Game 84: Motown Alley Cats vs. Minnesota Twins
Posted by ubelmann on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Robertson v. Light Rail
Last night's loss was certainly a tough one, but it's a long season, Citizens, hang in there.
2008 VORP for Twins acquired in offseason trades:
3.5 -- Delmon Young
1.2 -- Carlos Gomez
0.3 -- Brendan Harris
-0.8 -- Craig Monroe
2008 VORP for Tigers acquired in offseason trades:
17.2 -- Miguel Cabrera
6.2 -- Edgar Renteria
-6.4 -- Dontrelle Willis
-7.6 -- Jacque Jones
I'm not looking at list of offseason moves, so I may have forgotten one or two guys.
Checking in with Delmon
Sorted by OPS:
.265/.306/.314 -- Delmon, April '08
.264/.339/.358 -- Delmon, May '08
.294/.324/.421 -- Delmon, '08 ZiPS projection
.290/.326/.438 -- Delmon, '08 CHONE projection
.288/.323/.445 -- Delmon, '08 PECOTA projection
.321/.341/.476 -- Delmon, June '08
Delmon did get a number of days off in June, but he also finally posted a month that doesn't remind me of Jason Tyner. The projections would suggest that he can't quite keep that up, but they would also suggest that his June performance is closer to his actual abilities than his April/May performance.
Platoon--it's more than a war movie
Based on the early word, it looks like the Twins will be putting a lot of RHB into the lineup today. (No word yet on whether or not Carlos Guillen is going to throw a hissy fit if Baker misses his spot, leading to Nate Robertson obviously throwing at one of our best hitters twice with no action taken by the umpire in the matter.)
In his career, Nate Robertson has a menacing .666 OPS against lefties and a .816 OPS against righties. Robertson's PECOTA projection this year projects him to have an OPS 120 points better against lefties than righties.
So far this year, on the other hand, Robertson's had pretty even splits of .829 against righties and .837 against lefties. That's having faced just 130 left-handed batters, though, so I'm not at all convinced that this is the start of a new trend. In turn, I think it's a good decision to give Mauer the day off today. I'm a little bit less impressed with the decision to give DSPAN2 the start in the outfield over Kubel, but apparently even Kubel himself considers Robertson to be something of an extra-special nuisance to him, and with his previous knee problems it's probably not such a bad idea to give him some days off.
Positivity ... ubelmann ... does not compute .... arghgbehahdhe
I'm currently watching Garza dominate the Red Sox in the early innings. 2 terrific fastballs--2 and 4 seams-and he's just pouring them in there with a lot of movement and velo. Looks super confident and like a guy about to become one of the best pitchers in the league.
Grant Balfour is also on the Rays roster--he's done really well in minimal innings.
I really want that trade to work out for both teams. Just so we can see a team without an empire or a nation win that division. It also would mean one of those two don't even make the playoffs.
I wouldn't even begrudge the Rays if this is the best that Delmon, Harris, and Pridie will ever be (which I seriously doubt).
Robertson has allowed a minimum of 4 ER in 11 of 16 starts this year. His two best outings came in his last three starts, but one was against the punchless Dodgers and the other came against the Cardinals. In that game, the Cardinals managed just one unearned run on Robertson despite 13 base runners in 6.1 innings. I'll be pretty disappointed if the Twins get dominated by this lefty, even without Cuddyer.
evening folks.
Bon soir, m'sieur.
Hey folks.
Hey Stick. How's Luc and the lil one?
Doing well. BabySBG demands that I play with her when I get home. That's pretty fun.
I miss that. When I get home, my girls just want me to drive them someplace.
When I get home, they want to know "What's for dinner?"
Did we arrive at a consensus on how much negative WPA Scotty Ulcer's bullpen shenanigans were good for last night?
Light Rail running smoothly in the first. Evening, citizens.
Tonight's game feels big, doesn't it? Early July, Twins and Tiggers battling for 2nd place, yeah it doesn't quite compute, but if Baker would be able to slow Detroit's roll.... it just feels like that would be a big thing right now.
Deer SBG, thank you for letting us play on your magical interweb sight tonight. Amen.
Baker!
I'm cracking a homebrew, its a bit early for Beer Thirty, but what the hell, it was my friday.
Homebrew - what's the hooch?
tonight is the belgian pils- light and crisp with heavy yeast esters- medicine /licorice to plum and banana- good stuff
Double rack?
yeah- I attempted to dryhop this one- I don't know if it had any effect- the yeast (wyeast trappist) did most of the heavy lifting
My last batch was a Belgian trippel - full-bodied, but with some ++. Warn the guests kinda thing.
I really need to dry hop something again, one of these days. I've still got an ESB sitting in the secondary fermenter because I don't have the strength to lift the thing right now, maybe I should try that one. mmmm, dry hopping.
NBB how long from the 1st fermenter to drinkability? I've been tempted to do a trippel but am too impatient- for better or worse.
