It’s overcast but warm at Target Field as the Minnesota Twins prepare for game two of the series against the Chicago White Sox. It was a #ShrimpAlert situation — it’s a baseball twitter thing — on Friday night, as Joe Mauer took a walk-off walk in the 12th inning against Tommy Kahnle to give the Twins a 2-1 win. Kahnle threw nine pitches total, with just one strike.
The Twins improved to 5-4 in extra-inning games with the win, and beat Chicago for just the second time all year (2-8). Ironically, both wins have come in games started by Jose Quintana for the White Sox. Anyone who has kept up with him in recent years is no longer surprised when he was bad luck, however.
The Twins are going through on-field batting practice, with injured third baseman Trevor Plouffe taking grounders at the hot corner with Miguel Sano and Danny Santana. He’s also stepped into the cage to take some swings, so he’s going through a full pre-game routine in anticipation of heading out on a rehab stint next Monday. He’s slated to play with Triple-A Rochester starting Tuesday against the PawSox, as the Red Wings have three games at home before opening a week-long road trip.
The suspicion here is that if Plouffe looks good in the first three games, the Twins may just bring him back after that. He’s got up to 20 days if he needs on the rehab stint, though. Typically, however, a team will try to send a guy on a rehab for just home games — so we’ll monitor that situation.
It’s Tommy Milone (3-3, 4.97) against right-hander Miguel Gonzalez (2-5, 4.28) in this one, but before we break that down, let’s look at the lineup for the Twins today:
There’s quite a bit going on here. Jorge Polanco gets the start at DH, and forms a formidable speed trio at the bottom of the lineup with Danny Santana (playing third!) and Byron Buxton. Robbie Grossman is playing left and leading off for the just the second time this season. Max Kepler is also getting his first start as a big leaguer batting third, while Miguel Sano and Kennys Vargas are out of the lineup. Finally, Kurt Suzuki is getting bumped up to fifth in the order. He’s only hit higher than seventh once this season — sixth on June 30, also against the White Sox — and hasn’t hit fifth June 10 last season.
In my research I also uncovered that Suzuki apparently hit cleanup twice last year, in back-to-back games in Cleveland in mid May. I do not recall that.
Milone is on the bump for the Twins, and is looking to cap a July that has been pretty good for him personally and professionally. His wife gave birth to a baby girl over the All Star Break, and in four starts this month, he’s 3-1 with a 3.38 ERA. It hasn’t all been perfect, as he’s got a 13-6 K/BB ratio in 24 innings and he’s allowed a .258/.300/.409 line, but he’s basically been vintage Tommy Milone. That’s all one can really ask for. Jerry Crasnick reported early in the afternoon that the Twins are willing to move him as well, so we’ll see if this is his last start as a Twin. With Jose Berrios tearing things up at Triple-A Rochester, it would behoove the Twins to do something sooner rather than later there.
Opposing Milone is Miguel Gonzalez, whom the Twins haven’t seen yet this year, but did see on three occasions when he was with the Baltimore Orioles. The Twins have hit him well in the past, but for various reasons that doesn’t matter too much.
One of those reasons is that pitchers change so much year-to-year. CSN Chicago’s Dan Hayes, who is in town covering the White Sox, told Cold Omaha on Friday that Gonzalez has started throwing his slider harder this year by roughly 2 mph, to the point where it’s basically become a cut fastball — a pitch scorned by his previous organization. Those changes, as well as personnel changes on each side are basically what render “player versus team” matchups less and less useful as time goes on. Sort of like what has Mauer done against C.C. Sabathia in his career? Well, that ranges from Joe’s debut against C.C. and the Indians back in 2004 at the Metrodome to today.
Sorry for getting a little preachy there. Gonzalez is a decent righty with pretty average velocity (91.5 mph on his fastball average, a tick up for the two-seamer and a tick down on the two). Fangraphs’ PITCHf/x algorithm still calls Gonzalez’ slider just that, and it’s up to 86.6 mph after spending most of his career in the 84’s. Now it’s probably more of a cutter — as Hayes said — and while it’s cost him swinging strike rate (13.7 percent last year, 8.4 percent this year), he’s been able to throw it with much more frequency and with about a 100 point drop in OPS against on it.
