Twins-Royals postgame
Posted on June 30th, 2009 – 11:38 PMBy La Velle
Bobby Keppel has impressed in two outings, during which he’s tossed 6.1 scoreless innings.
He got help in the sixth inning on Tuesday by a great play by Brendan Harris, who dived to his left to grab Jose Guillen’s grounder then flipped to Nick Punto at second for the inning-ending double play. Keppel then threw a scoreless seventh.
“He definitely throws what you call a power sinker,” Twins righthander Scott Baker said.
Twins manager Ron Gardenhire likes what he sees.
“He’s throwing his sinker, lefties, righties, it doesn’t matter,” Gardenhire said. “He got in a couple jams but was able to get out of it.
“We’ve been looking for performances like that and, hopefully, we found something with this young man.”
Luis Ayala, whom Keppel replaced, was touted as a sinkerballer but his ground ball-to-fly ball numbers argued against that. He threw a sinker but it was junky and he frequently got under the pitch instead over the top - and it was spin to the plate, then spin out to the outfield.
By the way, the Twins are expected to release Ayala in a couple days. Twins GM Bill Smith tried to make a deal for Ayala but it hasn’t worked out. Pittsburgh was interested until the Pirates made deals with the Yankees and Nationals.
Joe Crede has a seven game hitting streak.
Joe Mauer snapped a 0-for-9 skid with single in the sixth.
74 Responses to "Twins-Royals postgame"
“a career .536 OPS hitter is a bit suspect as a hitting coach?”
Walt Hriniak (lifetime BA=.253) and Charley Lau (lifetime BA=.255)are two of the best hitting coaches in our lifetimes.
Those who can……….do.
Those who can’t……..teach.
Nice game to watch on the telly. Without Telly Hughes I might add…
Tough to get TOO excited about, once again, just scoring 2 runs. But a W is a W, right?
Maybe someone will burn the assbats by game time tomorrow (but don’t touch Doc’s!).
JC, don’t ever forget it. 
It’s encouraging to see Morneau really hitting the ball well but discouraging to see the lack of production from the rest of the lineup. A win is a win is a win but this one was very close and kudos to the bullpen (especially Keppel) for getting the job done and giving us the chance for the win. Are we happy that the FO signed Joe Nathan to a long contract - you bet we are!! Maybe the bats will wake up tomorrow and we’ll see some fireworks from some of the other players - great play by Harris to get the third out and Denard was robbed of that fly ball out that they ruled hit the ground. He caught it and it was clearly shown on the replays - guess the umps blew another call.
Souhan is stealing my stuff.
thanks Lavelle.
no offense, sane, but i believe the third part of it was: those who can’t teach … teach gym class.
and i think there were parts four, five and maybe even a six back in the day (those who can’t teach gym class … teach _____.)
(i mostly agree about coaches and coaching, by the way — a lotta good ones aren’t/weren’t the best players.)
Gardy says, “…hopefully, we found something with this young man.”
Well……he just turned 27. He pitched only briefly in MLB before now. His last two seasons were exclusively at AAA except for 4 innings with the Rockies, and these AAA seasons were unsuccessful with a 5.75 ERA and a BB rate of 3.5 walks per 9 innings. Essentially he was through until –
He became a full-time reliever for the first time this year. ERA at Roch was 2.43, BB rate became 2.1 per 9 innings. A total — yet brief so far — transformation.
Go figure.
At 6′5″, did he tire easily? Did he think and struggle too much as a starter? Did every start find him struggling to get through a game which reminded him of his long struggle to get out of the minors (at least 9 years in the minor leagues, 1,200 innings)?
Who knows. But he definitely has major league stuff with a 95 mph FB, etc.
He could be a born-again pitcher.
And he’s not a stink-ing self-serving bum like Ayala.
mickey,
“no offense, sane, but i believe the third part of it was: those who can’t teach … teach gym class.
and i think there were parts four, five and maybe even a six back in the day”
No offense taken.
I did not know about parts 4-6.
I omitted part 3, because I attempted to make my point in two parts.
I coached a kid for four years who went on to set the MLB record for pinch-hit HR’s in a season.
