Unless you get paid to follow a baseball team, it's more or less inevitable that you're not going to see every single game of the season--even if you're just trying to follow one team. I think that's one of the reasons we love box scores. Here are my impressions of tonight's game based on the box score:
- Boof had a Boof night. If Livan Hernandez had this outing, we would definitely hear about how he did his job, threw strikes, kept the team in the game, ate some innings, and saw the defense let him down a bit. It's not really a big deal, Boof's just not much better than this overall.
- Has anyone put out an APB on Justin Morneau? I mean, yeah, it's the second game of the season, but he didn't hit the entire second half of last season, didn't hit in spring training, and even though I consider myself a pretty patient guy, I'd feel a whole lot better with a couple of multiple extra-base hit nights out of the big fella. I'm just sayin'.
- Delmon did well after I mentioned in the gamelog that it seemed like a good matchup for him. That'll probably be the last time that happens all year.
- Big Mak noted in the gamelog:
Am I wrong to think that the Twins will especially struggle with groundball pitchers like Garland? I don't really know what I'm basing that thought on, but it seems right to me.
There's been a lot of turnover in the Twins' offense, but last year they definitely struggled against [I wanted to use baseball-reference's team splits to address this issue, but the 2007 vs. GB/FB splits seem to be missing even though they are there for 2006? I'm not really sure what's up with that] okay, so as I recall the splits showed that the struggled against GB pitchers, though in 2006 they did better against GB pitchers than any other type.
Of starters in last night's game, the following players have hit worse than their overall split against GB pitchers: Kubel, Morneau, Harris, Lamb (barely), and Everett (also not by a whole lot). Mauer, Delmon, and Cuddyer have each done much better against GB than neutral or FB pitchers, while Gomez has too small of a sample size to really say anything. (Potentially of note: Monroe has pretty even splits against GB/FB/neutral pitching, as does Punto.) Overall, I guess that doesn't look like an offense that should get too brutalized by a GB pitcher, so it was probably just one of those nights. (Though I'm also not convinced this is a terribly great offense in the first place...)
- The bullpen was pretty ugly, huh? I think we're going to have to get used to that to some degree. Rincon has been in a downward spiral, Crain had major surgery, Reyes is coming off an injury, and Bass doesn't figure to be anything spectacular. At the very least, we're probably going to have to wait a bit for Crain and Reyes to get their groove back, if they do at all.
A couple of notes:
Crain, I thought, looked pretty good. I hadn't seen him in spring. The velo was there, and he got a swinging K on a pretty sweet slider.
This team is going to have trouble scoring for one of the same reasons it always does: they don't hit enough homers.
Bonser was OK. He threw strikes, certainly.
Reyes gets the first BOSO (Blown Opposition Save Opportunity) as he was on the mound when LA's fifth run scored, which eliminated the chance of the Angels getting the save.
I think not enough critical attention was paid to the bullpen this off-season. I'd put the Neshek/Nathan combo against anyone in the league, but the quality drops off quickly from there. It is laziness for the media to trot out the "the Twins bullpen will be the best in the division" line without doing more analysis. But I'll still take this 'pen over what Detroit will be using until Rodney and Zumaya come back...
It might be time to sort through the glut of starters in the minors and pick out a few to move to the 'pen.
I agree that the 'pen is in much worse shape than the local media would have us believe and that part of the answer will be converting some minor league starters into relievers.
like, say, Glen Perkins? (and Humber Humber)
Thanks for the GB/FB stuff ubes. That's what I was looking for, but I was too lazy to look it up myself.
They're probably going to struggle against all kinds of pitchers, last night was just the first instance this year I guess.
Hyperbole Alert!. Last I checked, Bonser actually had a quality start yesterday (4th run was unearned). Of course, IIRC that is the same author as Kevin "No Strikeout Pitch" Slowey.
I, too, thought Crain looked really good. My question is what happened on the Figgins double. Was his location off (I was at the game, couldn't tell), or did Figgins just defy their scouting report?
One question. I missed most of the game, but got home in time for the last few innings. Late in the game with bases loaded, there was a play at the plate where Bass backhanded the ball to Mauer for the forceout. The runner (can't remember who) came sliding in hard but late and clipped Joe in the foot with his cleats. You could tell Joe was not happy, and rightfully so, he was 3 feet off the plate by the time the runner slid into him. The next inning, Rincon nails Hunter in the arm. Was that possibly a message to the Angels, a little payback for sliding into Mauer when it was uncalled for? Or was it just a pitch that kept running in on Hunter? I'd like to think it was the former, especially since I think that Sciosia is a little too tolerant of the cheap shots his players take from time to time.
I was just looking at GoGo's 2008 ToppsHeritage card, and I noticed that in his 125 ABs last year, he had 3 doubles and 2 HRs -- but no triples. No wonder that first hit on Monday was so tempting for him to round 2nd.
You're all right regarding the 'pen this year, although we haven't seen Shaggy in action yet. My hopes are that he can remain a stable middle innings guy again this year, at least until we had a better read on Crain and Reyes. And I'd rather see Humber than Bass, although he's no doubt going to remain in starter mode.
(hey ubes, "APB" would sound better)
ABP = Additional Batting Practice?
Fixed.
Good thing that Morneau tuned that weightlifting program so that he'd be ready for Opening Day.