home runs at 36. Y’all thought I was crazy. Well, crazy like a fox, citizens. I don’t make a lot of predictions, but take the under to the bank on that one and I’ll point out that I predicted Mr. Punto at –20 VORP quite a long while ago. I doubt that either of these guys will get better against Mr. Washburn – Morneau because Washburn’s left handed and Punto because he sucks. (Good grief, SBG, give it a rest.)
Maybe, though, we’ll see Mike C. or Torii H. make some noise tonight. That’d be – all right.
Kubel in left, Garrett at DH
Man, was last night’s game a buzz-kill.
spot on
Tonight, the Twins are auditioning for my love.
I imagine, so far, not so good
Bremer and Bert calling the game from LF
bleachershome run porch.Bert just gave a vendor a 20 for a Bud and didn't get change back. Did you know that $20 buys an AK-47 in Sub-Saharan Africa? Beer or Automatic? Actually, I was either gonna make a joke that Beer is expensive at baseball games or point out that Bert is a good tipper (at least when it will be on TV.)
maybe Bert is getting another beer later in the game
save the effort of finding 10 bucks
SBG:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl//5073074.html
Wow...how did I not hear about this before?
It's interesting that it wasn't even leaked before the ID was made. Surely they must have known that it was likely to be him. They would have known whose SUV it was, and they had to know his identity in order to get dental records to match. It is amazing that it was kept under wraps.
oh man, thats horrible news
It is horrible, but the weird thing is that it doesn't shock me at all. I can only assume he was drunk and masturbating to porn in his SUV when it happened. All in all, not a bad way to go.
Sad indeed. RIP, Eddie Griffin.
Wow. The demons that kid must have faced.
Anyone ever wanna do a study on warning track power by pitchers? Seems about 60% of the outs Baker gets are on the warning track.
AW CRAP
If the fence were further back, those would have been on the warning track.
Beltre's was down in the zone, but over the middle of the plate.
The Funk Blast was up in the zone and in.
how far away was the TV crew to the HR?
Pretty far, the TV crea is about halfway up and pretty much straight out the left field foul line (not quite, like one section closer to center). The Funk Blast was just a few rows up from the fence and about 4 or 5 sections towards center.
Back to back AW CRAPs.
Ok, seriously? Is this a videogame or something?
Baker really doesn't want to stay on my fantasy team.
Get of my yard, Seattle.
these Carlita Salsa commericals on the radio are annoying me
cr@p. Those car/train accidents hit too close to home, er, work. When a car hits a train, it almost always = drunk/asleep. Those poor engineers that have to deal with the aftermath, it's no wonder they require councelling so often.
(I'm avoiding talking about a more gruesome topic, ie. Twins "offense") btw, Ibanez and Sexson owe the Twins big time this season.
Fielders Choice for Punto
-23
Punto avoids the DP. I guess that qualifies as a good AB for him.
Karma kills Punto, though.
Neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor of night shall keep Nick Punto from the swift completion of his appointed out.
Um, gloom of night.
is there a stat for being picked off (I know its a caught steal, but is there a website that keeps track of picked off and a stragiht caught steal)
It would be interesting to see how many Pickoffs Punto has
Actually, a CS and a pickoff are not the same from the score keeping perspective. From baseball-reference.com:
A pick-off is considered to be a baserunning mistake, even if it not usually captured in individual statistics as it is not a caught stealing.
oh... well then
I learned something today!
But Punto is usually CS, because he's headed for second base and the pitcher throws to first. That's a CS and is reflected in the stats, even though we think of it as a "pickoff".
only 0-2. This game is in the bag!
Banjo Brothers?
favored bag men of the WGOM.
What? The grill and his recipes aren't enough? Now yer trolling for swag? Shameless, sir. Shameless.
Does it come in anything other than black?
Black is the new black.
Can't argue with the classics.
speaking of the grill, whaaaa happen? I haven't seen it in a while.
and, maybe it's just me, but a "pannier" sure sounds like a grilled sammich.