Not because I was a good hitter, but because HE was a good hitter.
Keppel makes me nervous (mainly due to the unknown factor) but he has pitched into jams to start,but pitched out of jams as well.
we’ll see.
Thanks for the Ayala update, LEN
“Not because I was a good hitter, but because HE was a good hitter.”
that’s a great line, sane. you always seem to make your points with ease.
I really thought Denard caught that ball tonight. I need to learn how to not hate umpires.
And don’t forget Baker’s glove save in the 4th. He just flicked his glove on the ball enough to keep it in the infield.
And it saved the game.
Wow! So many bandwagon jumpers! I thought I was bad! (HaHa!) What were you thinking yesterday when you read the StarTrib?!?!
OK, so I’ve never posted here. I’m a part of two other Strib blogs and haven’t wanted to start a third because of the time I already “waste” on blogs. But I thought it would be fun to start posting on a sports blog. So hi all. I just have one comment tonight (this morning).
great play by Harris to get the third out and Denard was robbed of that fly ball out that they ruled hit the ground.
Denard was robbed. There’s no doubt about that. But that “strike-out” that Mauer “caught” definitely hit the ground. So, as far as I’m concerned, we lost an out and gained an out. No reason to complain. A fun game to watch. Very frustrating though to see all those dang foul balls. But you have to love great pitching performances.
On a random note, a friend of mine (who was in Milwaukee and St. Louis) ran into Joe Nathan at a bar in St. Louis. Nathan ended up sitting with a large family at a table (he did not know them, but was invited to the table) and ended up giving the waitress 2 $100 bills for the tab. He also shook hands and took pictures with everyone who asked in the bar. This was the night after he struck out Puhols. What an awesome 9th that was…
This is what I’m talking about. Great play by the Twins. They can win it all playing and hitting like this. Punto is the difference, great to have his leadership back!
Harris’s diving stop in the 6th was one of the best defensive plays of the year. That ball looked like it was heading straight for center. It was amazing enough to have just stopped the ball let alone thrown the guy out at first as well.
I enjoy baseball, particularly the Twins. But last night was the first time in a while that, in a Twins victory, I struggled mightily to stay interested. Every Royals inning took FOREVER! Bad pitching, bad fielding (minus some brilliant individual plays), bad baseball. I kept thinking, “how incredibly, completely inept, pathetic, and down right terrible these two teams must be to keep an 11-9 ballgame at 2-1 thru the whole game”. Just how I saw it. Break the inept batting slumps today boys!
The most foul balls I can remember!
The radar gun was saying 94 for Keppel, that’s encouraging if he can keep getting it over with the “power sinker”
Maybe Jesse can start getting some movement on his 95mph power pitches. How’s he doing anyway?
HAVE FUN !!! GO TWINS !!!
“He got help in the sixth inning on Tuesday by a great play by Brendan Harris, who dived to his left to grab Jose Guillen’s grounder then flipped to Nick Punto at second for the inning-ending double play. Keppel then threw a scoreless seventh.”
That was not a double play, but a force-out at second.
Keppel throws hard(93+) and appears to have a good sinker. I hope he’s not a flash-in-the-pan.
Regarding the unseemly number of fowl bowels, errr, foul balls: I could not determine if the cause was that the pitchers were not quite good enough to make a pitch that missed the batter’s bat, or if the batter was not quite good enough to actually square one up and put it in play. It seemed to me to be equal parts of both.
Read Souhan instead. Better perspective.
I’m probably behind the wave on this one…but what’s been happening to Mijares lately? He used to be the 8th inning guy, but as of late he looks like he just doesn’t have the stuff to finish off the inning.
This has lead to Guerrier needing to make more appearances in the meantime.
Is Mijares slowly losing his shot at being one of “those guys” the Twins count on with a lead?
“Read Souhan instead. Better perspective.”
Perspective straight from the Twins’ PR staff.
Well then the PR Staff apparently agrees with most people here…the Twins need to get another reliable power middle reliever. That’s what Souhan opined today.
Now if only the GM would believe that.
