Twins Postgame: Mauer regains AL batting lead
Posted on August 30th, 2008 – 1:38 AMBy Joe Christensen
OAKLAND — Twins catcher Joe Mauer regained the American League batting lead in Friday’s 12-2 victory over Oakland, going 5-for-6 to raise his average to .324.
“The last couple weeks, I haven’t been feeling that great at the plate, so I just tried to go back to basics, I guess,” Mauer said. “Go up the middle, and it seemed to work out for me.”
Mauer was batting .214 on this road trip but matched a career-high for hits. He also had five hits on June 26, 2006 against the Dodgers.
Mauer’s four RBI also matched a season-high, giving him 66 for the season.
The Twins finished with a season-high 20 hits, including four by Justin Morneau.
“It’s huge,” Mauer said. “Over the last couple weeks, I think we’ve been pressing a little bit to score some runs. And our pitchers have been doing a great job, especially on this road trip, of giving us a chance to win.
“Sometimes you try too hard and come up a little short. I’m glad we had a little bit of a breakout game.”
BRESLOW GETS FIRST SAVE
Craig Breslow notched his first major league save, pitching three innings of perfect relief. He notched three strikeouts and lowered his ERA to 2.37.
“It’s exciting,” he said. “It’s nice to have one under my belt if I never get another one. But more importantly, to be able to eat up some innings and save the back end of the bullpen for [Saturday].”
44 Responses to "Twins Postgame: Mauer regains AL batting lead"
I didn’t know you could get a save in a game you are winning by ten runs. That’s a strange rule.
Undoubtably the Twins will get beat 2-1 today, after scrong 12 runs yesterday.
All the same, GO TWINS!!!
Love the optimism.
Nora, I’ll take realism over optimism every time.
Predicting today’s outcome is not realism.
It’s called guessing.
Liriano has given up earned runs in only 2 of his 5 starts since getting called back up. And he got the W in 4 of those games. Let’s hope he keeps it up tonight.
Hey Jon. It may be guessing, but my guess for yesterday was that they were going to win 13-1, so I’m a pretty good guesser.
I guess it takes a realist to point of the fact that this team has a habit of scoring very few runs and losing close games, then going out and pummelling a team, then going right back to scoring very few runs.
All I’m pointing out is that they need to spread it out a little bit. Any legitimate criticism of the Twins is just pounced on by certain individuals as evidence that you don’t want them to win. I don’t get the idea of blind allegiance, in politics or baseball.
“All I’m pointing out is that they need to spread it out a little bit.”
In your opinion, a “legitimate criticism’ is that they scored too many runs yeaterday, when they could have saved some of those runs for today?
So you think that if they would have hit the brakes at two runs yesterday, they would have eleven runs to use today?
I think you are confusing “legitimate criticism” for “unreasonable criticism” or possibly “insane criticism”.
I’d also offer the observation that, around here, criticism is hardly rare and shouted down. Hell, it’s almost mandatory. It’s people who DON’T criticize constantly who are “Kool Aid drinkers”.
I criticize when it’s called for. But as jon said, it’s not “realism” when you predict and “undoubtable” 2-1 loss just because the team scored a lot of runs last night. That’s pessimism. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but it’s no more “realistic” than someone predicting the team will score 9 runs and win.
Realism is pointing out that after scoring double figure runs one game, the Twins have averaged just over 4 runs in their following game.
By the way… since they’ve followed up a double digit game by scoring 1 run or less exactly the same number of times (3) that they’ve scored 9 runs… I’d say it’s exactly as “realistic” to predict a nine run output tonight as a 2-1 loss.
It’s a mystery to me why Breslow hasn’t had a larger role out of the bullpen. Breslow has been fantastic, yet he got pulled the other night in favor of Crain after giving up a harmless single.
I predict the team will score 9 runs and win.
I predict that Liriano will mow down the A’s and win again. How’s that for blind optimisim?
I didn’t know that Barack Obama read the Star Tribune. Very interesting.
Congrats to Mauer for taking back the batting lead. It was nice to have an easy game, for once.
Today’s matchup promises a bit more of a test, but the Twins need to win a lot more than the A’s do.
Could someone at the star-tribune do something about all the “f-bombs” being dropped on this site recently. Give me a break!
Today, it’s the WhiteSox turn to get to face a rookie SP, in fact I think I heard it will be the guy’s first MLB start. Doesn’t look like a day the Twins are likely to regain first place, but ya just never know.
Wonder if Casilla gets his #2 spot back after the night he had last night (and Punto’s horse collar).
Other than the high pitch count Slowey looked awesome with the 10 K’s and has had 5 very good starts in a row. I think Breslow showed last night that he could take on a bigger role, though being handed an 11-2 lead there was no pressure , but he looked good. Span and Punto going 1-11 was not good, but everyone else seemed to pick it up a notch. Let’s hope it continues today.
breslow needed only 27 pitches for 9 outs.i’m impressed.
“breslow needed only 27 pitches for 9 outs.i’m impressed.”
