September is my favorite month of the baseball season. From April through August I’m pretty much focused on two teams – the Twins and whoever they play that day. But when September rolls around and Labor Day is in the rear view mirror, I start to scan the baseball horizon in earnest and ponder the various pairings that the schedule makers have concocted. Tonight, for example, there are three other games that will or might have an impact on the Twins chances for winning the division or the wild card – Baltimore vs. Boston, Chicago vs. Cleveland, and New York vs. Tampa Bay. I’ll be keeping close tabs on all three while watching the Twins take on Toronto. While the Twins can’t control the outcome of those other games, you can be sure they’ll be watching the scoreboard and calculating division and wild card races in their heads, too.
After an off day Monday, the Twins begin the last leg of their RNC-driven marathon road trip, the longest away campaign the team’s endured in 39 years. The Twins enter the series tied for first with the White Sox in the AL Central with just 25 games left to play for each team. Believe it or not, the Blue Jays are one of just three teams with a winning record that the Twins will face through the end of the season, and the last one they’ll face until a four game series in Tampa Bay September 18-21, right before the highly anticipated showdown with the Palehose in the Dome.
As much as any factor, who the Twins won’t have to face in this Toronto series may help determine whether they will win the series and salvage a .500 record for this road trip. The Twins have the benefit of not facing Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay (17-9), who notched his fourth win against the Yankees alone this year on Sunday. They do face A.J. Burnett with his 95 ERA+ tomorrow, but that’s definitely better than facing Halladay and his 158 ERA+ right now. The Blue Jays also traded away Matt Stairs to the Phillies last week, and while he’s not the hitting force he was last year, I’m sure there are some Twins pitchers (especially in the bullpen) who are happy they won’t have to face him in the late innings. Going into tonight’s game, the Twins have faced six straight left-handed starting pitchers. The trend continues tonight, with right-handers scheduled to toss for Toronto on Wednesday and Thursday.
On the Mound
Glen Perkins: 12-3, 3.96 ERA, 104 ERA+, 1.39 WHIP
David Purcey: 2-5, 5.53 ERA, 77 ERA+, 1.37 WHIP
Go Twins! The Perkulator is warming up.
twayn takes a grit of sand at the last minute from the Boss and spits out a pearl in no time flat.
but this is still Game 138, twayn. The Boss decided he wanted to replay Game 136 the other day.
Okay, fixed it. SBG tripped me up. I see you tried to warn me in COC, but I didn't see it until just now.
twayn - nice intro - not sure if this is your first GameLog intro, but good work - keep 'em coming.
Indeed.
(What's up, Bo?)
Fun weekend in Quebec - now back to the grindstone. Non-stop workery for huge Sept. and Nov releases. My dept is in the thick of things. Lot's o' weekend work.
Garden is done (one more batch o' red sauce to do) and converted over to mums/kale.
Man, I had to clean out a huge batch of climbing vines off the back of the garage this last weekend. Light green, nasty vines with prickly thorns - (now I know what the terrorists are up to).
No Wrigley Field look for you, huh?
a first inning run would of been nice
No thanks to Vernon Wells. It seems like he robs the Twins of at least one hit every game.
Carlos Quentin scratched today. "Sore forearm."
signing too many autographs?
Also, Ken Griffey Jr. out with a sore back. Who had Sept. 1-2 in the pool for his first back-to-back DNPs?
Having CQ out of the lineup helps, Junior hasn't been much of a factor. As one commenter on South Side Sox noted the other day, "Griffey is my favorite player ever that I don't want to see in the lineup." On the down side, the Sox got Linebrink back off the DL, so their bullpen just became a bit better.
It's interesting with Linebrink...wasn't he just saying about a week ago that he wasn't sure if he'd pitch again? Or at least be effective?
A lack of "clutch-ness" by the Twins in the top of the 1st.
Alright Delmon, here's an AL East team...now hit!
Or not.
Quality AB, I guess...