Not so in the back yard in Hartford. Since I got my Aussie Grill, we have grilled every night since I got it 'cept tonite (rainy) and yesterday (tempura nacht).
no, I meant On the Grill, the best-selling WGOM feature.
To paraphrase Henry Ford, you can have any color you want, as long as you want black.
Whoa...how many do you need?
colors? or bags??
I haven't been able to watch: are these fluky hits? Aside from the home-runs, Baker isn't looking terrible I guess, especially because his pitch count is still low (57 through 4 isn't awful).
Again, my observation about Baker is that most of the hits against him are the ones that look fluky, and when he's on top of his game, at least ten outs will be on the warning track. I've given up on meshing this with what I've learned from smart people like Gleeman, Ubelman, and SBGman. He turns GB into hits and long FB into outs.
cat 'Puerto Rico Winter League' > /dev/null.
But in it's ashes, baseball phoenix La Liga Inveral Boricua might arise.
Unix is underappreciated at WGOM.
pid -ef | grep PUNTO | kill -9 (throw in some awk, format of which I don't have off the top of my head)
I'd certainly appreciate seeing that process killed. Or at least "niced" (so that it never came up when more important jobs were available to be run)
processes
I'm not taking the chance that there's only one
awk -f '{print $2}'
*grants admin rights to NBB*
Crap. Is there a baserunning mistake we don't make on a regular basis? Casilla should be on third right now, dammit.
And get off my lawn.
And get of
fmy lawn.get it wrong, twayn!!!
Same thing happened to a Twins runner last night. Not that it wouldn't have mattered in the long run.
Meanwhile, the baserunning cr@p continues. Nice one, Casilla
double cr@p.
Moss Jr. was looking over the Twins' roster today on the GameDay program card. He's rattling off the players' heights:
"Joe Mays, 6 feet 4 inches. Joe Mauer, 6 feet 4 inches. Garrett Jones, 6 feet 4 inches."
Then he says, "WOW, Nick Punto has more inches than feet!! He's 5 feet and 8 inches!"
Moss got a chuckle out of that.
Joe Mays is still on the GameDay program cards? Time to give TwinsGeek a call.
Mrs. Punto is amused.
I thought big feet, big hands, big ... inches. ???
You know what they say about guys with big feet. They wear big shoes.
That's what Moss always says. Moss takes a size 16...for real.
+15. Hate watching that ad BTW...
I'm surprised that you didn't make the picture bigger, Rhu_Ru.
Joe Mays on the roster?
*shudders*
Did you know Joe Mays league the American League in Adjusted ERA + way back in 2001 (143)
yah. And Brady Anderson once hit 50 HRs.
Oops, Joe Nathan of course. And never trust a man with two first names.
Casilla - c'mon boyo!
Bedard with 11 Ks through 7 (8??). Johan needs to stop trying to catch him and get back to pitching to contract.
Bedard is strike out crazy this year
Nice play, Tommy. Nice play, Joe.
Only 2 runs on 10 hits - Light Train good or lucky.
Actually, it sounds like he's pitching to the Twins hitters with those numbers.
2 runs and 10 hits?
We wish.
just clogging up the basepaths. Notice, they scored both their runs when the paths were empty. Baserunners are counter-productive.
3 runs on 12 hits.
The Twins don't strike out, they ground out...and weakly.
Weakly, and daily.
Hey, they make the other team make a play. As you can learn on the STrib blogs, you'd be surprised at how often the other team throws it away.
1 Casilla hit shy of no-hitter after 5. Thank you Alexi.
Thank you also Tommy Watkins. What are people's feelings on Tommy Watkins? He seems okay so far. I mean, he's gotta be a better batter than Punto, right?
it's nice that the organization rewarded him with the call-up. But why not someone who at least pretends to swing a bat? Why not Matt "Doing it with mirrors" Tolbert??
I see that Buscher is ready to be activated. When???
Eligible tomorrow, but they'll wait til Thursday to avoid flying him back to MN.
Kubelized AB
I'm actually very happy for Tommy Watkins. He's not a bad little ballplayer. No solution, mind you; but he's not making 2 million a year, either. Plus, he looks a little like a svelte Al Newman.
