Ten quick things to know about the AL Central
Posted on September 21st, 2009 – 10:40 AMBy Joe Christensen
We’d been tracking the Tigers, but since the Twins play the White Sox and Royals before heading to Detroit, we’ll include them on this list, too. Here are 10 quick things to know about the AL Central heading into the second-to-last week.
1) The Tigers are off today. This is their final open date of the season. So the Twins will be 2.5 or 3.5 games back after tonight, and the number will become round again Thursday, when the Twins have their final open date of the season.
2) The White Sox are toast. Trailing the Tigers by 6 1/2 games, they do control their own fate because they have six games remaining with Detroit, but Chicago basically sealed the coffin by losing four of its past five games.
3) RHP Daniel Hudson, 22, will make his first major league start for Chicago tonight against the Twins. The White Sox drafted him in the fifth round last year out of Old Dominion, the same school that produced Justin Verlander. The 6-4 Hudson has had a Matt Garza-like rise through the Sox farm system this year, racing from Class A, to Class AA to Class AAA and now the majors. In those three minor-league stops, he combined to go 14-5 with a 2.32 ERA with 166 Ks and 34 BBs in 147.1 IP.
On Aug. 20, Baseball America’s Ben Badler wrote about Hudson in his Daily Dish, and scouts described a 90-93 mph fastball, an above-average change-up and a solid 81-86 mph slider. Hudson has made three relief appearances for the White Sox since his September callup, allowing 3 ER and 6 H with 0 BB and 4 Ks in 5.2 IP.
4) In the Detroit Free Press, John Lowe suggests Sunday’s Tigers victory might have been their biggest road win since Game 1 of the 2006 ALCS over Oakland, noting that Nate Robertson and Placido Polanco played big roles in each.
5) Neat to hear how the Tigers rallied around Don Kelly, who lost Orlando Cabrera’s fly ball in the Metrodome roof on Saturday. In this piece, he says every member of the team came up and said something encouraging.
6) Guessing the atmosphere tonight at U.S. Cellular Field will be far less raucous than the one Nick Blackburn experienced last Sept. 30, in that one-game tiebreaker. In this piece, the Chicago Tribune’s Dave van Dyck describes Sunday’s announced crowd of 22,798 as “widely scattered and very quiet.”
7) Meanwhile, the Royals are 10-3 in their past 13 games, again relishing their role as September spoilers.
8 ) Robinson Tejeda is wreaking havoc on the AL Central, and his next start would likely come Friday against the Twins. Tejeda, who defeated Detroit in his two previous starts, made it three straight wins Sunday, holding the White Sox to 1 R and 3 H in 6 IP. As Bob Dutton notes in the Kansas City Star, Tejeda has allowed just 2 R and 9 H in 22.1 IP since replacing sore-shouldered Gil Meche.
9) Cy Young candidate Zack Greinke remained on track to pitch Tuesday against Boston, after taking a line drive off his right forearm. That would keep Greinke in line to pitch Sunday against the Twins, who have somehow avoided facing him all season. LHP Lenny DiNardo, who pitches tonight against Boston, would be the likely Saturday starter against the Twins.
10) Finally, the KC Star’s national baseball writer, Sam Mellinger, adds to the Joe Mauer-for-MVP conversation with an interesting point about the 22 games Mauer missed in April. Figure a catcher plays just 18 of those games, if you saddle Mauer’s otherworldly numbers with replacement-level production for those 18 games, he STILL would be hitting .356/.422/.580, which STILL would give him the modern Triple Crown.
Note: La Velle is our point man in Chicago, so head to his blog for tonight’s starting lineups, etc. For a series preview, click here. I’ll be on the KC and Detroit legs of this make-or-break trip for the Twins.
38 Responses to "Ten quick things to know about the AL Central"
I hope that I am cheering the loudest at the Cell tonight. Make it happen Twins!