Alright Poon...let's get 'er done!
Where is the clutch-ness!?!?!?
Let's go Denard.
Purcey not showing real great command so far, as many balls as strikes. The boys need to be patient and let him hurt himself.
damn
at least that dude threw a lot of pitches that inning
Another opportunity, more wasted base runners.
*sigh*
That's been an uncommon refrain this season. Not so much lately, but we certainly can't complain about the Twins not taking advantage of their opportunities this season as a whole. The Twins better get this guy out early today at least by pitch count if not anything else.
Jake Taylor grabs the ball that statfreak is nervously throwing up in the error and says "relax kid, there's 24 more of these and the Indians are all ready up 2-0 and its only the 2nd inning of a 0-0 game"
Wait, if it's Jake Taylor...isn't he WITH the Indians?
:-)
Patience is a virtue, SF101. Especially against pitchers they've never faced before, the Twins typically suck the first time or two through the batting order. But Purcey's not showing great stuff tonight. They'll get to him, I think, by the 5th inning or so.
I know he struck out, but that was a pretty good at bat for Span. Starts off 0-2 and works a full count so the runners can take off early. One of those 'little things' you hear about so often.
Evenin' Gents. It's hotter than hell here, so hopefully the Twins bats can, for no real reason, match that heat.
Ump has a small K zone tonight...for both pitchers.
a couple of the pitches that were called balls to Buscher were right down the heart of the plate according to ESPN's gamecast.
Derryl Cousins, Angel Hernandez, Marty Foster, and Eric Cooper on this crew. Ugh.
One of the worst in the bigs.
I'm just happy that we don't have to face the juggernaut that is David Eckstein in this series.
Grit kills.
Ol' McDonald bought the Farm, doo-dah, doo-dah.
Blech, this new Firefox UI doesn't do it for me. Anyone know if it's possible to go back to the previous look?
sure. Uninstall FF 3.0 ;-)
what don't you like about it? I don't see any really consequential differences.
My biggest beef (and really my only beef) is when I start to type in a website I go to often, but for whatever reason isn't bookmarked, the drop down list looks terrible and is hard to read. Also, I fear change.
Indians with early 2-0 lead in the second for Fausto against the White Sox. Could have been more though as Grady Sizemore lined out with the bases loaded and one out and Franklin Gutierrez struck out.
Remember earlier in the season when Perkins would throw that big, slow breaking pitch?
It's like he and Rick Anderson have all but removed that from his pitching arsenal. Interesting...I thought it was a decent pitch.
Baker used to have one as well that I loved. He would start innings with it during his callup in 2005 and I thought it was a great pitch. Then, he was convinced to drop it and 2006 happened...
I guess as long as they're throwing that "good sinker" instead, it's all gravy.
At least Baker does seem to have recovered well enough.
Yeah, he's done okay.
I just remember when Perkins was drafted, and pitching in the minor leagues that his curve ball was known as one of his better offerings...but I have not seen that pitch thrown by him for quite some time; which is why I assume that Rick Anderson and Co. have had him eliminate that from his arsenal of pitches.
As many walks as he can????!?!?!?!?!
I like!
Why isn't Ricardo Ingram a permanent coach for the Twins?
1st and 3rd again for Morneau.
Let's see if he can capitalize here.
And capitalize he did!
on the board!
C'mon, Josh Wetzel. Are you really trying to tell us that Ryan Jorgensen "deserved" to be brought up and will get plate appearances?
I think this is going to be a good game.
what the hell kind of prediction is that?? Where's your "A" game, NG??
A Dazzle Special!
There's that WP that the Dazzle Man is always asking for on the radio broadcast.
wild pitch runs are good.
Wild pitch runs are probably my favorite type of runs. They can be more exciting than a home run. But there's always the potential injuries so I was very glad to see Mauer get up healthy.
The old John Gordon special!
I see I was late on this. And I also named the wrong broadcaster.
-1 for me.
I am calling a Delmon Young HR here.