94 mph with good movement is going to be pretty effective one time through the order anyway. It would be nice if this is one “reclamation project” that actually works out.
I haven’t seen Baker have so much trouble hitting a catchers mit in a long time. I guess the flip side to that is that the hitters had no idea where the ball was going either, even if they had a sense of where he might TRY to throw it.
Mijares possibly has been solved by right handed batters now that there is enough evidence to scout him on. He still is doing well against lefties. Truly, he may merely end up being a replacement LOOGY for Reyes. I guess I can live with that if there were a better 8th inning option.
Boy, that range by Harris really bites doesn’t it. Enough Already!!!
Great at-bats LNP since you have been back. 0-7 lookin good. Even Coom on FSN can’t lie and gloat about how well you are seeing the ball and having great ab’s.
Love the grit to be back out getn after it with sore ribs from slidn into first.
T, I think Mijares’ splits have convinced the Twins that he’s pretty much limited to facing lefties if you really want to rely on him. That’s why it’s so critical to find another effective right hander, whether it’s Keppel or someone else.
As for Souhan, I had to laugh as his recent effort showed up online just as Keppel’s performance was being completed. The idea that the Twins need bullpen help is hardly new. Whether he got the idea for the column from Chief, Howard, or any of 20 other writers, I have no idea.
I do know, though, that his article on RA Dickey was almost cookie-cutterish when you compare it to any of several similar articles written about the guy in the past couple of years.
I do give him credit for the column about Morneau’s stride adjustments over the past couple of weeks. That was new information (to me anyway) that I found interesting.
This was Dick’s call of the Harris play:
“Guillen hits a hard ground ball up the middle and into center f…HARRIS MAKES A GREAT DIVING STOP AND SHOVELS IT OVER TO PUNTO FOR THE THIRD OUT!” Dick wasn’t the only one who thought that ball was s game-tying single.
We’ve needed bullpen help (like, maybe one other arm) all season, but I still don’t think it’s the most glaring need on the team.
I’m satisfied with what has now become our core A-squad bullpen of Nathan, Guerrier, Mijares, and R.A. Dickey.
As for Keppel, I think it’s way too early to crown him, but obviously what we’ve seen so far is nice. It’s going to take more than two solid outings to declare that a hole has been patched.
But like I said, Guerrier hasn’t let us down yet and I think that’s absolutely huge. I honestly didn’t see that coming. Mijares is solid and Nathan is Nathan.
So let’s focus the attention on the real problems: Punto, Tolbert, and Buscher. You and I and La Velle and Souhan all know deep down there are three better players in our farm system, much less in the trade market.
How about the fact Gomez smacked 3 yard line drives again yesterday. He was able to carry over the changes he made a week ago to yesterdays game. This is a very promising sign.
Loved the effort of Keppel and think he can help the club. He will never be a dominate force imo, but a solid arm…which we need.
Baker really battled last night. For him to get 5 innings of 1 run baseball out of what appeared to be below ave stuff for him…is wonderful. Love the effort.
What’s all this talk about Harris’ great defensive play?
Don’t you guys know that Punto is the one who provides the Web Gems on this squad…I think it’s disrespectful to suggest someone else has that ability.
“So let’s focus the attention on the real problems: Punto, Tolbert, and Buscher.”
Don’t forget Henn.
Benny W,
Henn isn’t asked to play when games are on the line.
What was Gardy’s explanation for either A) not pinch hitting for Punto in the 9th or B) not having him lay down a bunt in the 9th last night?
Jason, with a 6-man bullpen, it’s only a matter of time before he does as Henn to pitch when games are on the line.
Yeah, it will happen at some point, Benny W, but every bullpen is going to have at least one weak link.
I do think we need a guy who can come in and blow people away. The closest thing to that in the minors is Jun Morillo, but it sounds like the Twins want him to cut down on his walks before they bring him up. I wonder if Valverde is available and what he would cost? Then again, that might be shooting too high for a team that doesn’t seem ready to contend quite yet.
If I ran the team, I’d be looking for a second baseman. Punto is not it. Tolbert is not it. Casilla is not it. Tolleson is maybe it, but not quite yet. What would it take to get Freddy Sanchez?
