Twins Midseason
Few, if any, predicted that the Twins would end the first half of the 2017 season above .500, albeit by one game and falling fast; so despite my negative thoughts to come I have to rate their performance so far as a wonderful surprise. More days than not this spring I have found myself on […]
Two Twins Wins
Watching Ervin Santana breeze through a four-hit shutout of the Giants Friday was a relaxing marvel; he was so dominant and he had such a lead, thanks to his own three-run double, that I was never even nervous. His delivery is effortless, his demeanor unchanging, and he spots his pitches perfectly, mixing sliders and fastballs, […]
The “Quality Appearance”
Baseball these days can seem overrun with statistics – Batting Average with Runners in Scoring Position and Two Outs, for example – yet records for pitchers all seem to me fundamentally flawed. Which is why I am proposing a new, more meaningful, one, which I will get to in a minute. First, however, a recap […]
The Waste Pitch
Twins pitchers are apparently taught, or instructed, to waste a pitch whenever they get an 0-2 count. The theory, I’m guessing, is to see if the hitter, suddenly wary of striking out looking, will expand the strike zone and wave at an unhittable pitch. The 0-2 pitches that Twins hurlers deliver, however, tend to be […]
Twins in ’17
It is far better to enter the baseball season with no, or low, expectations than to have high expectations that are quickly dashed. SI was not alone in predicting that this year’s Twins would have the third-worst record in the AL and even the Minnesota writers were guarded, expressing doubts, especially, about the Twins’ pitching. […]