Two cycles was OK for me to bottling.
I did a triple a while back that was drinkable about 2 months after 1st fermenter. I saved a case of it for a few more months, though, and after 6 months in the bottle it was fantastic. I like to use beers like that as a patience building tool.
Problem with trippel its not really a beer to pair with many foods. More of a standaloner.
I liked it as a night cap.
It's like a Brewers game log.
I went ahead and said "screw it" and cracked one of them rye IPA's. I think I might have over done it a bit on the rye, but it might just need a little more time, too.
Cheeptoy! you back from the dead?
More or less. I even managed to go to work today.
I have a brew question- this last batch is good- (the pils) but can't keep a head (no joke, meat can't get consistent head, *rimshot*)- you have any idea what gives?- the only difference here is that I added a Tbs table sugar to the priming solution to achieve a slightly higher carbonation-
A lot of literature out there on cleaning products and head. Sterlize, use B-Brite, avoid soap.
Yeah I used b-brite- don't know just a wierd thing with this batch...
To be honest with you, I haven't really taken any notes relating to ingredients and head retention in the beers I've made, and I've been 50/50 on good head/no head batches. I usually use a little crystal malt to help with it, and I know you can use .5 lb - 1 lb of that by steeping it if you do extract.
Also, kegging and using CO2 has definitely helped promote good head retention in some of my beers. So, you might need to do some convincing to turn your kitchen fridge into a kegerator.
also, you using soap on your glasses? that will defeat the head a bit too. But you can still swallow.
If we could execute bunts like that all the time, I wouldn't complain about how much we bunt.
a bunt single? no way.
That was the greatest bunt in the history of artificial turf.
Walk, bunt hit, WP. Promising start here!
I would appear, via gamecast, (and that wild pitch) that Mr. Robertson is having control issues.
"They're so... well, y'know... fast" (Gordo on Go-Casilla combo).
Mebbe a little too fast...
That were some boneheaded baserunning.
boo.
hiss.
cr@p. So, the Twins picked up Crawford since last night?!
Jeebus, what a wasted opportunity. I hope that half inning doesn't set the tone for tonight.
Wha' happened?
Slap hit down the first base line. Gogo froze, then went. Thames fielded, touched first, threw home, Gogo tagged out.
Damn. Gotta score on that classic Red Dog slap to right.
Wow. What can you say about baserunning like that? Inexcusable.
What can you say about baserunning like that?
It was Punto's fault.
Bert and Dick are doing the Pepsi Challenge between the old FSN camera angle and the new one. Bert says he likes the new one. I'm coming around to his point of view.
Ball 1 to Joyce looked awfully similar to Strike 2 to Redmond. Yet another papaya-shaped zone tonight?
Joyce strikes again.
Tales of Brave Ulysses.
mmm, Creamy.
BobChris Guccione quite emphatic with the strike call from third base. I guess when you're working third you gotta pick your spots.Light Rail racks up another Ginger.
GoGo trying out for Cirque du Solei?
Just showing off his Jordanesque vertical.
this radio commercial for Majors restuarant sounds like it was recorded in a room lined with aluminum instead of padding
Robertson looks terrible. Let's get this chump.
Yep. His shoe was the problem...
Agreed... get him NOW... before he figures out how to pitch again... games like this are so frustrating when you let the starter off the hook early and then he turns it around...
Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal & OJ tonight. Mock me if you must, but my cholesterol came back 167 from my physical last week.
I would never mock a man for eating breakfast for dinner.
You're a good man, ct
Brinner. Mmmm.
I prefer to take my oatmeal in a more liquified form
Exercise. Super Omege-3 (flax or fish). No mo' butter. Do the little things, Rhu_Ru.
Head to the River. Red River Cereal (wheat, rye, flax) as cereal or muffins.
(nod to SBG-ville).
167 is a good score - I have been doing the little things
that said, I have a nuclear stress test on Thursday AM; treadmill no problem, it's the radioactive IV I'm not looking forward to
My MLB.tv is done broke... it just displayed a 4-pitch walk to Delmon... unpossible.
Me fail english, thats unpossible.
Gameday skipped right over Young's AB.
deja vu. time for a WP
Good to have ya back, Nicky.
Well, that definitely was Punto's fault.
Wow, Robertson's living right... looks terrible for the first 2.5 batters of each inning, then the Twins get bupkes.
Hey, with Span-Gomez-Casilla due up, I'm hoping for some sort of bunting world record.
Baker's gotta be thinking he has to throw a CG shutout tonight. And even that might not be enough.
PUUUUNTTOOOOOOOO
Nicky is definitely an odd-numbered Star Trek flick.
anyone else getting the 'busy' tone over the audio feed?
I had to re-connect.
Hehe. Punto's first at bat will be good for 50 lineup construction comments on the Strib blogs.
Ever since I started coming here for game logs instead of the Strib, my blood pressure has dropped significantly.
The WGOM -- not just the greatest on-line magazine, it's a medical plan!