It’s warm, partly cloudy and overall just very nice outside as the Minnesota Twins prepare to open a Memorial Day weekend series with the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays come in exactly .500 at 25-25, while the Twins have played seven fewer games this season at 25-18. The first-place Twins send lefty Hector Santiago to the mound, while the Rays counter with righty Chris Archer.
More on that in a bit.
Josh Willingham visited the Twins at Target Field today, and looked like he could still jump in the cage and put a few in the seats if he felt like it. He’s absolutely jacked physically, and it looks like retirement has been good to him. His boys joined him on the field, donning Josh’s No. 16 Twins shirseys.
I got a good, extended chat with catcher Chris Gimenez for a new spot on Midwest Swing called “Catching Up with the Catcher,” so look for that to debut sometime next week. Gimenez is a unique guy, and we chatted about walk-up music, the clubhouse culture and how he and his family are handling living in Uptown. It was a light but lively 10-minute discussion, and I think you’ll all like it.
Manager Paul Molitor confirmed that Adalberto Mejia will start for the Twins on Saturday against Jake Odorizzi, and Mejia arrived at Target Field just before media spoke with the manager prior to Friday’s game. Molitor said that Mejia has been aware he’d be making the start for quite some time, and was able to stay on his usual throwing schedule in preparation for the start.
Molitor also added that the rotation through the weekend will go Santiago, Mejia, Kyle Gibson and Ervin Santana, who will start the first game of the Astros series against Charlie Morton.
Here’s how the Twins are going to attack Archer this evening:
Here’s how the Rays will counter:
Santiago has respectable numbers for the season (3.96 ERA), but has scuffled as the calendar has turned over to May. In April, Santiago posted a 2.43 ERA with 23 strikeouts and eight walks in 29.2 innings. Opposing batters hit just .232/.301/.304 against Santiago in April, but have feasted on him in May to the tune of a .272/.359/.469 line. He’s got a 6.20 ERA since May Day with 10 strikeouts against 11 walks in 20.1 frames.
Santiago has been especially susceptible to left-handed hitters this season, as they’re hitting an incredible .500/.606/.885 against him. Meanwhile, righties are hitting just .210/.275/.293 against Santiago. Santiago has been all over the map in his pitch usage against lefties this season, though he has attacked them more with more with fastballs this month (63.5 percent) than last (47.2). He’s also stopped throwing changeups to lefties as much (15.3 percent last month, 6.8 percent in May) as it’s possible if not probable that he’s struggling with a feel for the pitch. The changeup was getting some swinging strikes in April, but that’s not the case in May. For the month of May, Santiago has a meager 6 percent swinging strike rate. That won’t cut it, especially against a bomb squad like the Rays, who are fourth in MLB and second in the AL with 68 home runs this season.
Archer is immensely talented and has been incredibly good this season — 3.76 ERA, 3.06 FIP, 10.7 K/9 — but he’s also been buoyed by three strong starts to open the season. In his last seven starts, Archer has a 4.47 ERA. Still, even when the ERA is a bit shaky, he’s holding opposing batters to just a .223/.306/.404 line with 59 strikeouts in 44.1 innings. The home run ball can be a bit of an issue for Archer, as all six long balls he’s allowed this season have come in that seven-start span. Still, he’s got a ridiculous 12.7 percent swinging strike rate, which is good for 10th among 94 qualified starters.
One thing working in the Twins’ favor is that Archer isn’t inducing as many grounders as he typically does. His career rate is 46.3 percent — well above the established average of 44-45 percent most years — while he’s at just 40.9 percent this season. With mashers like Sano and Vargas in the lineup, a ball in the air could just as easily be a ball in the seats. That might be the best chance the Twins have at taking down Archer this time around.
Archer is bringing the heat this season, as he’s averaging 95.1 mph on his fastballs per Fangraphs’ PITCHf/x. The slider and changeup are both good swing and miss pitches for Archer, with 18.4 percent and 14.5 percent whiff rates on them this season, respectively. Ideally, an offense will get to him early, but a smart pitcher — make no mistake, Archer is brilliant — can prey on that type of aggression. Fortunately, that patience is the Twins’ forte this season; they still boast the top walk rate in MLB offensively (10.8 percent).
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Injury Updates
There were ample injury updates at Target Field on Friday night, as the Twins updated the statuses of Nick Burdi, Phil Hughes and Glen Perkins.
Burdi has a torn UCL, according to President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey, and will most likely undergo Tommy John surgery in the near future. “Nick had some pain in his elbow after his last outing,” Falvey said. “Not unlike a precursor to some of the issues we see with a UCL. So we had him seen here in Minnesota, had him evaluated and he has a full thickness tear in the UCL.” The Twins will update Burdi’s status once he undergoes the procedure.
