It’s bright, sunny and warm at Target Field as the Minnesota Twins are preparing for game two of a three-game series against the visiting Kansas City Royals. The Twins need a win to keep from dropping yet another series, and will have to get past veteran right-hander Edinson Volquez to do so.
The fallout from last night’s debacle is unclear. Manager Paul Molitor defended Miguel Sano — who is in the lineup but at designated hitter — after his play that surely appeared lackadaisical on Monday night which resulted in a triple for catcher Salvador Perez.
“He’s not a lazy player,” Molitor said. “I think it was more of a mental lapse than giving up on a play.” Molitor said as of his pregame availability that he hadn’t communicated with Sano about the play directly yet — Sano left before Molitor finished postgame work in his office the night before — but he had communicated his level of displeasure to Butch Davis, the team’s first base and outfield coach. He also added that he’d address Sano directly prior to Tuesday night’s game.
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Here’s how the Twins line up against Volquez:
The Royals will get a taste of their old friend in Ervin Santana, who had a solid single season with Kansas City back in 2013. Santana is in the conversation for best Twins starter this year — a brief conversation, probably — but his numbers look fairly solid. He’s about league average as it pertains to inducing grounders, is getting a fair number of strikeouts (7.7 K/9), has kept the ball in the ballpark and is not terribly far from his career norm as far as walks are considered.
He’s been mostly fastball-slider this year, but when he mixes in the changeup it’s pretty good at least from a swing-and-miss standpoint (11.3 percent). The slider is the moneymaker; he’s got a swinging-strike rate of 16.8 percent on it, and opponents are hitting just .212/.268/.346 against it.
As far as Volquez is concerned, nothing is too terribly different about him in his 12th big league season. He’s still right around 7.0 strikeouts per nine innings, walks about 3.0 batters over the same time frame and has seen his trademark groundball tendencies return. He still throws plenty hard (93.4 mph average fastball), and relies heavily on a power sinker to get where he’s going (42.7 percent of the time).
The changeup (15.7 percent) is really his only swing-and-miss pitch, while everything he throws with the exception of the rarely-used four-seam fastball induces grounders for Volquez. He’s by no means a star, but he goes out and competes in every single start. He’s completed six innings in six of nine starts for the Royals, and in his previous start against the Twins this season he lasted just 5.2 innings, but had a season-high 10 strikeouts and no walks in a 4-3 win for the Royals on April 10. That loss dropped the Twins to 0-6.
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If you want to get a good feel for why the Twins are struggling so much, take a look at this table from BaseballReference.com:
It may be difficult to see based on the size of the graphic, but basically speaking, the Twins are in the bottom half of the AL — or at the actual bottom — of far, far too many positions in the MLB in terms of bWAR (wins above replacement courtesy of Baseball Reference). As has been said by yours truly in this space and many others, this is a team that has quite frankly struggled in every aspect of the game. This backs that wholeheartedly.
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The Twins signed veteran left-handed reliever Sean Burnett to a minor league deal Monday, and announced he’d been assigned to Rochester on Tuesday. Burnett, 33, has seen big league time with the Angels and Pirates, and most extensively with the Nationals from 2009-12. Burnett was at his best with the Nationals, where he had pretty strong strikeout numbers (7.7 K/9) and was solid against lefties. He hasn’t, however, pitched extensively or effectively in the big leagues since 2012, and this is already his third organization of the 2016 season.
If healthy and promoted, one thing he can bring to the Twins is his penchant for grounders. Burnett has a career rate of 53.7 percent — think something similar to Kyle Gibson — and the Twins as a bunch are at 36.1 percent. This is most relevant for situational use if the Twins want to bring him in with a runner on first and the team in need of a double play grounder. Again, the odds of this panning out aren’t overwhelmingly strong — he reportedly has a June 15 opt-out clause — but there’s no harm in giving him a few innings to see if he can usurp Buddy Boshers as the best lefty in the Rochester bullpen.
Boshers has been pretty strong down there, however: 1.42 ERA in 19 innings, 9.9 K/9, 1.00 WHIP and .481 OPS against.
Notes and Quotes
- The Rochester Red Wings placed outfielder Max Kepler on the disabled list with a strained groin.
- Joe Mauer has hit safely in 16 of 20 home games this season.
- The Twins recorded 12 hits on Monday night, and are 6-7 this season when recording double-digit hits.
- At 27.5 years, the Twins have the second-lowest average age of hitters, weighted by at-bats and games played. Only the Astros (27.1) are younger.
- The pitching staff averages 29 years old, just above the AL average of 28.9.
- The Twins are 31-for-39 in stolen bases this year. That’s 79.5 percent for a success rate — second behind Boston (91.2 percent).
- The Twins have stolen 14 of their last 15 bases successfully.
- The Twins announced their 2016 MLB Draft representatives:
- Molitor on the Sano play that allowed Perez the triple: “I think we all hope that in his work out there and experience that he gets to a point where he’ll feel comfortable making an effort to try catch that ball. He shies away because of maybe a lack of feel of exactly where he is in relation to the wall. That’s not hugely problematic except that it needs to improve. As far as the carom, Miguel is not a lazy player. I think it was more of a mental lapse than giving up on a play or disappointment or anything like that. We’ll make sure we don’t let those things happen. If everyone else maybe does a little better job — Nunez hasn’t played much second base, Danny Santana might have hesitated just a tick — it might not make Miguel not sprinting after that ball larger than it should be.
- Molitor on if he’s talked to Sano about the play directly: “By the time I got done (in his office), I think he was gone. Today I was out there doing early with with Park and Dozier and some bunters, so that hasn’t happened yet. I did talk to Butch about it, to make sure that he knows.”
- Molitor on Robbie Grossman: “It’s not a huge splash when you sign Robbie Grossman, but a lot of times opportunities come and people kind of wedge their foot in their a little bit. No one knows where he’s going to go eventually down the road. But he’s been a nice little spark for us. I think the impressive part so far is — not knowing him particularly well — his professionalism. That’s kind of an overused word, but his at-bats are good. He knows the strike zone. Even small things like backing up that play last night, being in the right spot on the field. You look for a guy who knows how to fundamentally play the game, and he’s had a nice run to start his baseball career with the Twins.”
- Molitor on his late-inning plans: “I’ve had to use these people I’d like to think of in some other roles. It’s very rarely that we’ve used anyone in a set-up or closing role, so I pretty much have to get through games sometimes, which is not how you want to manage a bullpen. It’s still kind of a mixture, but i would say that we’ve talked about getting some opportunities to get (Brandon) Kintzler and (Fernando) Abad some later outs.”