Or just an RBI single.
4 singles, 3 runs...Twins baseball baby!
placement!
Was that a Mirror Uno?? Reverse Uno? How do I score that?
Okay, BrianS, I accept your challenge.
Jason Pridie will hit a homerun tonight
that's much better. Pridie good, even.
Perkins is not missing enough bats tonight. I'm beginning to get concerned.
The Jays, as a team, are hitting .257/.327/.373 versus LHP this season...which is worse than they are hitting RHP. They have an OPS of 33 points lower versus LHP than they do versus RHP.
However, they've gotten 6 hits versus Perkins so far tonight. Yikes.
Look at the cannon on Denard!
Wow, that's a great throw by Span...great throw.
Perkins needs to field his position a little better though...if he does, that's probably a DP.
Perkins and Span both pitching to contact tonight.
The Microbus gets his come-uppance!
ready...aim..Darnell!
No headfirst slide???
knocked him out early
flipping sweet!
JoePos LUFFS Ron Gardenhire
ZOMG! Fran has discovered JoePos?? I am soooo sorry. I thought we were doing a good job keeping him/her/it preoccupied with the STRIB blogs.
I'm a Gardenhire fan too, for the most part. I'm just as flummoxed by some of his tendencies and strategies, but I do think he's improved in some areas -- notably his use/management of position players which I think he's been mostly brilliant at this season... and he does seem to wring a lot more wins out of this team than rational people seem to be able to predict... all while not abusing pitcher arms (short term wins at the expense of long term loss)
I don't know how Gardy can be credited for that freakishly high BA/RISP. Unless he sacrificed a virgin or something (and didn't Jason Bartlett get traded???)
Denard Span is a skillful ballplayer on both defense and offense.
The Twins offensive part of this game has been pretty fun, but how long can Perkins keep giving up multiple hits every inning before the Jays have a big inning?
Two more innings. Zod has spoken.
That prediction may have been off by an inning....
Man, but what a prediction.
Things are looking up in the division race. Twins lead by four and White Sox trail by four. I like the odds of at least remaining in a tie for first.
Listening to game on Toronto's Sports Mecca (Fan 590).
Check out their Web site. Not sure what's sexier tho. The fan girls, or the
Walleyes.
I was checking out the Vikings team "preview" on the WWL, and rather enjoyed the headshot of the "featured fan review".
Oh, Lord. And people wonder why I don't follow the NFL anymore.
Ponyboy is awfully generous with the hits.
Hey, Stillwater's a relatively wealthy area. He's just being generous with what he's got.
one more hit and this inning is as good as over.
So far, this has been batting practice pitcher vs. batting practice pitcher. And so far, the Twins have been a lot more effective at turning that into actual runs. But this could get ugly really quickly. I wouldn't mind another good dose of Boof tonight.
Over the course of the season, Delmon Young has managed to create a Pavlovian response in me. On any fly ball hit to left field, I panic.
15 hits and 0 extra base hits. What, is this game sponsored by match.com or something?
Hiyo!
Scutaro. Sounds like a curse one makes when you accidentally knife yourself.
The Jayz have 1 or more batters hitting at or above 300 (Wells, at 300).
Of course, that's probably really good when you convert from the metric system.
Canadian runs used to be worth much less than American runs, but lately they've been trading at near-parity.
that's just loonie.
borrrrrrring.
ISTR this Tallet character tormenting the Twins quite a few times in the past few seasons. Sure enough, looked like the Twins were going to get to him there but... nope.
Since the switch, the ol' 2006 AL Central standings avatar has been working well.
Perkins is just taunting... BEGGING the Jays... "Please make a game of this."
They took him up on it.
the hockey horn goes off when the Jays hit a HR
heh
Ok, I was off by an inning.
Well f*** me running. Didn't I mention about two innings ago that Perkins was not missing bats tonight?
I liked the un-expurgated version better, but good for you. You never know when a Vice Presidential Nominee might be watching.