Hopefully, our friend ubelmann hasn’t joined some death cult
Personally, I don't think he really killed Dumbledore.
I miss ubelmann.
you just gotta hitch your pants up and bring your lunch pail to work, NBB. We gotta all pick each other up.
besides, I think your xFIS (expected fielding-independent Snark) is pretty solid.
OK. But just a signal from the U-man?
As I've never seen Ubelmann in person, has he ever shown a proclivity for sweatsuits and sneakers?
By the by, funny game-log intros in his absence, SBG.
because, God knows, the humor is all we got to keep us going.
of course, with this offense, all we can offer up is one-liners.
one-liners that don't find the gap
I believe, though, that he shot J.R. -- or perhaps that was some sort of dream I had.
Never happened. And his kid wasn't really his kid. He was really The Man From Atlantis.
Where does Suzanne Pleshette figure in all of this?
Offense humming right along.
That's because it forgot the words.
And they're out of tune.
+20. Split it between yourselves.
Good show by th' Laddie.
Vidro pwns Baker.
This one appears to be a right hand column entry.
Well, a QS for Light Rail, albeit with 12 hits. Too bad he's destined to get hung with a loss.
Nick Punt-out.
Mario Mendoza, Nick Punto. Nick Punto, Mario Mendoza.
in thier annual 'Where are they Now? issue, Sports Illustrated tracked down Mr. Mendoza and had a chat with him. He is still in baseball, I think it was in Mexico, and I think he was a manager
That is correct as far as this goes. Seems like he has been a journeyman manager.
who got fired basically during the writing of the story.
Man, what I wouldn't do to see 199 again. Like Moss, I'm a big guy. Size 22 sneakers, and all...
Size 22? Wow. I'm a 13, a relatively dainty pair of feet.
my 10-½s are today's 15s, I'm lead to believe
exactly. We had real sizes back in MY day. And we LIKED IT.
get of my lawn, punks.
Wait, that was Bob Lanier. I'm only a 12 and 1/2.
I have 16 extra wides
Easy, champ.
I bow to your clod hoppers.
Nice.
So, Casilla has 2 of our 3 hits. Tenacious-O.
Time to doff a different cap, pally's.
Good work, NBB. Feel th' Cap!
Fresh lumber for th' Canadian!
musta been green wood.
Or deadwood.
Morneau's contact wasn't that violent.
And yet, Al Swearengen would be a huge addition to this line-up. And HBO's.
MIA.
cr@ptastic.
Anyone else see this in Baseball Prospectus' "Replacement Level Killers" article today, which put a team of the players most dragging down contenders together?
Here's what they had to say at 3B, which was given to San Diego's Kouzmanoff/Ensberg combo:
I don't think I could be more frustrated with Punto appearing in the lineup nightly...
Punto couldn't even manage to make that team. What a loser.
My Hacking Mass team LOVES Nick Punto -- the number one guy in all the land. By a long, long ways.
Coomer just said Washburn is a good pitcher. Against the Twins, everyone's a good pitcher.
Whew, the Twins needed that one. I thought Cuddyer blew it when he took that 3-0 meatball.
This is great!
w00t! Cuddy!
Never underestimate the power of the cap.
+10, S and B Guy.
Kubel's chance to be the goat!
Kube!! You are our only hope!
Wow, Jobu must not be working: Kubel out after 5 curveballs?
No style points. Dazz says "get of my lawn".
Don't kid yourself, Dazzle. The only momentum shift has been in the booth. Heart of the Twins' lineup doesn't come up for another couple innings now.
whaddya mean? Isn't Punto up next inning?
HA!
Rincon??? Isn't there any hope left for this game?
Clearly? No.
Juan Rincon in. BQS territory. If he gives up a home run, he gets a BQS and a BOSO.
(BQS = Blown Quality Start; BOSO = Blown Opposition Save Opportunity).