And a couple of those outs were K’s, which usually require more pitches than your average out, so that’s even better.
great game yesterday, just a single question:
the game was over by the top of the 7th. Why didn’t Ruiz come in to play 1B and Everett SS after that? These guys need some ABs and field time and what a perfect spot to accomplish this… Guess Gardy took a nap
Not a bad idea, but the way things have been going with our bullpen, I don’t have a problem keeping most of the starters in all game. You put any two or three of our bullpen guys in there and all of a sudden our 12-2 lead shrinks and we’re without our good bats.
So on most days I agree, but lately a win is not a damn win until Dick and Bert say so.
Buscher did get in to play first, that’s important since he is Justin’s backup (for now) because Lamb is gone. I would like to see Buscher and Everett play the next two games and LNP get a few days off, but that won’t happen unless he loosens his grip on Gardy’d rear end.
How did Breslow earn a save, the lead was more than four runs when he entered?
He pitched 3 innings.
All,
MLB gives a save when a reliever pitches three innings to finish a victory — regardless of score.
love him or hate him, after 35 starts and an 0-6 i’d say LNP deserves a day off
someone got a save in the 30-3 game last year.
The save is the most overrated, over-emphasized stat in baseball. I bothers me when either the announcers or worse yet - Gardy, make such a big deal out of whether or not it’s a “save situation”. Just play the game - and if you happen to be the last pitcher in a win, then slap hands and be happy.
What’s the latest on Cuddyer? Will we see him at any point during the final month?
Not a bad idea, but the way things have been going with our bullpen, I don’t have a problem keeping most of the starters in all game
That was my thinking. We’ve seen 6 run leads implode after the 7th inning.
The last thing we need is to start pulling starters only to watch the pen collapse.
Remember that one game where we watched the Buscher/Everett/Punto/Lamb IF cost them a game?
Bruce,
we will see CudDLs in September for sure.
we just might see him sitting in the dugout.
thrylos98,
“Why didn’t Ruiz come in to play 1B”
If Ruiz played 1B, Buscher would no longer be “Butcher”.
Ruiz would assume that nickname until one of the two “offensive specialists” (Is that PC enough?) left the team.
Kitty, the reasonBreslow got a save is because when he came in the score was 6-2 and there was a runner on base, so it was a save situation. Since he pitched the rest of the game it counts as a 4 inning save. If Breslow would have come out of the game in the ninth, for example, and someone else pitched there would not have been a save because the score would have been 12-2 when the last pitcher entered the game.
http://www.thegoldseat.com
Thanks Ben. I didn’t know that part of the save rule. As for Jon, I am sorry to have to point out that this team has a habit of going game after game of scoring about two runs a game and then coming back with a 12-2 blow-out, followed by several more 3-2 losses. This happens all the time. If you can show me where in my statement I advocated that they score fewer runs in the blow-out win, I will be happy to concede the point.
You can still root for the Twins and recognize their faults. It’s the same thing I often see on blogs when it comes to political discourse. Blind allegiance over honest appraisal. I find it very tiresome.
GO TWINS!!!
Ben the Professor,
The score was 11-2 when Breslow entered the game, but thanks for the lecture.
However, your tenure has been revoked unless you can publish something relevant in the next six months.
lol
there is no direct corelation between how many runs scored in yesterdays game and how many scored today.
Ben, that is not why he earned a save. He earned a save because he pitched 3 innings to finish the game, no matter what the score was. It never happens anymore because closers only go one inning, but you can earn a save by pitching 3 innings to finish the game.
kitty kaat,
If blowout - followed by low scoring games is the complaint, I have seen no statistical evidence that shows the Twins ranking in that category, compared to other MLB teams. Plus if it is true, what steps could be taken to fix that problem?
As far as criticism of the team, we all take our shots at that, and I agree with any criticism that IMO is legitimate and ignore most of what IMO is not legitimate.
Jon.It sounds like you might have some hostility issues that are unrelated to baseball. Good luck to you.
Well I guessed the twins would win 12-2…
I posted about 10 days ago that the Twins and White Sox each had 3 tough series remaining for the season — and then the series against each other.
Twins went 2-2 in LA, and by the end of next Thursday they’ll finish their 2nd “tough” series in Toronto (though I think we’ll miss Halliday). The White Sox are only 1 game into their 1st of 3 tough series.
And still only a half game back.
Batting Punto second changed everything. It caused everyone else to hit like crazy. Gardy is a genius!
To the very grim and serious: That was a joke.
@tor,@bal,@cle,@tb,det and chi home.they all look tough to me.
kittykat, jon owned you, but in the nicest possible way…he is not even being hostile, just because you are negative, that does not make you realisitic or interesting, it just makes you hostile.
You are no better or no worse than someone who has in yours words, ‘Blind allegiance’.
Who can say how this team will finish? But they are in it, and the White SOx could blow up just as easy as anything else….since they lost 2 in a row, I guess they cant handle the Red Sox, and eastern top tier teams? Is that ‘honest appraisal’, or just 2 games out of 162?
i mean it just makes you negative…
