It’s overcast and muggy at Target Field as the Minnesota Twins get ready for game two of a four-game set against the New York Yankees. The Twins fell 4-1 as a Didi Gregorius three-run home run off Fernando Abad in the seventh inning provided the margin of victory for the Yankees. The Twins fell to 5-10 on the month, and have lost six straight to the Yankees dating back to last July.
Closer Glen Perkins addressed the media about his upcoming surgery with Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles. The surgery date is not yet set, but Perkins was optimistic it would take place next week sometime.
Perkins fielded questions for more than five minutes at Target Field Friday, but most of his answers were of uncertainty and hope for the future. Perkins said he didn’t immediately know the success rate of labrum surgery — one underwent by guys like Jurickson Profar and Avisail Garcia, who are both position players, in recent years — but that if he didn’t ever make it back, it wouldn’t be because he didn’t “bust his ass to make it back.”
Perkins said the injury was more of a cumulative thing, and cited the number of games he’s pitched in the last five years (319 from 2011-15) as being just “part of the deal.” Dr. ElAttrache endorsed the original plan to have rehabbed, Perkins said, but ultimately it came down to a situation where it just wasn’t going to heal on its own.
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The Twins made the move to designate outfielder Oswaldo Arcia for assignment official Friday afternoon as the corresponding move for activating utility man Danny Santana from the disabled list. Arcia was at Target Field Friday afternoon — he was told about the move Thursday night — to collect his final personal effects and say more goodbyes. Manager Paul Molitor said that Arcia took the decision well, and that he was cordial and understood the direction of the team and why he was no longer a fit. Both sides wished each other well, and that was that.
The Twins have 10 days to trade or release Arcia, or put him through waivers for the purpose of outrighting him to Triple-A Rochester, which he would be unable to refuse as a first-time deal. For instance, Tommy Milone could refuse an outright assignment if the Twins were to re-add him to the 40-man roster, then designate him again.
Replacing Santana on the Rochester roster so to speak was outfielder Darin Mastroianni, who joined the team in Toledo and will now have up to 20 days to get back up to speed. Rehabbing players don’t count against the active roster limit, and Rochester is presently at 24 of a possible 25 active players.
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Molitor said Miguel Sano is “a tick ahead of where we expected him to be” at this point in his recovery, and is probably about a week from heading out on a rehab stint if all things go as planned. He took batting practice on the field Friday before the game.
Reliever Trevor May is feeling quite a bit better from his back issue, and is slated to throw a bullpen on Sunday tentatively. If all goes well there, he’ll go out on a rehab stint shortly afterward. He’s eligible to return on June 25.
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Here’s how the Twins line up today:
Facing the Twins is right-hander Masahiro Tanaka. The 27-year-old righty has a 3.08 ERA, and while his strikeouts are down (6.7 K/9 this year, 8.2 career), he’s picked up the pace in terms of grounders and doesn’t seem to have missed a beat. Tanaka’s groundball rate is 52.6 percent — up from a career mark of 48.2 percent — and he’s done a markedly better job of keeping the ball in the ballpark this year (0.85 HR/9) than last (1.46).
The paucity of strikeouts is a recent development, as he’s gone from 8.0 strikeouts per nine in April to 6.9 in May and just 4.2 in June. It’s hard to pinpoint what, if anything, is going on there. His splitter usage dropped quite a bit in May, but it’s bounced back a bit since. It’s still not as high as it was in April, and the whiff rate is down on it as well. It was routinely in the 20 percent whiff rate early in the season, but has been down below 15 percent over his last six starts — which might signal something is going on there. Tanaka’s curve has also taken a pretty big hit, with whiff rates sitting in the low teens after routinely being in the 20s and low 30s in starts earlier this year. He may just be going through a bit of a dead arm period.
Pat Dean takes the mound for the Twins coming off a solid start against the Red Sox. Dean held them in check for 6.1 innings with just one earned run on three hits, but still managed just three strikeouts against four walks. For the season, opposing batters have hit .282/.335/.486 against him as well, suggesting that his peripheral numbers and results don’t quite match. The Yankees have loaded the lineup with righties and switch hitters to combat Dean’s splits, as he’s allowed just a .670 OPS to left-handed hitters but an .857 mark to righties.
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Notes
- On this day in 1991, the Twins lost to Baltimore to snap a franchise-record 15-game winning streak.
- Cedar Rapids catcher A.J. Murray was added to the MWL All Star team (West Team) as a reserve, replacing Jose Chavez of the Beloit Snappers who was put on the disabled list. The game is on June 21.
- Joe Mauer has reached base safely in 27 straight games — the longest such streak in baseball.
- Kurt Suzuki has a six-game hitting streak, and is hitting .391 in that stretch. He’s also using a new bat — stay tuned to ColdOmaha.com for a feature on that next week.
