First of all, Section 220 is on a lighter blogging scheduled for the next week-and-a-half for an assortment of reasons (all of them good things). That means I’m in the market for a couple of guest posts. If you’d like to submit one, you can email it here. A few suggestions: 400-500 words works best, make it something that has some shelf life; you can be funny and/or earnest; be yourself, and include a sentence about yourself that’s suitable for an “editor’s note.”

*I’m not ready to annoint Bobby Keppel as this year’s Breslow (right-handed version), but his hold ‘em performances so far have been encouraging. The good thing about the Twins’ offensive struggle Tuesday night was that he was brought into a one-run game and kept the lead in a full turn through the Kansas City batting order.  He seems to be centered pretty well. I heard him interviewed Sunday after his debut in St. Louis and while accolades were being sent his way, it was Keppel himself who pointed out that the outing was well and good, but it was only one game. Keppel is easy to root for.

*I’m concerned that the basket on Jose Mijares has become only half-full. We were hoping the Twins had found a lefty who could work an inning regardless of whether the opponents were hitting from the left or right. Unfortunately, his numbers against right-handed batters have devolved to .353/.421/.529 and he’s pretty much headed for a Dennys Reyes type of role. (His numbers against lefties are .083/.214/.167 — which includes 3 for 36 with 6 walks.)  Walking 12 of the 101 batters he’s faced is an ugly stat as well,  Kevin Slowey, by comparison, has walked 18 of 379.

*Can anyone who juggles numbers more than I do tell me why we’ve figured out the value of on-base percentage in talking about hitters, but we never hear that number in regard to pitchers? It’s always “batting average against,” and that seems like just as flawed a measure. With Mijares, for example, the difference in those numbers is between .241 and .340.

*This is not intended as a knock on Jason Kubel, who is justifying the faith shown in him. But I’m thinking it’s time for Gardy to consider flipping Cuddyer and Kubel in the batting order. Mauer and Morneau are fine regardless  of who’s pitching against them (left or right) — and I’m thinking that a right-handed bat in the five spot would get those pitchers out of the lineup one batter sooner in later-game situations. Mauer is .351/.430 against lefties, Morneau is .359/.385, Kubel is .185/.254. My theory gets Kubel better pitches to hit against a righty or a No. 2 lefty; Cuddyer is pretty much stats neutral, but has more power against lefties.

*It’s time to stop worrying about Brendan Harris’ defense. He’s never going to be an elite defensive shortstop, but he’s making more plays that I expected and he seems to be improving with more time spent at the position. In fact, when revised zone rating is used as the measure, Harris’ is .817 in 342 innings and Nick Punto’s is .785 in 348. Harris’ number puts him in the middle of the pack among AL shortstops with guys like Alexei Ramirez of the White Sox (who was moved from second to short to improve their defense), Marco Scutaro of Toronto and Erick Aybar of the Angels. Jason Bartlett’s RZR is .784, in case anyone asks.

*The Twins need a second baseman to get them through the rest of the season and this guy has played enough second base over the year to make me wonder if he could provide a half-year fix. His team is 17 1/2 games out of first place and I have to think the asking price would be next to nothing. Bring him back to Minnesota!

*That’s all for now. Day game today. Get out the radio.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 11:22 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.