Typically we’ll open these by giving you a weather report, but this time we’ll go to special Cold Omaha weather correspondent Trevor May for the update prior to Tuesday night’s game:
It really is very nice out, with temps in the mid-70s that’ll dip into the high-60s during the game with a chance for showers late tonight into tomorrow, with a decent chance of weather interrupting Wednesday’s game.
But you didn’t come here for the weather. It’s Hector Santiago tossing for the Twins against Matt Boyd for the Tigers in a battle of lefties. More on that in a bit. Manager Paul Molitor keeps saying the team isn’t drawing much pleasure out of the concept of playing spoiler down the stretch, but that’s exactly what’s in front of them with the next nine games against the Tigers, Seattle Mariners and Kansas City Royals before a season-ending series with the White Sox.
The first three teams listed all still have a theoretical shot at the playoffs as of this writing, as Fangraphs pegs the Tigers with a 25.8 percent chance, the Mariners at 16.4 percent and the Royals with a minute 0.8 percent. That’ll probably be settled by the time the Twins land in Kansas City, but work with me here.
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Joe Mauer/Miguel Sano out of the lineup
Here’s a look at today’s lineup:
https://twitter.com/Brandon_Warne/status/778327360500269057
Molitor did not provide any concrete update on Mauer, who has been slowed by a quad injury since the series in Atlanta. He did hint however that Mauer is going to play here and there down the stretch, but it sure has to help things that Kennys Vargas has mashed in the meantime while looking more polished at first base. More on Vargas in a bit.
Molitor did say that Sano had put together a pretty good day. “I saw him take some swings on the cage,” Molitor said. “He’s going to do a little BP on the field. I don’t want to overly push it the first day of being around the team. I’m sure he’s excited to try and prove he can get back in there. He went out and took some grounders and made some throws across the diamond. So far it’s been a good day; we’ll see how he responds to it.”
Molitor said he was unsure if Sano would be available to pinch hit Tuesday night, or when exactly he’d be back in the lineup, but termed him as day-to-day and said Tuesday was a good step forward.
Eddie Rosario has an avulsion fracture in his thumb, Molitor said. The recovery timetable is about six weeks, which means he’ll clearly miss the rest of the season. Rosario left Saturday’s game against the Mets in the 10th inning after attempting to beat a close play at first with a headfirst slide. “It’s kind of a disappointing end for him,” Molitor said. “But at least we have clarity on what’s up for him the last couple weeks.”
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Santiago v. Boyd
This marks a unique start where both pitchers are seeing the same team for the second start in a row. Santiago was good against the Tigers in a 5-1 win on Thursday, as he outdueled (?) Mike Pelfrey with 5.2 innings of one-run ball with three strikeouts, two walks and six hits allowed. There’s a definite line in the sand for Santiago, who had a 10.89 ERA and .372 BAA in his first four Twins starts, and a 1.80 ERA and .200 BAA in the most recent four. He told me on Labor Day that this is when he went back to his old mechanics, and for the most part things have looked good. The only thing that’s a little unsightly is the 13-13 K/BB ratio in 25 innings, though even at his best Santiago is known as “effectively wild.”
As far as changes in his repertoire between the two halves with the Twins, he’s gone away from the changeup, curve and slider by about 4-5 percent each, and has put all of that back into his four-seamer, which he’s throwing now 72 percent of the time. It might also help a little bit that his four-seamer is a little faster right now (91.7 mph) than it was out of the gates with the Twins (91.0), though it’s hard to know for sure how much it matters. The four-seamer has been a good pitch for him recently though, as opposing batters are hitting just .193 against it over this solid four-start stretch.
The Twins crushed Boyd for seven earned runs on Tuesday in an 8-1 win, as Kyle Gibson tossed eight strong innings. Boyd didn’t make it out of the fourth, as he saw his ERA swell up to 4.43 with the loss. What’s especially rough for Boyd is that he’d pitched very well to get the ERA down that far. After having a 4.77 ERA following his start on Aug. 6, he’d made five starts and one relief appearance in the meantime, and posted a 2.32 ERA over that time frame to get his season ERA down to 3.89.
