Casilla puts fielding lesson to work on spectacular play
Posted on June 26th, 2008 – 1:16 AMBy Joe Christensen
SAN DIEGO — Before batting practice Wednesday, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire gave a one-on-one tutorial for second baseman Alexi Casilla, who had been struggling to catch grounders when extending to his backhand side.
Gardenhire said he had Casilla get into a diving position, flat on the ground, so he could fire baseballs at his glove, letting Casilla work on the proper technique.
Sure enough, Edgar Gonzalez led off the fifth inning with a sharp bouncer up the middle. Casilla made a terrific diving stop, reaching out to make a backhanded catch and then throwing to first for the out.
That’s how things are going for the Twins, who defeated the Padres 9-3, extending their winning streak to eight games.
Afterward, Gardenhire downplayed the pregame session with Casilla.
“That was like Lesson 101 and 102, but he went to like 108 with that catch,” Gardenhire said. “I didn’t work on that one. He made a heck of a play.”
Error reversed
We’ve written a lot about the pitching and hitting during this winning streak, but the defense has been pretty good, too.
Justin Morneau was originally charged with two errors tonight. The first one was later reversed. It came in the fourth inning, when he missed a pop foul from Michael Barrett. The official scorer (correctly, in my opinion) later decided that it was too tough of a play for an error.
Then in the ninth, Brendan Harris fielded a grounder from Barrett and threw to first base. It looked like the game’s final out, but Morneau missed the ball.
The reason? The ball went right through the webbing of Morneau’s glove. He had to get another one from the dugout to finish the inning.
Were it not for the broken glove, Twins relievers would have turned in four perfect innings. Brian Bass pitched a 1-2-3 sixth and seventh, Craig Breslow did the same in the eighth, and Boof Bonser was headed there in the ninth.
It was funny at the end, as a throng of Twins fans were crowding the front rows in a mostly empty stadium, yelling, “Boooooooooof!”
On Thursday, the Twins have a chance to move into first place.
65 Responses to "Casilla puts fielding lesson to work on spectacular play"
Glad to see the scorekeeper took that first error away from Morneau and gave it to himself. I was pretty shocked by the initial ruling considering how reluctant scorekeepers are to hand out errors these days, such as on Cuddyer’s ‘double’ right past Augie Ojeda’s glove Saturday night in Arizona.
Kudos to the Twins for playing Kubel in Leftfield tonight, and benching Young. I would like to see Young in Center tomorrow night and let Gomez have a day off.
BC, nice to see you are still alive. Was wondering if you were okay, since haven’t seen much posting from you since the Twins have picked up the teachings of Vavra, and seemed to right this ship.
I fell asleep before Monroe’s homer, woke up in time to see the final outs (poor Morneau…)
Maybe I spoke too soon regarding Monroe being extraneous. I’d be interested in seeing his numbers off the bench this season.
Lamb may be struggling hardcore (it’s amazing the beard he’s grown since last we saw him), but Monroe could very well have a place as a bench option and “4th” outfielder if he can continue to have success as a PH.
Ben Revere: What’s up with Revere at Beloit? I haven’t seen him appear in box scores for a week.
royster re: question from previous blog,
No, I didn’t bother trying to figure out how my schedule would work for each division. I am confident a similar plan would work. My emphasis was to show that it could be done (playing every team in both leagues every year). I would switch home and away each season with the 3 game NL series.
When I said it was a “balanced schedule”, I meant that all your division teams would have the same schedules.
After watching some new and old guys on these NL teams, I have to say again that this is a whole lot more enjoyable than watching AJ and Konerko 18 games a year (12 would be plenty for me).
Brenden Harris is pumped. Two homers in two games. He’s running on pure adrenaline. Threw the ball so hard to first it went right through Morneau’s glove. Maybe it should have been the final out, but don’t change a thing.
Just get a new first base mitt.
i would guess there would be several line up changes with a day gm after a night gm even with the winning streak.
nice to have a team in the hunt at this point i don’t think most of us would have thought, in april, we’d be where we are.
padre’s note headley their super prospect is not a left fielder and they need to get him back to 3b, he looks lost out there. if he was cheap enough i’d like us to get kouzmanoff, i have my doubts busher will keep up this pace and he is not a very good fielder. time will tell he may prove me wrong.