The injury comes at a particularly rough time for Burdi, who was pitching very well for Double-A Chattanooga. Through 14 appearances spanning 17 innings, Burdi had allowed just one earned run (0.53 ERA) with 20 strikeouts and three unintentional walks. After barely pitching in 2016 — just three innings — this is a brutal setback for the righty, who won’t throw his next pitch in a game until he’s at least 25.
Hughes has undergone some MRIs and other work to determine what’s going on with his arm. “We’re still working to resolve the next steps there,” Falvey said. “We are very likely to explore another opinion and get into some detail with respect to his thoracic issue in the past to figure out if there are some elements to what occurred for him last year.” Falvey said that Hughes had seen doctors in Minneapolis, with a follow up just for the sake of being thorough. “We’re working through a number of different doctors that I think are certainly familiar with this procedure,” Falvey said. “We’re just going to work through that with his agency and Phil over the next few days.” Falvey indicated that it’s in the biceps where Hughes is feeling the issue. “That’s kind of where in general he’s indicated where he feels it,” Falvey said, while indicating that he doesn’t think there is any trouble in Hughes’ shoulder. The Twins will do more medical work on the background, Falvey said.
Perkins threw a bullpen at Target Field on Friday. “He felt good; he felt great,” Falvey said. “Our plan is for him early next week to get more aggressive on some mound work here, and the plan is as early as Wednesday to send him down to Florida to start pitching against some hitters down in extended spring training.” The Twins want to get Perkins more active, including pitching with hitters in the box. The Twins will update his status again before the end of the weekend to firm up those plans. Perkins could throw a bullpen again at Target Field next week before leaving.
Falvey said Perkins is throwing pretty close to back to full strength. “Once you get to the point where you’re facing hitters, you don’t want to put a guy in front of hitters if they’re not there yet,” Falvey said. “He’s pretty close. Guys have said he’s using all his pitches and feels like he’s as far along as he’s been. That’s really all you can gauge with shoulders and returns from that. Each step is a meaningful test. We’re almost to the next phase.”
Ultimately, Falvey opted not to put a timeline on a return for Perkins.
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Notes and Quotes
- The Twins are 4-1 in their last five games, 6-4 in their last 10, 10-5 in their last 15 and 13-7 over their last 20.
- The Twins were just 1-3 against the Rays at Target Field last year, but did go 2-1 at Tropicana Field.
- The Twins enter Friday night’s game 25-18; last season, when they won their 25 game they were 25-51. That was on June 28.
- Twins designated hitter Kennys Vargas is in the midst of a five-game hitting streak. Jorge Polanco has reached safely in 10 straight games, per the game notes.
- The Twins are sixth in MLB in team wRC+ (104), with only the Yankees, Astros, Nationals, Rays and Dodgers ahead of them.
- In May, the Twins are hitting a collective .260/.337/.458. That’s good for a 114 wRC+ — fourth-best in MLB over that time frame.
- The Twins are 4-2 against AL East teams this season.
- Molitor on the confidence gained by a sweep in Baltimore: “That was, as far as a series as we reflect back here through a couple months, a high point. We’ve had some good series’ but to go on the road and face good pitching, a good lineup and a team that plays well at home…to win three games in really quite different manners….I think that comeback (in the opener) kind of spurred us on through the next couple days. You never know how momentum is going to carry over, but I think that coming back and winning that first game propelled us through the rest of the series.”
- Molitor on why the team has been so good on the road: “I try not to overthink that. It’s a great trait for a young team to have, to kind of take your show on the road and go out there and show that you’re more than capable of competing and hopefully winning more than your share. I would love to see it translate back home a bit better. I can’t explain why it hasn’t gone quite as well here. It’s kind of timing more than anything for me. We’ve got a chance to come back here for six games and hopefully Hector is on his game and gets us off to a good start against a good pitcher in Archer over there.”
- Molitor on how good Archer is: “Gosh man, he’s a tremendously gifted athlete. You can tell by the way he moves around and makes plays off the mound. And he’s been blessed with an arm that’s high-end….elite….and he can reach back and get that little extra velocity. I think that we forget he’s relatively young in the game, but he’s done a lot of good things. His slider is his most devastating pitch in terms of swings and misses that you’ll see. He can make it disappear, both down and in to lefties and away from righties. He’s not afraid to throw it behind in the count, those kinds of things. He’s one of those guys that it’s going to be tough to have a good at-bat against him every time. You have to understand when the guy has this quality of pitches, you just have to regroup each and every time and hopefully the next one is a good one.”
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