How many PAs does Punto get vs. Tolbert or Buscher? All that PT for a very poor bat is an equally glaring issue as compared to the bullpen, IMO. How to fix, though?
Keppel has earned a shot. I don’t know where it came from (conversion to reliever?) but his stuff has vastly improved.
“but every bullpen is going to have at least one weak link”
Is that inevitable?
If a bullpen replaces its only weak link with a solid reliever, does another reliever have to tank, so that rule is not violated?
“What would it take to get Freddy Sanchez?”
You would have to fall asleep first…then, if you’re lucky, it will happen in your dreams.
I’m not fine with the core of the bullpen. Nathan of course is a deity. After that Guerrier burned out last year and he already has 39 appearances before the halfway point. Mijares has settled into a LOOGY with splits of .057 ba against lefties and .347 against righties. R.A. Dickey, since his promotion from mop-up had to get Nathan into the game on Sunday when given a four run lead and was ineffective Monday.
I think what Souhan proposed would make me feel better about the likelihood of catching Detroit and passing them. Right now, if things remain the same I expect the burning out of Guerrier to begin in the second half and, if no reliable bridge is acquired, this season’s bullpen to devolve to exactly as it was last year. Except this year we won’t cover it up with an extraordinary RISP average.
Just to be clear, this doesn’t change anything about my opinion about Punto et. al. But I think the warning signs of the pen imploding can be found and if we are in the hunt this year I agree with Souhan, and Gardy for that matter as he commented in the papers today, that something has to be done to beef up the pen.
OB,
Punto should remain on the team as our Superstar Utility Infielder.
The problem we have now is not only does Punto not make any sense as a starter, but the bench guys behind him are so weak that we let him bat with a guy on base as we are in search of an insurance run in the ninth inning.
I guess my point is we can kill two birds with one stone if we bring in a new starter at second base…and it doesn’t have to be Freddy Sanchez, just someone with average defensive abilities who also knows how to hit a double.
Then, as a secondary move, bring in a veteran right-handed bat for the bench and let Buscher try to revitalize his career elsewhere.
cmath,
“I wonder if Valverde is available and what he would cost? ….What would it take to get Freddy Sanchez?”
My guess is that the Twins would have to give up enough talent to create a new weakness or to exacerbate an existing weakness.
“…every bullpen is going to have at least one weak link.”
I believe that’s known as Terry Mulholland’s Law.
Indeed, Jason, the roster is imbalanced. Cuddyer at 2B may be attempted without any roster adjustment. It would improve the OF defense too. The only question becomes: Is Cuddyer too big of a sore thumb at 2B or disrupt his swing? With regard to the impotent bats of DY and Go-Go, I’d suggest that they both have more incentive to improve than a 31 year old super-sub who just got paid.
Cmath,
Freddy Sanchez is appealing, however, he does carry a 3 to 3.5 million dollar tag for the remainer of the year. With a ridiculous high contract for 2010, $8 million, I believe. He’s 32 and has never played in the AL, which could be good or bad. but I agree, a solid 2B with 2 hole skills would help out the line-up.
“With a ridiculous high contract for 2010, $8 million, I believe.”
Next to Punto’s $4.5 mil for next year, I’d call that a steal.
As a manager you have to think about pinch hitting for Punto in the 9th but who do you bring in - what about Morales? Punto can’t lay down a bunt and it seems like he’s just an automatic out every time he gets up to bat - I want a second baseman who can at least get a hit once in awhile but LNP will be back down below the Mendoza line very soon.
On KSTP this morning, Cuddy said there was only a chance he could play second base, because they were in a NL park and Punto couldn’t play. He said that now they are back to the AL, he won’t be playing second base.
Perhaps the man has lost too many steps? So it goes.
Jason,
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
sane,
Did you coach Dave Hansen or Craig Wilson?
JA,
True…but I don’t care what the price tag is…if you can get a more than serviceable second baseman like Freddy Sanchez, I say do it and eat the money. We do have Target Field next year, isn’t that supposed to be our cash cow?