GOBBLE:
Right, Butcher will cool off a little, they all do. As far as his fielding, maybe Gardy can take HIM out in the back yard too and play a little catch. It seemed to work for Lexi.
He threw balls at his glove? ? ?
Revere is day to day with a hamstring issue
“i would guess there would be several line up changes with a day gm after a night gm even with the winning streak.”
If it were the AL I’d say maybe, but in the NL maybe not…
Maybe Delmon and Redmond get starts, but that’d be all I could think of.
Hope he doesn’t shake things up to bad, they can rest at home. Should be able to get the sweep against the last place Maxi Pads. Unless we make some fifth starter look like a Cy Younger today. So far we’ve been making Cy Youngers look like a fifth starter.
I heard that Seth of Seth Speaks will be on kfan sometime after 10:30. Did anyone else hear this? I am going to see if there is a live feed through the website
nice to see the baseball genius souhan say how much better off we’d be with bartlett, so much better than harris: .250 ave, 4 hr, 22 rbi, .310 obp, 2e (at ss) 30 gms, .987 fielding pct.
bartlett: .246 ave, 0 hr, 17 ri, .291 obp, 8e in 71 gms, .974 fd pct.
no doubt that bartlett has better range but it will not amount to a great deal of difference, harris makes all the plays, maybe not any spectacular ones but he is ok.
i saw a note about souhans monday story on how he wanted the twins to win so bad. imo he is just the opposite after ging back and reading some of his old stuff. as t noted yesterday some people want them to fail so they can complain. no doubt in my mind souhan is in that group. he has to have people fail so he has something to write about. looking back he has made it his mission to run young out of town, he over stated early that young would hit homemruns, something that young himself never claimed, so now that souhan himself was wrong in his assessment he blames it on young and will beat this into the ground until he gets him out of town, imho.
sorry my rant for the day going back on my meds!
Didn’t Bass give up a hit in the 7th? Maybe I fell a sleep and dreamt that he did.
Hey Joe C., I think it’s officially okay to claim the Twins are playing “very well” as they return home 
Yeah, I wouldn’t mess up the lineup too much….maybe something like:
Gomez
Casilla
Redmond
Morneau
Cuddyer
Young
Harris
Buscher
Baker
I would even be in favor of having Monroe play over Cuddy (Doug Mientkiewicz, the Pirates right fielder, has a higher avg. than Cuddy right now)…but I think you keep Go-go in there…they do have an off-day again on Monday.
I guess that’s not until next Thurs….ahhh, I’d still keep it as is with few exceptions. This is no time to trot out the B-squad (Punto at SS, Lamb at 1B, Monroe in CF, etc.)
Right again, Gobble. Amazing how those four homers make his fielding look so much better. More damage with the bat than with the glove, I guess. (although I don’t think he is bad in the field)
Harris=Kingfish of the Bottom Feeders
[…] Casilla made a great diving play last night. According to Joe C’s blog, it was steeped in a pregame session that Casilla had with Gardy about diving for balls on the […]
Do they reaaly need to rest Joe today? They had Monday off and another day game on Sunday. I would think they’ll wait until Sunday to give him the day off.
Harris had better keep hitting home runs if he wants to keep his job next year. We need a shortstop with + range to plug that gaping hole between 3B and short.
“Maybe I spoke too soon regarding Monroe being extraneous. I’d be interested in seeing his numbers off the bench this season.”
Monroe is hitting .182/.250/.727 as a substitute so far this season in 12 plate appearances. He’s 2 for 11, with both hits being home runs. He has also walked once while striking out 5 times.
It was nice to see Monroe’s homer last night, but it was late in a game which was pretty much over. But at least he HAS home run power. Hard to come by for Twins for some reason.
“Harris had better keep hitting home runs if he wants to keep his job next year.”
If Casilla is held hostage at 2B, who in the Twins organization is going to steal Harris’ SS job?
Punto?
Plouffe?
Everett?