Or her pregnant teenage daughter, for that matter. Abstinence only, my ass.
Canuck announcers blaming Twin long roadtrip for implosion. Probably true, but have another Labatts, boyo!
Hosers.
Can Gardenhire call for Boof out of the bullpen, retroactive to 3 hitters ago?
Stillwater runs
deepdry.White Sox put up a 3 spot in the 6th to pull within one. I hope this isn't another one of those reversal of fortune nights where we lead early and lose and the White Sox come from behind to win. I hate those.
Sign me up for that fan club, pally.
Indeed. There have been 2 of those recently... I'd just as soon be finished with those for the year.
all right, Perkins qualifies for 'the win'
will Gardy leave him out for the 6th?
Please, no!!! We've seen Perkins blow enough big leads and he's been hammered all night. If Perkins throws one more pitch I might jump on the "Fire Gardy!" bandwagon.
Gardy probably has Gameday up and will leave him out there just long enough for his ERA to drop back below 4.00
OK, Perkins, you put in your 5 innings... YOUR WINNAR! Now can we please bring in the pen?
Perkins has gotta be finished.
5 innings is enough.
I hate to say this but this game is far from over...the Twins need more runs.
And here come the piss poor AB's from the offense.
Three piss poor AB's for the Twins that inning versus Carlson.
*sigh*
It is likely going to be much more difficult to score against the Jays' pen... their pen is pretty good and their starter was terrible tonight.
Of course, the Twins' starter has been horrible tonight too, but I have a lower degree of confidence in the Twins' pen...
Boof!
Boof missing just outside.
Walking a guy that's walked 39 times all season.
Great beginning to the 6th for the Twins.
are you frickin kidding me!
uggg
BOOF there it is.
Well, this has been a substantial improvement.
I got yer piss poor right here.
sucked dry.
Kinda squirrely, doc. ;)
Hopefully that's aiming right for Boof's face.
Continuous heartbreak.
Hmmm... Boof giving up a long HR? Didn't see that coming...
Boof says, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
Good to see this staff is allowing to make Jose Bautista look like a fucking all-star.
What, does he do porn during the off season or something?
Where's dw with Jimi?
make something good happen, kids. I'm out.
Burning doesn't seem to work. Just need to smash it harder.
So far the Twins are 2 for 2 in running pitchers out there who had no business being on the mound tonight...
Yep, and it's going to be another night of bullpen roulette.
Another punchless inning for the offense.
My mind keeps going back to Brian freakin' Tallet in the 5th... runners on the corners, 1 out... Twins up 5-1. Buscher GIDP. I'm not saying that Harris does any better -- no way to know for sure. I'm just going to keep pointing out that Buscher has a history of not hitting lefties. I continue to find it curious that Gardy has apparently stuck Harris in his doghouse and/or elevated Buscher to join the ranks of the Lefties Who Shall Not Be Platooned on this team.
He was out.
No question...another blown call by Angel Hernandez.
That sure looked like an out to me.
It's because it was an out.
Don't expect much from Crain, here - born in Toronto.
Never fails, I load up my home page of my.yahoo.com, which has the baseball scores. I see the score is 5-1 Twins and 4-0 Cleveland. I click on the link to the box score of the game, and the score ALWAYS FREAKIN' CHANGES!!! 5-4.
Then I put the kids to bed and it's 6-5 Blue Jays?! What the frick is going on?!
I remember the days when the Twins bullpen meant the game was all but over in favor of the Twins.
Ah, the memories.
Dick,
Why can the Twins not use someone like Bobby Korecky in this situation? I'd bet he's a far better option than Bonser or Crain are right now.
Well, Cleveland just got a little insurance 5-3
Indians just added a run in the 7th...5-3 Tribe.
Tribe gets a bit of a rally going, add a run and have runners on 1st and 2nd with no out. Dotel coming in from the pen for the Sox.
Twins should be out of this inning if it were not for Angel "I suck at my profession" Hernandez doing what he does best...sucking.
