Danny Graves Starts Tonight For Rochester
Posted on May 12th, 2008 – 2:28 PMBy La Velle
Class AAA Rochester needs a spot starter. Danny Graves needs to face as many hitters as possible.
So Graves will start tonight for Rochester against Buffalo and probably throw three innings, if he’s effective. He’s a reliever, but it’s a good way for him to face a lot of hitters and be evaluated. Graves, 34, signed with the Twins just before the minor league season began and has pitched at Class A Fort Myers and Class AA New Britain.
My intuition tells me that Graves could become an option to be called up if he pitches well. His fastball is coming in around 87-88 miles an hour but the Twins say it’s got good movement. You might want to keep an eye on the Rochester box score tonight.
Couple other notes:
Jim Rantz, the Twins director of minor leagues, just pulled into Beloit to watch the Snappers play for a few days. Ben Revere, who was named Twins minor league player of the week yesterday, has an 11-game hitting streak.
For those of you who like to keep up with such things, the Twins’ 40-man roster currently sits at 38, with the ability to go to 37 if they move Pat Neshek to the 60-day disabled list. They would have room to add Graves, Kevin Mulvey, Tim Lahey, or anyone they want to.
Update: Graves have thrown three perfect innings, striking out two. Here’s the link.
36 Responses to "Danny Graves Starts Tonight For Rochester"
Just hope that the Twins can find a way to keep competing with the loss of Neshek — much like the 2006 season with the injuries that team fought then. Love these updates, La Velle. Thanks, from Des Moines!
La Velle what about Casey Daigle? any chance of seeing Mr. Jennie Finch in the Twins bullpen this eyar?
Danny Graves = Kevin Slowey + 10 years of wear and tear - 5 MPH on the fastball. I would think Slowey might be a better option for the bullpen when Baker gets back. He always seems to struggle the second and third times around, in part because of his mediocre secondary pitches. But he ought to be fine for a couple of innings at at time. He kind of reminds me of Mike Trombley in that respect.
I guess I’d like to see more of Korecky before I would even consider Graves. He was closing successfully in Rochester so it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think he could slide in to the set-up rotation with the Twins.
The one at bat vs Manny Saturday should be a starting point for the Twins with Korecky.
6th/7th inning next time around, with a 3 or 4 run lead, give the kid a shot. They’ll need to know what they do/don’t have with Korecky at some point.
I too would like to see Korecky get a little more of a shot. His appearance in Rochester seemed a tad exciting at times, but he seemed to get the job done.
We need another lefty in the bullpen so they can alternate Reyes and Crain as set up men.
Wish Mijares hadn’t gotten hurt in the offseason. Could have been ready to go for the bigs. Maybe Mariano Gomez will get a call at some point.
La Velle, I thought I heard on the GM show last night on the radio that a team can place a player on the 60-day DL only if they are at the 40-man limit. I believe Bill Smith cited that rule as the reason why the team will not be moving Neshek there. I don’t know if I got that right, and if anyone can fill in the details that would be great. Keep up the good work.
cmathewson I agree with you 100% on Slowey.IMO he will never be an effective ML starter,but a spot on the roster as a middle/long reliever is better than being a AAA All-Star.I also think that once Baker and Liriano come back,and I do think The Franchise will make it back,Perkins would be a valuable piece of the bullpen puzzle.
I also think it would be nice if the Twins could wittle the staff down to 11 pitchers at some point,leaving room for another bat off the bench.Maybe by July the Staff could look something like this:
Baker
Hernandez
Blacburn
Bonser
Liriano
Slowey
Crain
Perkins
Guerrier
Reyes
Nathan
Just one mans opinion.
Blackburn pitching in the dead of night,
Take this breaking ball and learn to fly…
Am I the only one who thinks the Beatles song could be remade into a tribute to Nick Blackburn?
yes.
No Glanz,
i always have that song in my head when he pitches.
Doug-
I would rather have Perkins be a starter and Boof in the pen. Boof is not a good starting pitcher.
I think it would be cool if Danny Gaves got called up. A nice comeback player for the team.
cmath and Doug Munson, I’m nowhere near ready to write Slowey off anymore than writing off Baker a couple years ago. So the jury is still out.
And many have said Slowey has no out pitch. That’s a missing element a reliver has to have.
But BC has the right idea with the Crain/Reyes tandem. Guerrier is in that mix too.
Doug
I’d rather see Perkins and Slowey in AAA if there’s not room in the starting rotation. Especially when Bass has been solid in the long relieve roll. He def deserves to stay in the Bigs.
Boof needs to be in AAA.
Graves Final Line
4 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K
The same people who say Slowey will never be an effective major league starter are the exact same people who said Baker didn’t have major league stuff(Which was beyond comical to hear).
Baker has better stuff than Slowey, but Kevin isn’t that far off. His curveball needs to be a little tighter but someone who changes speeds like he does and has that level of accuracy will always have a chance to be a 10+ year MLB starter. Some people shouldn’t bother giving opinions on young pitchers.
