The Minnesota Twins got a desperately-needed strong start from Kyle Gibson and plenty of offense early in dumping the Detroit Tigers 8-1 at Comerica Park on Tuesday night. The offense jumped all over Tigers lefty Matt Boyd for seven runs in 3.2 innings, and then held on the rest of the way to pick up win No. 54 on the season.
The top four hitters in the order had multi-hit games; that is, the top four hitters in a lineup some folks on social media scuttled as a “spring training” lineup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaVTEyWIjec
Here’s what we saw from where we were watching:
It may have looked like a spring training lineup, but it worked
One thing manager Paul Molitor hasn’t been bound by is conventional wisdom in recent lineups. That’s not to say his lineups are right or wrong, but he’s willing to change things up on any given day. There can be positives and negatives in that. For instance, Molitor stacked the lineup to face the lefty Boyd, batting Robbie Grossman third (1.068 OPS v. LHP this year) while DH’ing and batting Kurt Suzuki fifth (.297/.318/.485 v. LHP), and it sure seemed to pay off. He also sat Max Kepler, who not only has a .583 OPS against lefties this year, but is also just 8-for-40 this month (.200/.220/.250).
Now tactically, that makes sense. That is, in an effort to win the game in front of you, you put together a lineup to effectively attack that night’s opposing starting pitcher. Then again, is it more notable for Kepler to be held out against a lefty than it is to give him a shot over Logan Schafer, who’ll be swept off the 40-man roster the second the season ends? That’s where it gets dicey, at best. Schafer — also a lefty — is hitting a solid .296/.406/.444 in 13 games since his recall, but that’s far more small-sample size that it is him being the second coming of Grossman. That’s where lineup critiques get iffy, however. It’s easy to argue Kepler needs a bit of a mental break as a young struggling player, and day-to-day lineups don’t really tell us a ton about a manager’s thought process. Ultimately, it’s a long-winded way of saying “we know why you’re frustrated, but does it really matter?”
Schafer went 1-for-3 with a triple, by the way.
At least for one night, the Twins were able to relish the “spoiler” role
It’s about all a team poised to lose 100 games can do at this point. Waking up Wednesday morning, the Tigers have projected playoff odds of 33.8 percent following Tuesday’s loss, according to Fangraphs. That’s quite a drop from the day before (42.5 percent), as each loss is critical for a team currently two games out of the Wild Card and six games out in the division. The odds of catching Cleveland are not good — Fangraphs says 3.8 percent — but they also not only have to catch Toronto and/or Baltimore for a Wild Card spot, but also fend off the Yankees, Mariners, Astros and Royals. The upstart Yankees have an identical record to the Tigers, with the other three teams listed all within 2.5 games. Team Entropy, get on it!
PS: The Twins still have games to play spoiler against the following teams: Tigers (five game), Mets (three), Royals (three) and Mariners (three). There should still be a fair amount of intrigue down the stretch.
Gibson was pretty good, but not great
It wasn’t entirely different from his complete game against the Braves nearly a month ago, really. In fact, his game score of 69 — ironically, he raised his record to 6-9 as well, so get the “nice” out of your systems — against the Royals on Tuesday night was actually better than the 62 he posted against Atlanta. Neither of those starts rank among his two-two outings this year, as he’s got a 79 (July 22 in Boston) and a 73 (June 28 in Chicago) on his ledger.
Ultimately, Gibson gritted and gutted through eight innings, allowing just one earned run on five hits with a 4-3 K/BB ratio. He induced eight swinging strikes on 108 pitches — a 7.4 percent swinging-strike rate that’s below his mark of 9.5 percent this season. Where Gibson will draw positive marks from the manager is that he got through the seventh inning unscathed despite allowing a pair of hits to two of the first three batters, but worked out of the situation by stranding Tyler Collins at third. And not only that, but he came out for the eighth and got the heart of the Tigers order — Cameron Maybin, Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez — to go down 1-2-3 on just 12 pitches.
