Greetings from a drizzly press box at Target Field as the Twins are preparing to take on the Rays in game two of a four-game series. It sounded as though the club was optimistic of getting the game in, and manager Paul Molitor suggested the teams might wait it out to get it in if at all possible. He said he was checking his Accuweather frequently and thought he’d seen a window in there for the teams to get the game in.
Playing on Friday night is key because this is the only trip to Minnesota for the Rays this season, and with a 3:10 start scheduled for Saturday, a doubleheader wouldn’t really work Molitor said. So it sure seems like they’ll try do whatever they can to get the game in on Friday.
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Starter Kyle Gibson told Cold Omaha before Friday’s game that he’s headed out to join the Rochester Red Wings in Louisville on Saturday, and will make a rehab start on Sunday. He’s still on his 30-day rehab stint, and will make just one start for the Red Wings as he mentioned he’s already got his return plane ticket in-hand. Terry Ryan told the media before Thursday’s game that it’s likely they’ll try get him up to the 90-pitch limit as he battles some back issues.
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Molitor said the Twins had received the results on Miguel Sano’s MRI, and that all the team knew was there was a little internal bleeding on the spot. “That isn’t uncommon,” Molitor said of the injury. “The good news is it’s not significant. So there was probably a little of slight stretching or minor tearing. There’s nothing significant in terms of us believing that it’s going to be anything more than just trying to recover from a hamstring strain. He says he’s always been a quick healer, so we’ll see how it goes.”
Molitor was hesitant to put a timeline on the injury due to the sensitive nature of hamstrings, and how they can be prone to setbacks with little warning, but by and large the team isn’t too worried.
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Molitor said that Pat Dean would start Tuesday after an off-day on Monday, and depending on what the weather does this evening, Ricky Nolasco — Friday’s starter — would be a candidate to start on Wednesday with the Marlins in town. That’s a team Nolasco is very familiar with, as he pitched for them from 2006 until July 2013.
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Darin Mastroianni said he was close to resuming baseball activities, and that he was headed out to play catch before Friday’s game as long as the rain held off for him. Mastroianni was placed on the disabled list on May 25 with a strained left oblique. Mastroianni said the injury was making him a bit antsy, as it was the first in his life he could recall that wasn’t an “impact” sort of injury.
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Here’s how the Twins line up today against the Rays:
Nolasco is making his 10th start of the season, and his first in the month of June after a rough May. Nolasco put together a solid April, with a 3.25 ERA, 0.90 WHIP and 24-3 K/BB ratio, but much of that came crashing down in May. Nolasco had a 7.12 ERA after May Day, with a rough 1.65 WHIP but a respectable 8.6 K/9 and 3.2 K/BB. After holding opposing batters to just a .599 OPS in April, they obliterated the 33-year-old righty in May to the tune of a .325/.362/.556 line. That’s a 917 OPS, or in other words not terribly far from how Miguel Cabrera has hit for the Tigers this year.
What’s working for Nolasco whiffs-wise is everything but his fastballs; he’s got a double-digit whiff rate on his slider, curve and even the rarely-used splitter. He’s thrown the slider more than any pitch, but despite the whiffs it’s also allowing an opponents’ OPS of .812. The four-seamer is the chief culprit for why he’s struggled results-wise, as opposing batters are hitting a Bryce Harper-esque .388/.418/.714 against it with three doubles, two triples and three home runs allowed. His best chance at being successful — and this has always been the case — is to work ahead so he can go to offspeed and breaking stuff.
Opposing Nolasco is Jake Odorizzi, who is in his fifth MLB season and has seen the Twins just twice so far — one time each in 2014 and 2015. Odorizzi was roughed up the first time out, going just 3.1 innings while allowing four earned runs, while the second time was a bit better as he took a no-decision with six innings of three-run ball.
Odorizzi doesn’t particularly throw hard — he’ll average 91-92 mph with his fastballs — but has gotten his fair share of strikeouts in recent years (career 8.3 K/9). He’s not much of a groundball guy, but that tendency has amped up in the last two years to the point where he’s around 40 percent, about 5-ish percent shy of league average. That’s still well above his early-career marks. Odorizzi’s split is a pretty big pitch for him — it appears he uses it as his changeup these days — as his second-most used pitch to the four-seamer this season. It has a swinging-strike rate of 10.9 percent, and is his big-time groundball pitch (55.9 percent). In that way, I suspect it gets him out of a lot of jams. He doesn’t use his slider a whole lot, but it has induced just a .235 OPS against this year, so he might start throwing a few more of those based on feel.
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Notes and Quotes
- Twins right-handed reliever Brandon Kintzler ranks fourth among MLB pitchers (with at least 10 innings) in groundball rate at 70.6 percent. Just Marc Rzepczynski, Zach Britton and Sam Dyson are higher. Kintzler has joined Abad as Molitor’s primary setup men in lieu of Trevor May’s recent struggles, though he appears to be moving back towards that role.
- After allowing earned runs in five straight appearances from May 13-23, May has allowed just one earned run over his five more recent outings. He’s faced 13 batters and allowed just one baserunner — a walk — with eight of those hitters being struck out. Among relievers with at least 10 innings pitched, May ranks ninth out of 224 such pitchers with a K/9 mark of 13.7.
- Six teams are striking out more frequently than the Twins across both leagues. The Twins are at 23.2 percent, and are 18th in walk rate at 7.9 percent — tied with the Rays, incidentally. Just two teams — the Brewers and Astros — are striking out more than the Rays (25.2 percent).
- Molitor on Nolasco’s start in Seattle: “I think he’ll tell you that his last start compared to two starts ago he trusted his fastball more. He needs to be able to use that pitch, especially if he can command it early, I think it puts in the back of their mind that they can’t just be sitting on his offspeed stuff.”
- Molitor on bullpen and they’re taxed: “We’re not in bad shape. I think some of the people that pitched last night, whether you look at Rogers who got six out but threw only 18 pitches, I think that’s a good situation for him to be available. We’ve used Pressly a couple days. We’ve got some guys out there that are fresh, so I think we’re set up pretty well.”
- Molitor on Max Kepler: “It’s fun. I think we enjoy seeing the young, talented players come up and get a chance to play, especially when the at-bats and playing time get to be a little more consistent. With limited at-bats we haven’t seen what we expect to over time, but I think last night we got a little glimpse of what he can do when he gets the bat head on the ball. The line drive into the gap was scorched, and that’s his approach.”