That stretch even included a win over the Twins at Target Field back on Aug. 24. Anyway, Boyd has really good raw stuff, as he’s induced double-digit swinging strikes in four of his last five starts — with the Twins blowup being the sole outlier. He relies pretty heavily on a four-seamer that he’ll mix in the low- to mid-90s (92 mph average) with a sinker about a half-tick lower. From there, he mixes in a change, curve, slider and a cutter from time to time, though that might just be a backed-up slider. We don’t have ample evidence to prove otherwise.
The change and the slider are the money makers here, as he’s got a 22.1 percent whiff rate on the changeup and a 14.9 percent mark on the slider. It’ll be worth watching to see what kind of adjustments he makes after getting hammered the first time against the Twins, and vice versa for Santiago against the Tigers.
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Vargas Elevates, Celebrates
Speaking of Vargas, he’s been on an absolute tear. For the year he’s hitting .277/.393/.580 with the big club, and since returning as a September call-up he’s at a stunning .333/.438/.593. “It’s been nice to give him a chance to get some at-bats,” Molitor said.
“It’s a little bit challenging there for a while to try fit him in there with how the pieces fit. He’s had a little bit of a strange year in that in Triple-A, his left-handed side was a lot better than his right-handed side. Up here it’s been a little bit reversed. But it was nice to see him hit the home run the other day — a no-doubter.”
With Mauer still ailing, Molitor said that Vargas should get plenty of run both at first base and of course at DH the rest of the way.
One thing Vargas has done that’s different this year — in addition to a lot of other things — is hitting the ball in the air more. For a person with Vargas’ distinct lack of foot speed and obvious raw power, it’s clear virtually all of his value as a hitter is going to come by hitting the ball in the air.
“I think there’s a constant process that goes on with hitting coaches and guys, whether they’re contact guys or power guys,” Molitor said. “I’m sure (Vargas) would like to be more consistent in what he can do in terms of elevating the ball and getting it over the fence. But it can be a double-edged sword in that you start to develop an undercut, and you have trouble catching the higher velocity, and you pop up maybe more than you hit home runs. It’s kind of going on that balancing act there to figure out what the at-bat requires.”
Molitor’s point is worth noting, and so far the numbers favor Vargas’ new approach.
First of all, have a look at his rolling GB/FB rate through parts of three seasons in the big leagues:
We won’t do a deep dive here as to why it makes more sense statistically for hitters to hit the ball in the air, but consider where most extra-base hits come from. With the exception of rolling a grounder over the first or third base bag, most of those balls are hit in the air.
And back to Molitor’s point about popups, briefly…it’s worth noting that Vargas is at a career-low popup rate, at just 2.9 percent. His career mark is 4.3 percent, and it’s gone down each year in the big leagues.
Basically: there’s ample reason to be excited about big Kennys moving forward. He’s made some HUGE strides as a hitter.
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Notes and Quotes
- The Twins (0-6) have not beaten the Tigers at Target Field this season, and are just 4-12 against them overall.
- The Twins are 3-7 in their last 10 games, 6-14 over the last 20 and 6-24 over the last 30. The Twins need eight wins in their final 12 games to avoid a 100-loss season — their first since 1982.
- Former Twins catcher Josmil Pinto had his contract purchased by the Milwaukee Brewers from Triple-A Colorado Springs on Tuesday, and as a result he’ll join the big club for the last couple weeks of the season. With Ryan Braun away for the birth of a son and fellow catcher Manny Pina also away for the birth of a daughter, the need for another player became imminent for Milwaukee, whose 40-man roster is now full. Pinto hit .257/.339/.445 for the Twins in 78 games between 2013-14, and had hit .308/.362/.517 at Colorado Springs this year while making 41 appearances at catcher and 31 at first base.
- Molitor on playing out the string in a lost season: “It’s just a matter of us continuing to try to play. I know it gets tough. People start looking ahead a little bit. But you’ve got to show up, you’ve got to try to stay present and you’ve got to try play.”
- Molitor on Santiago: “I think he’s taken a little bit more of an aggressive approach. He’s really trying to attack with his fastball. He used it a lot last week in Detroit. His other pitches, they’re blended in, but I think he relies on challenging guys. Trying to get and keep them honest. When he’s getting it in there where he wants to, it seems to play really well.”
