Pelagic 2

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Fifteen years ago I took my firs pelagic birding trip; I was seasick almost the whole time but was still amazed at the birds we saw, especially the beautiful Sabine’s Gull, which I had never heard of. There were also good looks at many other species, particularly Phalaropes, as we cruised along the Continental Shelf line. So I thought I would try again, this time armed with a scopalomine patch, when I got a notice from SB Audubon of a pelagic outing. Unfortunately, the seasick trip was a lot more fun.
For starters, the first trip departed Santa Barbara Harbor, whereas yesterday’s cruise left from Ventura and was a tag-on to Island Packers’ regular ferry ride for day trippers to Santa Cruz. Nevertheless the 45 birders on board had the boat for seven hours in between drop-off and pickup at Scorpion Harbor. What I hadn’t focused on, however, was the goal of this trip: to see the Booby colony on Sutile Island, which was hours of open water away from any land, or birds. Now, it’s pretty neat that Boobys have come this far north, but once you’ve seen them sitting on this big rock, there’s not much more to the experience, especially as we were a couple hundred yards away from the cliffside, and my binoculars couldn’t bring me close enough to appreciate the view of any individual. The big goal, it turns out, was finding a Blue-footed Booby amid the 100+ Brown Boobys. Our expert spotter spotted one, and was able to describe its location well enough that I could pick it out. But at that distance, it looked no different from the surrounding Brown Boobys; and when you’ve practically stepped on them in the Galapagos the identification was not exciting.
Which gets me to the main problem for me, something I’ve experienced on other birding trips (although usually assuaged by having Gary Strandemo with me): Listing. For the leaders and I don’t know how many others in our group, the larger goal was seeing how many different species you could add to your personal lists (and the leader called out each time we moved from Santa Barbara County to Ventura County for those compiling county lists). There was very little opportunity to actually watch birds. Instead, it was “There’s a Pigeon Guillemot, flying left to right” – check that box. The only birds that sat still long enough or flew close enough for me to feel I could identify them were a gaggle of terns perched on a kelp raft, and even then our leader said he would have to look at the pictures later to determine if any were the sought-after Arctic Terns. Not surprisingly, ocean birds are not colored and the distinctions among various Murrelets, Shearwaters, Storm Petrels and Jaegers are slight – too slight for a first-time observer to feel any confidence in identification. And most of them flew away as soon as we spotted them. In short, I don’t feel I could identify a single species based on this trip. And most of the “sightings” were of a dull-colored bird flying away, separated by 20 minutes or more of open water. A 9-1/2- hour boat trip that was a waste of a day. And unfortunately, probably the end of pelagic birding for me.

Minnesota Sports Fans

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It is well known that Minnesota sports fans expect the worst when it comes down to a big game for their team. Whether this stems from the Vikings’ 0-4 record in early Super Bowls or a general Midwestern lack of self-confidence,  I don’t know. Nor do I know whether this defeatism is at all unique to Minnesota or is typical of small-market cities. I do know that, in contrast, New York fans expect championships from their teams, even when the Giants, Knicks and Yankees are clearly performing at sub-par levels. It was, therefore, a rare case of “euphoria,” as one columnist described it, when the stars magically aligned: the Twins put together a 12-game win streak and the Timberwolves routed their first-round playoff opponents and opened their second round with two upset wins over the Nuggets. Could this really be happening in Minnesota?
Yesterday, things were back to normal. After fooling the national media, which had overlooked them all year, to label them favorites to win the NBA championship, the T’Wolves lost the next three games, badly, to Denver. The Twins, after compiling an astonishing 16 wins in 19 games to creep within a half-game of first place in their division, came home to face their nemesis, the Yankees, and fell flat. Minnesotans are free to despair once again.