The first inning again was the big(gest) issue for Gibson, as he allowed the only run of the day in that frame. To date, he’s allowed 19 earned runs in first innings this year (7.77 ERA), and no more than 16 in any other inning. In fact, combined between innings 2-4, he’s allowed a total of 23 earned runs. Feels a little Radke-like. Brooks Baseball credits Gibson with nine swinging strikes, with six coming on the slider in 29 instances. That’s…..really good (20.7 percent whiff rate).
As we’ve railed on multiple times, Gibson also threw first-pitch strikes to 17-of-31 hitters (54.8 percent) — still below his season mark of 59.2 percent. He made up for it with strikes the rest of the night, finishing above 60 percent in strikes thrown in six of eight innings, with 65 strikes in 108 pitches total (60.2 percent).
Look out below!
Batters 1-4 for the Twins — Brian Dozier, Jorge Polanco, Grossman and Kennys Vargas — combined to go 11-for-18 with seven RBIs and six runs scored. In fact, that quartet provided 11 of the Twins’ 13 hits, with Suzuki and Schafer providing the stragglers.
Each of the four batters provided an extra-base hit as well, as Dozier, Grossman and Polanco doubled, with Polanco and Vargas homering. Polanco got the vaunted “missed a cycle by a triple” tag, but he’s now up to a fantastic .298/.348/.442 season line. That’ll play at short, or even at second if the Twins decide they need to make a move in the offseason. Grossman continued his mastery of lefties, and Vargas continues to look the part in the big leagues this season. He’s up to .273/.397/.576, with tons of walks (17.4 percent) still plenty of strikeouts (28.1 percent) and a continued commitment to not swinging at junk. He’s at a 24.9 percent chase rate — chasing pitches out of the zone — this year via Fangraphs. That mark was 37.5 percent in his solid rookie cameo in 2014 and 33.3 percent in his rough sophomore season last year. He’s swinging less, missing less and crushing more. I’d recommend it.
Buddy Boshers looked good again
Boshers pitched a perfect ninth inning with a strikeout of J.D. Martinez to close out the game, and is still unscored upon since returning from the disabled list. His season ERA is down to 4.75, and he’s got a 7-1 K/BB ratio in 5.2 innings this month. Opposing batters are just 2-for-19 against Boshers in September with no extra-base hits (.105/.150/.105). Outside of his awful final pre-DL appearance, his ERA this season has been 3.10 — or not too far from his 2.97 FIP.
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Up Next – RHP Tyler Duffey (6.13 ERA, 4.83 FIP, 1.49 WHIP in 120.1 IP) vs. RHP Anibal Sanchez (5.69 ERA, 4.88 FIP, 1.48 WHIP in 142.1 IP) – 6:10 p.m. Wednesday
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Notes
- The Twins announced that reliever Trevor May had been shut down for the rest of the season after his back issue flared up again. It’s been a frustrating season to say the least for May — 5.27 ERA, 1.31 WHIP but still a solid 60-17 K/BB ratio in 42.2 innings — but on the positive side, it sure seems like he’ll get a chance to return to the rotation next year. Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press tweeted that sentiment on Tuesday evening.
- May should be able to provide a boost to a rotation that ranks dead last in MLB in ERA (5.49). Just two teams are over 5.00 (Diamondbacks, 5.32).
- The Twins rotation is also dead last in K/9 (6.7), and has the third-worst HR/9 rate in baseball (1.52).
- Twins relievers have an MLB-worst 6.89 ERA in September. They also rank 19th in strikeout rate (8.2 K/9) and 25th in walk rate (5.0 BB/9). The Tigers bullpen has the worst walk rate in baseball this month (5.8 BB/9).
- Former Twins starter Alex Meyer tossed another iffy start with the Angels last night: 4 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 2 HR, 3-2 K/BB ratio. He also got caught in the crossfire of a no-hit attempt by Seattle’s Taijuan Walker in an 8-0 loss. Also: Meyer’s ESPN page has Mason Melotakis’ picture, we’re told. C’mon man!