Sergio Santos?
None of them can challenge, if Harris continues his current hitting.
Harris’ minor league numbers and his TampaBay2007 numbers indicate that his power may not drop off. If so, the job is his, barring a trade or Free Agent acquisition.
Hey BC what did you think of the Fresno St CWS championship last night
BC Beneke It was stated here that you and Jama were over on a T-Wolves blog.Would you care to share that website info.I hope the wolves pull off a slam dunk(a little b- ball lingo there),but i have mixed feelings.If McHale screws up as usual,you will spend more time over there ripping on Kevin and give us a break!
If Harris’ power surge continues and Delmon does what Delmon can do, I’d like to see Souhan revisit “THE TRADE” at the end of 2009.
Geno McFail is a moron
jimmy that was an amazing run for Fresno state it was sort of like watching NC State when they won there basketball championship. i don’t think anyone gave them a chance this year.
I thought it was a wonderfull game and I am very happy for Fresno St. The only thing I didn’t like was the guy dropping the F Bomb on tv then throwing the bat later into the dugout. Classless
Play Punto at SS.
I missed that but did you hear that they were the lowest seeded team to ever win a college championship? Thats amazing. That alone should give Twins fans hope this year because i think we were like 75-1 on winning the WS this year.
BC do you know of anyone on either team that was drafted this year and if so where were they chosen?
“Play Punto at SS.”
Because playing Harris at SS is costing us games. If Harris was on the bench, we could have an 8-game winning streak.
But……never mind.
Sorry jimmy but i don’t get to wrapped up in drafts especially the baseball draft it’s too much of a crap shoot IMO. I do think Beasley should be the first pick tonight though.
Mr. sane, Your 10:55 post is right on the money. On another note, both Young and Lamb’s lack of HRs this year have been a source of much conversation. Taking into consideration the respective ballparks that they called home last year (short to left and right, low fences!!, good carry), might we have expected too much. Personally, I think Young is going to blossom mightily and that Lamb will continue his career as just a decent role player but good guy to have on a team. Buscher is starting to remind me of another old 3B of the Twins, Mike Pagliarulo (sp?). Ain’t it fun to win 8 in a row.
Denard Span needs to be playing everyday for the Twins, and leading off. Span can play 3 positions. There are plenty of openings in the Twins’ OF.
no doubt that bartlett has better range but it will not amount to a great deal of difference,
The difference between an elite shortstop and a horrendous one (Tulowitzki to Ramirez) is roughly 50 runs over the course of the year. Bartlett has easily been above average, Harris below average. The difference could be quite considerable, which is why Harris needs to hit in order to be a valuable shortstop.
“Buscher is starting to remind me of another old 3B of the Twins, Mike Pagliarulo”
Pagliarulo wasn’t very good, but he was much better than Buscher.
BC here is tonights draft
Chicago - Rose
Miami - Beasley
Minnesota - Brook Lopez
Seattle - OJ Mayo
Dear Gardy,
You need to play Nick Punto. You have a chance to win this thing. You have always gone with Punto in the past. Now is not a time to act irrational. Don’t be blinded by a few lucky wins. You need to get Punto in there, someplace, and keep him there. Please take this suggestion, under immediate consideration.
Regards,
Craig
My email to Gardy.
no doubt that bartlett has better range
The numbers do doubt it. This year at SS:
Harris FP .987 RF 5.35 (264 innings)
Bartlett FP .974 RF 4.31 (633 innings)
Everett FP .969 RF 5.23 (215 innings)
League: FP.973 RF 4.45
The New and Improved Craig absolutely hilarious.
Dear Gardy trade everyone for ugly people like Kubel. We could rename the team. PS I can make Mourny a rug later today but just need an address to send it to.
snepp,
“The difference between an elite shortstop and a horrendous one (Tulowitzki to Ramirez) is roughly 50 runs over the course of the year”
On that scale, do you know the approximate difference in runs between Bartlett (above average?)and Harris? (below average?)
or between Harris and the best alternative Twins candidate for the SS job?
sane could we ever get Garciapara and send him back to playing SS
Range Factor, is an entertaining constituent, of a baseball, Traveling Medicine Show.