“We do have Target Field next year, isn’t that supposed to be our cash cow?”
I am afraid that in the minds of the Twins Front Office, the key words may be “next year”.
We clearly have a consensus that the Twins need better production from the two-hole, that we need an everyday 2B, and that we need an everyday SS. Some may think Harris solves the SS issue, but my sense is that most don’t.
Let’s assume that a solution can be found for each of these problems yet this season. My question: is there any hope whatsoever that the solutions come from within?
Ignore the “potential” and “ceiling” discussion for the likes of Hughes, Plouffe, and Tolleson for the time being. Are any of these three ready to give us average MLB performance in these roles right now?
Frankly, My view is that you can practically put all the names into a hat and randomly select your starters, with maybe a slight edge to Harris at SS (until he fades) and Punto at 2B (but please euthanize me so I can avoid the incessant, obsessive, and boring whining about him, OK jason?). We have a whole slew of interchangeable middle infielders.
In summary, if there is going to be a solution for these problems this season, they must come via trades. Do others see it differently? If so, I hope you’re right.
Just to weigh-in on the ‘everybody has a weak bullpen’ train of thought, or the subset ‘every bullpen has a weak link or two.’
1. Weak links have a way of costing you ballgames. That’s why they’re referred to as ‘weak links,’ whether they’re playing in the field, or pitching from the mound, or occupying a spot in the batting order. Settling for regular appearances from ‘weak links’ that waste the gains from other parts of the team leads to a .500 record. Sound familiar?
2. While it may be true that many teams have bullpen issues, isn’t the idea to be BETTER than many teams? I view the bullpen as an opportunity for the Twins to gain an advantage over ‘many teams,’ not suffer the same problems that lead to a…wait for it… .500 record.
This team has had bullpen problems for over a year. IMO it was the main issue that kept them from the postseason last year, and I do not believe the current Twins bullpen is likely to be good enough to get them to the postseason this year, either.
A trade is certainly the most likely venue to add a productive 2B or RP. The problem is few vendor’s have set up shop.
OB,
IMO it’s that the FO is not willing to pay the price to get an “A lister”.
Good call, Chief
The bully did cost the team a division title last year. Let’s hope that the FO doesn’t make the same mistake this year.
The big question is:
Who can BS get this year for the role of the 8th inning bridge to Nathan?
My vote would be the Hawk as the Astro’s are going nowhere…
Harris out today and Punto at SS. Tolbert at 2B and batting 2nd. Mauer DH today.
Lineups?
Lineup: Span LF, Tolbert 2B, Mauer DH, Morneau 1B, Cuddyer RF, Crede 3B, Redmond C, Gomez CF, Punto SS, Perkins P
again Morales rots
“Twins GM Bill Smith tried to make a deal for Ayala but it hasn’t worked out. Pittsburgh was interested until the Pirates made deals with the Yankees and Nationals.”***** Oh, okay. In other words, BS tried to get a diamond in exchange for dung, and in so doing he ends up getting nothing! Harvey Mackay once wrote that when someone leaves an organization, the last person you should hire is the departee’s handpicked would-be successor. He is correct. When will Twins ownership wake up and realize they made a huge mistake in hiring this big tub of goo Billy Smith. Save the Crede signing, the guy has done nothing but screw the franchise since he took over. Fire Billy Smith now. He is a #$%^-up of the first order and will turn the Twins into Royals-North if allowed.
“again Morales rots”
What do you mean? We need him to pinch hit for Punto in the ninth… oh wait.
Surprised that Kubel isn’t in LF today.
In today’s lineup:
Tolbert .185
Crede .238
Redmond ..237
Gomez .229
Punto .214
Kind of hurts my eyes.
I’ll be happy if we score one. Maybe when Morneau goes deep Mauer and Span will be on base. Or, in the alternative hopefully Perkins has a shutout in him today.
“Crede .238″
Who would you put in at 3B today?
I totally don’t understand why they called Morales up if they aren’t going to give him a opportunity to play.
I missed the part where I wrote about whether one or any should be playing or not. Merely pointing out batting averages. There were no lines to read between.