Graves pitched 4 innings and, according to MiLB scoreboard, only gave up one line drive base hit. The first nine batters didn’t get a ball out of the infield. First hit was a ground ball single, second hit was a line drive single, then he worked his way out of the fourth inning and left with a 1-0 lead.
What is all this talk of slowey being in the pen? He has barely pitched in the majors and you already want him in the pen? He TORE UP AAA last season. Give the guy a break.
Bonser on the other hand, stinks. He had a mediocre half season, terrible full season, and not any good this season.
Hernandez
Baker
Slowey
Perkins
Blackburn
That is better rotation. Bonser stinks
jason,
You are right.
Who uses a control specialist in the bullpen?
Slowey is a sterotypical starter with multiple above average pitches.
Guys with one or two plus-plus pitches go to the bullpen.
I’ll bet the guy who made that suggestion was not a baseball field staffer and DEFINITELY not a pitching coach.
I don’t know what you people are talking about when you day put slowey in the bullpen??
The guy has DOMINATED as a starter in the minors and will be a good starter at the major league level!!
I like Perkins to stay on in the bullpen but I understand he needs lots of innings this season so he’ll go back to AAA.
Koreckey over graves and maybe rincon
Why on earth does everyone think losing Neshek is the end of the world? He hasn’t been good since last July. He will not be missed!
Man are there some dumb Twins fans. Boof sucks, Slowey will never be a good starter, Neshek will not be missed. Wow. Just wow.
1st place on May 13th
HAVE FUN !!! GO TWINS!!!
18,000 for a premium priced game! lavelle; should twins re-think this policy? 6 bucks more a ticket cost them at the gate this series. this may work in some places but this is not one of them!
“Premium” games are just stupid. Boof does NOT suck. No, he’s never going win the Cy Young, but he’s a servicable pitcher. Slowey hasn’t proved either way, but logically, he’s a starter. Neshek COULD be missed, if only for the fact that it throws the bullpen out of whack. Now Rincon will get more innings, and Crain, who is status is TBD (really) after surgury will have an increased work load. What I really can’t believe is that the Twins don’t have Neshek undergo TJ surgery now, rather than wait until ST and then be forced to have the surgery then thus having him miss even more time. Neshek was a hell of a relief pitcher last year (before he was worn out), but was struggling this year (possibly due to the injury). The question is, will the Twins be able to fill the innings that Neshek pithced (effectivly). Here’s hoping.
Taking bets. When will Delmon Young get his first home run?
My guess: May 29 vs. the Royals.
Make your call.
Also, why is Indiana Jones HERE?
Rolled into the IZ late last night from a mission down south. Had to go to the embassy for some business and ended up catching innings 2-9 of the Twins taking three from the BoSox. Now that’s what I’m fighting for. A MP unit from NoDak just showed up on my base. I’m sure there will be a lot of Twins fans in the batch. Go Twins. Home on 2 Oct just in time to watch the Twins in the playoffs.
18,000 for a premium priced game!
Was that just Monday’s game? Friday’s crowd looked fairly packed, as did Saturday.
My guess would be all those Boston fans who came down for the weekend flew back home Sunday night.
bigdawg, Thanks for what you do for us. I salute you. We’ll try to get the Twins to the playoffs for you to celebrate on your homecoming.
T - I was at the game. It was pretty quiet, especially early. Late arriving crowd. It was basically grid lock an hour before the game. Tough time to schedule a game on a work night with the messed up road conditions. I am guessing they had virtually no walk ups. There were still quite a few Boston fans there, but they seemed local (lacking the accents!)
I was located right next to the bullpen catcher. Man, does the glove pop for Crain and Nathan. Just a completely different sound than for Rincon and of course, Livan. I am hoping for a great Crain year, but time will tell on that one.
St. Paul Andy,
You’re absolutely right.
I’ve read that the 60-day DL was designed to provide room on the 40-man roster for teams that suffer many injuries.
The is no limit to players you can put on either the 15-day or 60-day DL. But if you have enough guys injured, and on the DL, and one (or more) are serious, you might need to bring in some additional guys to field a full roster.
So, until the Twins have a full 40-man roster, they don’t need to/can’t move Neshek to the 60-day DL.
At the conclusion of the year, you also need to reinstate diasabled players, so there would need to be room on the 40-man.
T– I was at the Saturday game– and the announced 33,000. I bet at least 11,000 were Red Sox fans. From where we were–upper deck behind home plate–there were Red Sox fans all over.
I think they had 26,000 or so on Sunday. I would bet they were countiong on 125,000 or more for that four game series. I thought Saturday would have sold out– except it was raining.
Which brings up another thought– how many home games would we have gotten in this year if we were outside?? Luckily season ticket holders will fill the stands in 2010– wet weather or not!