Living vicariously through the Indians...better than nothin'
Cleveland's won 7 of their last 10 games. They've been playing good baseball lately. They won't be pushovers when we play them in a couple of weeks.
Indians add another run, 6-3, on a bases loaded walk by Choo-Choo!!!
Let's hope they don't get TOO good now. None of that Rockies bulloney.
You're shortchanging them... they've won 11 of 14 and are cruising toward 12 of 15 at the moment...
That would put them 4 games under .500... an even W/L record would have been unthinkable for them one month ago, but now it's a very realistic goal.
If only Reyes had faced Overbay in the 6th...
RUNS
Where?
Do the Jays have a breeding pen for LHP's?
Geez.
louder
Wow, Macri over Harris?
Brendan must be in the dog house of Gardy's BIG TIME.
I don't like it... don't like it at all. I was praising Gardenhire for great position player management this year and then he goes and pulls this over the last few games.
I just don't get tossing Harris under the bus over that horrible game he had in Oakland. It's one thing to punish a guy for insubordination or to go to a guy who's an upgrade... but I'm sorry, Buscher is not an upgrade with the glove and is a downgrade with the bat against lefties.
This reeks of Gardenhire looking for a whipping boy for the Twins' defensive woes... and Harris is just one part of that problem...
This reeks of Gardenhire looking for a whipping boy for the Twins' defensive woes... and Harris is just one part of that problem...
I'd say Buscher is a bigger issue defensively than Harris is.
I disagree. Buscher might suck at 3B, but Harris sucks at several. A utility suck, so to speak.
These losses just kill...
I don't think we're going to get any help from Baltimore tonight. Boston up 11-1
And I assume the Twins will get BJ Ryan to cap off the night...
I will place some of the blame on the offense (if the Twins lose) as they have completely shut down since they opened up a 5-1 lead. They are facing the best pen in the AL, but that's no excuse for the shit-looking AB's that these guys have had since the 4th/5th innings.
In the Twins dugout:
Vavra: Buscher's scheduled up next.
Gardy: Hmmm.... HARRIS!
Harris: Yes sir! What is it sir?
Gardy: Go get Macri, he's going to pinch hit for Buscher.
Harris: ......
Gardy: Go.. now.
Harris: Yes sir (sobs as he leaves)
Hahahahahaahahahahahahaahahhaha.
That was hilarious, I must admit.
Boone Logan just walked in a run. Man, it sucks to be him this year.
Cabrera singles in 2 more.
8-3 Tribe.
9-3 Tribe...Sizemore singles in another.
It is really uncanny how many lefties the Twins have faced on this roadtrip. They have now faced 34* consecutive lefthanded pitchers.
*estimated
I think the MLB Grand Poobahs declared that the Twins will no longer see a right handed pitcher
Scutaro and Bautista...Twin killers.
FREE BOBBY KORECKY
Perhaps an SBG/WGOM t-shirt slogan?
Will someone please stop the bertin' bleeding!!!
Game over.
Okay, I'm trying to stay positive, but our bullpen sucks.
Be negative.
It's fun.
+1 nattering nabob.
Eh, not so much...
17 hits allowed...17.
Who do I gotta bribe to get a decent freakin' bullpen!!!
Apparently, Toronto.
I guess the one, cold comfort we can take tonight is that all this heartbreak the Twins are going thru right now... well, the ChiSox are going thru the exact same stuff... scoring droughts, bullpen meltdowns, shaky defense, total inability to put anything together on the road, and a general feeling of "We're letting this race slip from our grasp."
Fact is, as long as both teams continue floundering, this is going to be one tight race...
Doesn't it hurt to know that this race may not be as tight as it is if not for those bullpen meltdowns and scoring droughts?
Sure... same can be said for the ChiSox too... there are lots of teams saying the same stuff, btw... my father in law is a Cardinals fan and boy let me tell you how much he's lamenting the lost opp they've had this year -- they have a good team but a terrible bullpen -- much worse than Minny's. They're only 3.5 games out of the wildcard and have 2-3 times more bullpen meltdowns than the Twins...
