Twins

5/30 PREGAME NOTES: Twins Seek Tears for Fiers, Berrios Gets the Ball and Perkins Throws Live BP

It’s overcast, dreary and quite frankly cold as the Minnesota Twins look to avenge a brutal loss from Monday at the hands of the Houston Astros. Hot-shot righty Jose Berrios takes the ball for the Twins, while the Astros counter with veteran righty Mike Fiers.

More on that in a bit.

There was plenty of activity around Target Field on Tuesday, as reliever Glen Perkins threw his final session before hitting the road to go to Florida to ramp up his activity before ultimately returning to the big-league club. Phil Hughes also returned from getting a second opinion on his ailing biceps/pectoral and Buddy Boshers returned from Rochester to replace Drew Rucinski, who was sent back to Triple-A following Monday’s game.

Here’s how the Twins will attack Fiers:

NOTE: Miguel Sano was a late scratch from the lineup due to illness.

Here’s how the Astros will return fire against Berrios:

Fiers is tied for the most home runs allowed in baseball this season (18 – Bronson Arroyo), so despite the cooler than usual weather, the Twins may be able to jump the yard a few times against the 31-year-old righty. Fiers is by no means a fireballer, as he mixes an upper-80s fastball — more four-seamers than two-seamers — with a cutter, slider, curve and changeup. The change (13.8 percent) and curve (12.5 percent) are the only double-digit whiff rate pitches he has, while he’s allowed seven home runs on four-seamers this year and at least two on each of the change, curve, cutter and slider. If forced to throw his fastball, the Twins should have a field day with Fiers. Opposing batters are hitting .292/.370/.729 against it.  

Berrios has shut down three very solid offenses so far this season, but this will be his biggest challenge yet. The Astros are No. 1 in team wRC+ per Fangraphs (118). Berrios has done a tremendous job locating his fastball so far this season, and it has allowed his breaking stuff to play up due to the fact that he’s throwing first-pitch strikes 65.8 percent of the time — more than 10 percent ahead of last year (55.2 percent). He’s also posted a 10.8 percent swinging strike rate, well above the subpar 8.2 percent rate he posted in limited MLB action last year.

His velocity is a bit better than last year (93.8 mph average this year, 93.3 last), and the whiff rate on his four-seamer (13.2 percent) is not only way above last year’s mark (9.0 percent), but the sort of mark that very, very good starting pitchers can sustain. Fastballs are very rarely swing-and-miss offerings for non-elite pitchers, so that bodes well for the 23-year-old Berrios, who celebrated his birthday on Saturday.

Injury Updates

Byron Buxton came through Monday’s game no worse for the wear after departing with a sliced finger. He’s in the lineup, batting eighth, and donned a bandage on the finger in the clubhouse during pregame availability. He’s good to go.

“It kind of caught me off guard, to be honest with you,” Molitor said. “We were pleased that x-rays were negative and all those things yesterday. I just thought it might be difficult today in terms of grip and throwing the ball and swinging the bat and all those types of things. But our training staff came in early and gave me the heads up that he was good to go. I made him look me in the face and tell me he was good, and he’s in there. That’s a good thing for us.”

Perkins came through throwing a live BP session to Chris Gimenez and Ehire Adrianza feeling good. Perkins threw just fastballs — two- and four-seamers — to the two batters, and estimated that he threw about 40 pitches between the bullpen and on the mound, and said he loves how he feels both physically and mentally. He’ll fly out to Florida on Wednesday, where he’ll join the extended spring training program and throw 3-4 more sessions like Tuesday before the Twins look to get him into games.

“I think even (Glen) was surprised a little bit today that it felt different in a good way,” Molitor said. “Adrenaline, which you wouldn’t think would be a big deal when you’re facing a couple hitters at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. But I think the duration of his work today was a little longer with his bullpen before he came out there. I think he was encouraged by that. It’s good to see him on the mound. We’re going to get him a few more situations of doing similar things, and maybe expand it to more game situations where he’s got to run around, cover bases and hold runners and do all those things. Then we’ll see if we can get him into games eventually. I think today was a good step.”

Hughes came back from his visit to get a second opinion, and the Twins offered the following update on his status:

Old Friend Updates

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim announced on Tuesday that Alex Meyer will return from the disabled list to face the Twins on Thursday. That pushes everyone back in the rotation, which means Ricky Nolasco will face the Twins on Sunday. Berrios is scheduled to oppose him at this time, per ESPN.

Perplexing Pressly

Despite increased fastball velocity and good whiff rates on both of his secondary pitch, the early results for Ryan Pressly have not been terribly good. After being tagged for five earned runs in just one-third of an inning Monday, Pressly’s ERA is back up to 8.50 after he’d sliced more than three runs off it in the month of May. While it’s not totally clear what has led to the downs in Pressly’s up-and-down 2017 season, there is no shortage of theories.  

Pressly is throwing fewer first-pitch strikes this year (51.3 percent) than last year (57 percent). With that in mind, Pressly has had to go to the well with a fastball that, despite career-best velocity, has been hammered so far this season. According to Fangraphs’ PITCHf/x, Pressly has thrown 161 fastballs this season, and opposing batters are crushing it to the tune of a .357/.400/.595 line. Pressly has already allowed four home runs this season — exactly half as many as he allowed last season (eight) in just 18 innings. He threw 75.1 last year.

Two of the home runs this year have come on fastballs, and the other two have come on sliders.

“I think Eddie (Guardado) and Neil (Allen) have been trying to find ways to bring him along and get him to be more consistent,” Molitor said. “I think we’ve all seen it at times. When he’s on, he can be very dominating. The last few outings, he’s walked the first batter and kind of gotten himself in trouble. A lot of times his pitch counts get up there because of not being able to throw it over enough. But a lot of it is confidence, even for a guy who has some success at this level. We’re going to keep trying to find ways to get him in there and try to get him back on track.”

Notes and Quotes

  • The Twins are expecting 24,000 fans for Tuesday night’s game.
  • Twins pitchers have a 6.43 ERA on the current homestand (four games). Starters have been solid (3.18 ERA) while relievers have been…..less so (10.24).
  • The Twins still rank No. 1 in MLB in offensive walk rate (10.9 percent). They are smack dab in the middle (15th-highest, 21.4 percent) in strikeout rate.
  • By Fangraphs’ wRC+, the Twins have the No. 6 offense in baseball (103). As noted above, the Astros are No. 1.
  • Brian Dozier is in the midst of a 10-game hitting streak — a season high. He’s hitting .311/.404/.533 over that time frame, and has lifted his season OPS from .728 to .782 in that span.
  • After Monday’s loss, the Twins are 23-2 when leading after seven innings this season.
  • Molitor on how tough an out Jose Altuve is: “He’s one of several over there. I’ve been impressed having a chance to watch him over the last three-plus years. He’s got a lot of sock for being a little guy and he certainly knows how to use the whole field. He’s really difficult to defend because his charts are all over the map. I think he’s one of those rare guys — even at this level — in that he sees space. I think he sees where he’s got the best chance to hit the baseball to do something good for his team. All we can do is try to mix it up with him the best we can, and hope at least once in awhile he hits it at somebody.”

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