BTW, Twins have had like 3 times more BOSOs this year than last. Although I'm sure that's because the Twins have scored fewer runs, making more BOSOs possible (if the Twins would have more runs, they would be BSs).
Hey! Rincon with a QSS ... Quality Start Save.
QSSO: Quality Start Save Opportunity.
Where one enters the game where the starter has a QS but if the runners on base score, the starter will not end up with a QS.
QSS: Quality Start Save.
Where a reliever enters the game in a QSSO and when leaving the game, the Starter does have a QS (not enough remaining runners left to blow the QS, or finish the inning).
BQS: Blown Quality Start
Where a reliever enters the game in a QSSO and at the end of the appearance, the Starter does not have a QS due to inherited runners scoring.
QSH: Quality Start Hold.
Where a reliever enters the game in a QSSO and leaves the game where the next reliever is also in a QSSO, and the reliever recorded at least one out.
Basically, I'm working on a full taxonomy of relief appearances.
GK: Groundskeep.
Enter the game when the score differential is greater than 5, and does not allow more than one run per inning pitched, and if pitching with the lead, does not allow the lead to get to 3 runs or fewer. And pitches at least 2 innings, and does not get the save. Could get a GK and a W if the other team blows its lead.
BGK: Blown Groundskeep; and GKO: Groundskeep opportunity; follow.
I could do this all night, especially when I have other things to do...
Rincon delivers a Hold, keeping the BQS/BOSO opportunities intact.
See above, the QS is intact, the BOSO is still possible.
Ya know, they need to put first names on yahoo. J. Lopez just represents something completely different from baseball.
Yeah, Javy Lopez plays for the... oh. I get it.
pb! stranger! we've been losing without you around. you, and basehits, that is...
My three-week-old son has expressed his displeasure with the offense by peeing all over his Twins onesie.
Was he wearing at the time, or did he pull it out of the dresser just for the occasion?
The former. The latter would have been even more impressive. Scary, even.
don't underestimate the boy.
Thanks, Twayn. A fine mist of Jameson came out of my nose. Not sure of the scoring...
I know how he feels. I do the same thing.
Ichiro obviously not stealing enough (35 of 37).
Wow, Dick actually said something reasonable: he dislikes The Wave.
Oh, Jeebus.
Does Denny's still offer the "Grand Slam Special"?
Okay, Rincon can't get the BOSO here, as he left the game with the OSO intact. However, Reyes can get the BOSO.
Can we bench Punto now? Please?
Dinner tonight with the spouse at Cafe Maude (http://www.cafemaude.com/)
Two Ivan Putskis followed by a Hangar Steak...not too shabby.
A night out beats watching this club right now by a long way.
Indeed. Also, the daughter is at Grandma's 'til Sunday -eliminating the $10 per hour dating surcharge.
Grandma deserves your finest bag... And a gratuity.
Punto. Bert.
WW. (listening) Punto finding new ways to suck?
Gets wiped out by Guillen's slide and then lazily picks up the ball, forgetting that there's another runner on his way home.
What does it take for interference to be called?
I think he would have had to take out Cuddyer, too.
Neshek: BOSO
*WGOM citizens begin heading to the exits en masse*
I really don't like going to Neshek here, feels like unneeded work on an already heavily used arm. The team was already down 3 runs with two outs, why not just stick it out with the Dennys sampler?
But then he's be a LTOGY.
I don't think going to the groundskeeper was the appropriate move in the 7th or 8th. One run defecit.
He's there for blowouts. Only. maye 3 run defecits, but not one run.
I don't consider Dennys a groundskeeper, it isn't like Cali was in the game. Just seems like Neshek's effectiveness is down quite a bit over his last few outings and he doesn't get many days off.
I meant Rincon.
And I meant both Rincon decisions: in there in the seventh (wait, there was a 3 run defecit then, right? I guess that's okay.) and keepnig him in there in the eighth (when there was a 1 run defecit).
Oh yeah, my reading comprehension is at Punto levels on this one.
Agreed about Rincon, but I guess Gardy liked his outing a few days ago so much that he had confidence...I guess.