Shaun: Be loud of proud and boo A.J. every chance you get!
make that…”loud and proud”
Shaun…don’t waste any of your breath booing AJ. Save all of your voice for cheering on the Twins… Have fun, I’ll be watching. Go Twins!
Rookie pitcher never started before, eh? Uh-oh. Twins are dead in the water.
I won’t waste my time unless he does somthing stupid!
I hope Blackburn has another win in that arm. I saw him the last time he pitched against the Sox in Chicago and he was on the winning end of that 20-1 bludgeoning of the Sox.
Re: #6, 22K will be a very, VERY good turnout. My gut says they’ll be hard-pressed to break 20. I’m looking for tickets for the series and you can get them for 5$ in the upper deck and 10 in the lower. Those same seats for the earlier Twins/Sox series were 20-50 respectively.
The southsiders are done, the fans know it, and outside of Jake Peavy, there isn’t really a marquis new player or Sept. call-up that’s really intriguing. Daniel Hudson is close, but doesn’t have the name recognition.
Add in the fact that it’s supposed to be cold and rainy here and you’ve got a recipe for seriously sparce and subdued crowds.
interesting take on stats by doug glanville in his ongoing nyt column:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/opinion/21glanville-leadoff.html
Thats OK A.J.’s at home shining up his WS Ring from 2005. Thanks for helping the ChiSox win a World Series. Maybe that Nathan Meltdown 2 weeks ago WILL come back and haunt you !!! Couldn’t happen to a nicer fan base !!
Why do Twins fans make AJ out to be some kind of villain? Sure he talks trash, but…
..the Twins traded him because Mauer was ready to replace him…
…and, we got Joe Nathan, Liriano, and Bonser back in that trade.
I’m still amazed that when Chicago comes to town, Twins fans pour on the boos for someone who wasn’t hated when he was here, nor was he hated when in SF. Why not boo every Sox player endlessly then.
Maybe I messed something. What exactly has AJ done that has Twins fans still hating on him 6 seasons after his departure? His 9th inning HR in game 5 of the 2002 ALDS at Oakland seems to be a long forgotten memory.
Interesting link, Mickey. Thanks.
Er, Bplate, you classy guy, you, the Twins didn’t send AJ to the Southside so your thanks is misplaced. And yeah, it is unfortunate the Twins got stuck with Mauer instead, isn’t it?
Mattman, people everywhere hate and boo A.J., unless he happens toplay for the home team. In S.F. even that didn’t help him much.
The only other guy I remember getting the attention from the boo-birds like AJ at the Dome was Chuck Knoblauch. Knobby didn’t endear himself to MN by asking to get outta here, but his trade did help rejuvinate the franchise.
I figured by 2001, Twins fans who were enjoying Eric Milton and Christian Guzman should’ve been sending Knobby roses and thank-you cards. Instead, they hurled hot dogs at him.
How bad would the twins have been over the past 10-11 seasons, if not for netting the players they did in the Knobby and AJ trades? Maybe not too bad, but trading those rascals sure didn’t hurt us any.
Mattman — agree with you. AJ is a guy you want on your team; for some reason (of all the players we’ve traded) he gets booed when in town. It doesn’t make any sense. Boneyard’s comment about “people everywhere hate and boo A.J.” shows the ignorant mob mentality — let’s just do it because everyone else does.
I never he was sent by the Twins to the Southside did I. Maybe if you knew how to read and interpret my blog, I thanked you for helping my team win a WS. The White Sox don’t win a WS without AJ Period.
if i remember correctly aj looked to try and spike morneau on a play at first his 1st yr with the sox. it was thought to be an attempt to injure morneau by many and the fans started getting on him after that. feel free to correct that if it’s wrong.
ggg - I was not aware of that. All these years, I just figured people were lumping him in with knobby. If that is correct, then I can understand the resentment toward him.
I recall AJ bringing an end to the laundry list of .200 BA catchers that the Twins trotted out before him. Marcus Jensen? Danny Ardois(sp)? Chad Moeller? Rob Bowen?