The D-Backs and Dodgers are both thinking to themselves -- "if we could just NOT SUCK for a week, we'd run away with this..."
You could power Manhattan with all the bullpen angst coming from the collective NL East fans right now... the top teams in that division all lead the WCS (Woulda Coulda Shoulda) standings by at least 7 games...
Another one I like to remind myself of every day is that the Yankees are not going to be in the playoffs this year.
Top 4 batters in Blue Jays lineup
12 for 18
5 runs (for now)
5 RBI
2BB
1 SO
Gardy runnin' through everyone in the pen tonight!
...and the game of Bullpen Roulette continues...
Gardy LaRusso getting after it.
My life is flashing before my eyes... no wait... that's just the Twins going through every lousy relief pitcher they can possibly throw out there.
dang! the Twins havent had a baserunner since the 5th inning
Yeah, you can sure see why Purcey got the early hook in favor of the pen.
In retrospect, maybe we should have rode Ponyboy another inning or two.
With how the 6th inning went for the Twins, that crossed my mind as well.
I doubt Perkins gives up that HR to Overbay, but who knows...I said Perkins needed to be pulled then, so no going back on it.
It was the right move and Boof was the right guy to call. He's pitched much better lately but tonight's just more proof that he's at this point Brian Bass with better stuff, more experience, and a much worse WPA for the Twins this season.
Honestly, hard to fault Gardy for much tonight except for Operation Freezeout Harris... shoot, the Twins were lucky to only give up 7 runs... 7 runs yielded doesn't even begin to show how horribly the Twins pitched tonight. Not a single guy except 2 LOOGYs had a good outing... and it's hard to call 1 batter a good outing...
No way. Perkins was hammered the whole game and the fifth inning was his worst with two bombs given up. Perkins just didn't have it tonight. The Twins have a shaky bullpen. You can't ask it to hold a one-run lead for four innings on the road and expect success.
Game over.
What a shit fest that was.
Tribe up 9-3 in the 8th
woo
(the Indians bullpen kinda sucks..so I wont cheer loudly until its official)
Why does the Twins postgame continue to interview the opponents?
I'd prefer to hear LNP talk about how they battled tonight.
I think the policy is that if the Twins lose, you dont stick a mic in thier face right afterwards and ask how that felt. Save that for the media avails 20 minutes after the game.
I could be wrong though
You can only give away so many chances before you stop getting them.
You would think, although when they aren't giving away games, they are winning. It's just totally bizarre. As a whole, they continue to play very well, just not getting breaks and making bad plays (pitches, errors, etc.) at the wrong time.
0-4 versus the Jays this year, right?
The Twins are due.
Dick just said...7 losses by a total of 11 runs on this road trip.
Two of which were blown by Joe Nathan. Baaaaaadddddddd.
This trip is like the Pythagorean Payback From Hell... by my count, they've now scored 62 runs and surrendered 44. Yes, that's right, a +18 run diff gets you a nice hot cup of 5-7 road trip these days...
BTW, before this trip started, the Twins were +3 wins by Pythag... they could seriously be back to even after this trip... ouch.
Meanwhile, the White Sox have lost 5 of 6 on the road and have been outscored 45-9. Would you rather the Twins were just getting bitch slapped like that?
Well, that was a bitter loss, but at least the Twins didn't have to ride the ExWP Rollercoaster Of Death* tonight. Turning an ExWP of guessing 85 percent into a loss was nasty... at least the ChiSox didn't turn their 85 percent hole into a win too.
Well, the Indians come to the rescue. Sox 3, Tribe 9. Still tied for first place.
At this point in the season, it's only a bad day if you lose ground in the race (unless you aren't in first place, of course).
I just got home from the game and I will tell you what, that sucked. When you give up seventeen hits you deserve to lose.