I'm thinking we're of the same mind on this, but if Rincon had a good groundskeeping session, let him have a few more, in low-stakes situations. One good appearance, even if it was 2.2 innings, does not mean he's got it back.
Rincon was a great pitcher for a long time, but he's lost it. Maybe he could try to make it in the majors as an outfielder...
AMR showing much better form tonight than the Twins bullpen. +10.
You know, if it weren't for all those runs Seattle scored we'd still be in this game.
ooooh
shenanigans by the M's
I guess Morrow the pitcher was warming up in the bullpen during the inning and came out for this inning. But since he pitched last inning, he cant do that
but the Ump did not catch it
Sorry Dick, the biggest problem for the White Sox is their offense, not their bullpen.
Not enough bunts.
Bullpen does (did?) suck though.
Starter, then peeking though fingers, then Jenks.
David Aardsma, Miekeljohn MacDougal, Andy Sisco, Thornton.
Some games could be like three consecutive innings of LaTroy Hawkins closing.
In ChiSox/Royals "Battle for Fourth" news, The Royals were one game ahead, but the Sox won a head-to-head matchup last night to tie up the race, and looks like they're about to win another and get back into sole possession of fourth.
speaking of LaTroy, I saw him bat the other day (he is with the Rockies)
it was a bit bizzare
but Chicagos bullpen is either the worst or second worst (maybe Tampa) in the league
I'm in Washington watching the game. The M's TV guys, as far as homers go, are only slightly behind the ChiSox crew. And they were ready to call Johjima out no less than twice against side show Pat. I'm just sayin'.
Nice to see a sharply hit ball by Morneau, he really ripped that liner.
Any opinions on what the Twins should do about 3B next year? I don't see a great option from within, but I also don't like the chances of them getting a halfway decent free agent considering their existing budget concerns.
List of upcoming free agents
Pray for a replacement-level season from Buscher, Tolbert, or the new kid, Macri...
Ideally Terry Ryan finds a good trading partner and gets an MLB-ready 3B for one of the team's pitching prospects.
Aaron Boone!
Tony Graffanino!
How is Pedro Feliz (and his beard) with the bat? He's a decent fielder.
Tony Graffanino screams Minnesota Twin
Let's hope KC doesn't lock him up!
Feliz sucks. So he's obviously on TR's radar screen.
How about Mike Lamb from Houston? He's a free agent after this year. Had a $2.7 million contract this year. Hitting .291/.369/.460.
This suggests Macri might even find his way into the 2008 plans.
From that link
So it is safe to assume he projects to a .280 singles hitter with low strikeout totals with the ability to make productive outs?
Yep...what are those called? The little things?
Miguel Tejada
I'm getting tired of the ol' A-bombs; how about the '87 PEPCON explosion as an alternative?
Sorry, make that the '88 PEPCON explosion
Twins lose ... again
not to go all Shea Hillenbrand on this but
http://www.unionfreeamerica.com/sinkin3.gif
Bedard had 11Ks tonight, so Johan's Sunday performance only got him 6Ks closer.
Bedard also pitched against the Rangers. So, in two consecutive road games (separated by a rain-out), the Rangers have struck out 30 times. (Remember, 2 for Nathan!)
oofta
they were also No Hit by Mark Buerhle earlier this year
Bedard also sets the Orioles single season record for strikeouts, breaking Mike Mussina's record
with all those great pitchers over all those years, no one had a 250 KO season. That surprises me.
Compare that to our left fielder, Ronnie White
I think he's more of a "Del" than a "Ronnie".
1) he wears his cap straight and doesn't have a big beer belly.
2) His line is more like this, this, this, this (in his 30s), this in 1957-8, this and this than it resembles a "Ronnie".
All-Stars named "Ron": 14 (13 if you don't count the WASTE).
All-Stars named "Del": 3 (including Del Rice, who had a 236/323/337 line in his A-S season -- OPS+ of 72; Coom-Dog's A-S year line was 263/307/424, good for 82 OPS+; and his first-half split was 282/312/458 for an OPS+ of 95!!!)