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An #OldFriend Returns
Justin Morneau received a nice hand from Twins fans before his first plate appearance as a visitor at Target Field. Morneau led off the second inning, which gave Twins fans the perfect opportunity to cheer for him 15-20 seconds in advance of (Twins PA announcer) Adam Abrams announcing him up to bat.
Not only did Morneau get Abrams’ typical gusto when saying his name, but the Twins also played “Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution” by AC/DC, which was his walk-up song for a long portion of his time with the club. For the game, Morneau finished 0-for-3, and was lifted for pinch hitter Avisail Garcia in the 10th inning as left-handed reliever Fernando Abad entered the game. Morneau is in the lineup again Saturday, batting sixth and DH’ing.
It’s kind of fun to read the lyrics of Morneau’s walk-up song in relation to his return to Target Field, too.
“We’re just talkin’ about the future
Forget about the past
It’ll always be with us
It’s never gonna die, never gonna die”
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Notes & Quotes
- Friday night’s win was the first for the Twins against the White Sox at Target Field this season. They’ve won a game at each location.
- Friday night’s win also improved the Twins to just 3-39 in games where they’ve scored three or fewer runs. By comparison, the White Sox are 13-37 in such games.
- Mauer is four RBI shy of tying Torii Hunter for sixth on the club’s all-time list, and four runs scored from tying Tony Oliva for fifth.
- Fifteen years ago today, the Twins traded outfielder Matt Lawton to the New York Mets for starting pitcher Rick Reed. Reed didn’t pitch all that well down the stretch for the Twins (5.19 ERA/4.88 FIP), but was better in 2002 in the first of the club’s run of division titles in the Ron Gardenhire era. Reed went 15-7 with a 3.78 ERA that year (4.40 FIP) before a shaky 2003 wrapped up his 15-year MLB career.
- Molitor on the quirky lineup: “It’s a little bit odd. We made some changes along the way through the course of the afternoon. I wanted to get Polanco in there. I thought about (Sano) playing again today. I just have been watching him and I see him trying maybe to do a little too much in certain areas of the game. We’re going to give him a chance to watch today and maybe come in late. Same with Vargas and Rosario. I can’t really explain exactly who’s playing…the arrangement of them is such where, because of some people sitting, I needed Dozier to hit in the middle of the lineup due to his experience there. And Grossman, I didn’t even ask him if he’s ever led off before. We’re just going to trust his consistency of at-bats to give us a chance to get on base and get some things going. We’ve got some speed on the bottom with Polanco-Danny-Buxton, so hopefully we find a way to manufacture, run the bases and have a good offensive night.”
- Molitor said he thought about DH’ing Santana or Dozier instead of Polanco, and getting him out in the field at second or third base, but he opted against it.
- Molitor said he thinks Polanco has the arm to play third base, but range and arm work against him as far as playing shortstop regularly. He also added that he feels Polanco’s arm has gotten better in the time that he’s known him. He’s also improved on his footwork in the infield. Molitor said that as a youngster, Polanco had a tendency to get his body a bit tangled up in crossovers or shuffles as he transitioned from fielding to throwing, but he’s come a long way in that regard.
- Molitor on the incredible throw from Kepler to nail Melky Cabrera at third base at a key juncture in Friday’s game: “I think that was one of his better throws. His throwing seems to change day-to-day a little bit. I’m not sure I really could tell you how I’d evaluate his arm strength. Sometimes it really comes out, and other times it’s more of a challenge. He threw a guy out the other night, and it wasn’t a one-hop rocket. It took a couple hops, but it had enough and was on-line. That’s one thing he’s been doing; his accuracy is really good. I know he’s been working on unloading the ball with his footwork with Butch (Davis) as well. But yeah, I thought last night given the distance and the speed of the runner, I thought that was one of his better throws. I didn’t think he had much of a shot, based on where it was hit and where he had to go get and throw it from. I don’t think Cabrera did, either.”