BPlate: Giants helped you guys win the title by sending AJ not us and Mattman he tried to spike Morneau in the back of the leg in2007 and there was the time in 06 when he mocked smell’em thing Redmond started
AJ brings it on himself, that should be obvious to all.
listening to Smith yesterday on the radio… that man has no idea just how bad he is at his job. That is a failure on the Pohlad family for not holding up a mirror, and showing him which end the toilet paper is used for.
AJ also mimicked the Twins’ “smell the RBIs” gesture a couple of years back.
Spike-gate happened, I remember it too. AJ traded in his deer-tag to go hunting instead for an archilles tendon that day. Barely missed but the intent was obvious.
He is so annoying on the field for some reason, but off the field he gives hilarious interviews - such as his frequent spot on Jim Rome’s show.
Not as funny as Mark Grace’s slump-buster tale, but that’s leading me off topic…
Do you guys remember AJ moking the Twins when they were doing that sniffing out the rbi thing? I thought it was funny but a lot of fans didn’t see the humor in that.
Now is the time Gardy has to earn his money, and then some.
He has to lift this team for tonight’s game — call a meeting or something.
if the Twins didn’t trade AJ for Nathan (and Liriano), the Twins would not be in 2nd place ahead of the Whities, PERIOD!
Thanks for the reminders. I do remember the sniff ‘em thing now.
Well, tonight would be a perfect time for the Twins to show some life against AJ and the White Sox. Need to rebound after only notching 2 runs against Nate 5.00+ Robertson
“He has to lift this team for tonight’s game”
~ I don’t know if Gardy is capable of this, does it include Delmon, Mijares and Boof?
I remember the “smell’m mock”. It probably would have been funny, except I saw the event thru my bleach-colored glasses.
I didn’t like AJ, but when he mocked that stupid “smell’em” thing I gained a lot of respect for him.
“5) Neat to hear how the Tigers rallied around Don Kelly, who lost Orlando Cabrera’s fly ball in the Metrodome roof on Saturday.”
By encouraging, I’m sure they mean, “Don’t worry about it, after Sunday we’ll never have to play in this (expletive) again.”
this late push to catch the fur ball coughing tigers may very well win the mvp for mauer. hard to vote for him, by some len3?, if the twins were 8 gms out and under .500
wonder if dick and bert still think jeter should get it?
Did anybody else come away from this weekend feeling like the Tigers are ill-equipped to win this division? Highly unimpressive, I thought.
If the Twins can take care of business with a 9-4 (maybe even 8-5) finish (no easy task, I know), I think the Tigers can be caught.
Yeah Jimbo, they have a lousy closer, a bunch of guys with low BA’s, major starting-pitching problems this year (Willis, Galarraga, Robertson, Washburn), and they’re not terrific on defense.
Gardy should convince his players we can go into Detoillete and smear these guys.
It seemed like a contradiction on BBTN when they talk about the Tigers tightening their grip on the AL Central title when they actually lost games off their lead over the weekend.
I agree Detroit is unimpressive, but if the Twins fold-up in Chicago or KC, it doesn’t matter much. Twins have been unimpressive for the first 5 months or more of the season.
Okay, not to put a knock on Target Field, but our weather right now in northwest Iowa is 57 degrees and damp — I’d forgotten how cold that feels when you’ve been used to summer weather. Looks like it is actually warmer in the Twin Cities — and I know it would be warmer in the stadium with all that body heat. But this was a reminder that summer is almost over.
Neither Knobby or AJ had anything to do with what the Twins got in return for them, other than their obvious talent. Personally, I have never booed them, despite the fact that both are unadultered Aholes. Bad actors need to go. The Twins are good at eradicating the cancers. Other teams suffer, unable to ignore the siren call of talent. Milton Bradley teaches the important lesson that talent, absent a little character, pretty much sucks over time.
Mauer is 10x better than AJ arsewhip polish sausagefacer.