Thrylos,
Thanks for adding that information, which helps to prove, how bogus, range factor is. Keep it coming.
This team is like the semi-attractive chick in the bar who gets hotter everytime she says something cool. I’m smitten.
“On that scale, do you know the approximate difference in runs between Bartlett (above average?)and Harris? (below average?)”.
NAME OPS
Harris .669
Bartlett .565
If OPS could be converted to runs produced and fielding performance could be converted to runs allowed, then Harris and Bartlett could be compared on a Runs (plus-minus) scale.
jimmybee,
“sane could we ever get Garciapara and send him back to playing SS”
At this point, Mia Hamm is a better SS than Nomar.
has anyone watched delmon in any batting practice this year? i’ve gone to both san diego games and he is hitting monster home runs. like really, really big home runs. way up into the upper deck in left and way out in center by the beach area. there’s something wrong with his gametime approach to hitting, because dude can hit.
i must have missed it but i didn’t see barlett playing like an elite ss when he was here. i’ll stick to my first thought, better range but not much better over all.
the magic of homeruns is you will be a hero on this blog if you can.
craig,
When you receive Gardy’s reply to your email, please let us know what he says.
I’ll be standing by.
For 2008 batting/fielding runs above replacement
Harris 3/9
Bartlett /7
They’ve played 69 and 71 games respectively.
Advantage Harris.
The numbers do doubt it. This year at SS:
No one puts any stock into range factor anymore, even its create says it stinks to high hell.
sane, you can use the EqR stat for fielding part and R+RBI for the hitting part.
so
2008 Equivalent Runs (EqR) as fielders:
Harris: 32, Bartlett: 26
2008 R+RBI
Harris: 56, Bartlett: 40.
Total:
Harris 88, Bartlett 66
Bartlett -3/7
Garza has a no hitter threw 6
On that scale, do you know the approximate difference in runs between Bartlett (above average?)and Harris? (below average?)
I believe UZR had Bartlett at a positive 10-15 runs and Harris was pretty poor, a negative 15-20.
Some of that poor showing probably has to do with it being his first significant time in the majors and getting moved back and forth between 2nd and short.
This is off the top of my head, so take it with a grain of salt. Without putting much thought into it, I would say the differential between them is probably in the 20-25 run area.
That other comment should read, “even its creator says it stinks.”
Anyone got the lineups?
.075, -15, +24, .765, +/-=…… blah blah you can find a number for everything to say what ever you want, watching the 2 i think harris is probably a little better hitter and bartlett is a little better fielder. not like mr souhans statement that barlett is way better.
of course they both pale compared to nicky!
Bartlett’s RF: 4.27
Harris’s RF: 5.23
League Average SS RF: 3.95
Bartlett’s OPS: .565
Harris’s OPS: .669
League Average SS OPS: .731
Garza’s no hitter was broken in a nice fashion
Whale, I watched Delmon’s batting practice in Denver, and KC.
In KC, well, nothing really went right for him. I think he had one hit. I also remember being ABSOLUTELY pissed at Liariano for the dud he laid there on Sunday. This was a series way back in middle April though, and the Colorado series was after it, so it seems like he has definitely worked some kinks out of his swing.
I was specifically watching him in Denver, since I figured he would have some MONSTER shots, but not at all. He was hitting liners, some wicked, some the softer variety, but nothing but liners. He was ON the ball great.
In KC, I didn’t pay nearly as much attention, but I did see him hit a moon shot that was a REALLY wicked liner to dead centerfield. Pretty much tatooed it. I got the feeling that in Denver, he was using Vavra’s techique while in BP, but he went back to his swing during the game, which seemed to be pretty good anyway. He didn’t scorch anything like he did in BP, but he did get several doubles in the games on perfectly placed hits, and ended up very well for the series. I actually thought he had the best series on the team.
I haven’t been to any games since (travel budget is pretty much blown for abit, dang price of gas 
, but I am planning on at least one more trip to KC this year. I really, really, really like outdoor baseball, and I prove it by going to those stadiums compared to the Metrodome.