Timberwolves

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June 1: I don’t feel at all bad that the Timberwolves lost to the Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals. I’m sorry they didn’t win a second game and glad they at least won one. Dallas was clearly the superior team: not only did Doncic and Irving outperform Edwards and Towns, their secondary players–Gafford, Washington, Lively–were more impactful than any of the other Wolves, whose bench, and supposed defensive mainstay Gobert, notably underperformed. Dallas also had a more appealing style of play. Doncic led each game in assists, many of the colorful variety, while the Wolves continued their isolation ball play that turned me off in the Denver series. Maybe one reason the role players didn’t contribute is because they were left out of the action once Edwards or Towns got the ball and decided it was up to them to drive to the basket or shoot from distance. Of course the reverse could be true: Edwards and Towns may have felt they had to do it on their own because they couldn’t count on anyone else to make a shot. If someone like Alexander-Walker had gotten a hot hand, instead of whiffing every time, you wonder if the Wolves’ style of play, as well as their chances, might have changed. You also wonder why the Wolves are paying seven players who aren’t used in the playoffs. The third reason I’m not upset is that I wouldn’t want to see the Wolves lose to the Celtics in the Finals.

May 13: Although last night’s playoff loss to the Nuggets was the first Wolves game I have watched in its entirety this year, I feel qualified, and compelled, to make some observations.
The Wolves lost because the Nuggets hardly missed a shot, however difficult, shooting well over 60% for most of the game. The Wolves, by obvious contrast, shot poorly, missing the open three-pointers that Denver invariably made. Aaron Gordon, for one, made 11 of 12 shots. The Nuggets were more than 10% ahead of the Wolves in shooting, three-point and foul shot stats. No matter how much energy you play with, it’s hard to overcome those odds.
Anthony Edwards is the real deal. He is one of those players–LeBron, Kobe, MJ, Harden, et al.–who can scored singlehandedly whenever he wants (which is one of the things I don’t like about NBA basketball). He can drive to the hoop and score with either hand, or both. He can stop and pop anywhere in mid-range after dazzling dribbling. And he can swish long three-pointers without hesitation. And make his foul shots. It’s an irony of last night’s loss that the fatal sequence at the end of the half–a seven-point swing–that almost matched the final deficit–resulted from his losing the ball trying for the last shot.
Rudy Gobert’s DPOY award comes from reputation, not actual impact. His defense was not a factor in the game. He simply couldn’t guard Nikola Jokic and he left the rim unprotected numerous times. He doesn’t have the footwork or speed to match up with many players he switches on to, nor does he have the height and lift of someone like Wembanyana, whom he beat for the defensive award, to block or alter shots.
Jaden McDaniels is the black hole of the starting five. A year ago he was considered a cornerstone of the future, a running mate for Edwards and Towns as the Wolves built their team. All this year I’ve read of his superlative defense: the Wolves had enough scorers without him and he could justify his starting role with his cementing defense. Last night I saw none of it. And the Nuggets left him alone in the corner on offense, hoping he would shoot. Which he did, and missed. You could sense his lack of confidence. And considering that Denver was scoring every time down the court, each McDaniels miss was a killer. It will be interesting to see if the Wolves try to upgrade this position next year, although with only the 27th pick in the draft it will be hard, or change their rotation.
Karl Anthony Towns was almost singlehandedly responsible for the loss. It’s not just that he shoot poorly–1-for-10 in the first half–it was his attempts at playing isolation ball instead of letting the offense flow that knee-capped the Wolves in the early going. His specialty is the three-point shot, but he made only one and missed three. Too often he took it upon himself to dribble into the post and look for a lay-up or short floater. His dribble is so high and his moves so ponderous that the Nuggets easily collapsed on him and left him flailing and complaining to the refs.
Speaking of the refs, there was nothing here to change my opinion that officiating plays far too big a role in the game of basketball, more than in any other sport. There is contact on virtually every play that could be called a foul, so when the ref chooses to blow his whistle is almost an arbitrary act. And the impact is outsized. For one thing, it slows the game and is of no fan interest. More important, it affects what players are on the court: two quick ticky-tack fouls in the first quarter and your star goes to the bench. It also, of course, leads to players whining, not a good look.
All that said, I don’t think the Timberwolves are out of the series. Other than some ugly stretches in the first half, they played the Nuggets even and several times threatened to get back in the game, due mainly to Edwards’s efforts. Denver won’t shoot 60% for two more games, and you have to believe that Towns, who was great in Game 2, will learn and perform better. Also Nickeil Alexander-Walker should improve on his 1-for-7 shooting and horrible passing. Clearly, where the game is played is not as important as believed, as the road team has won all four so far. I predict that the Wolves will win one of the next two and we’ll get a Game Seven, which is as it should be.

Twins Diary ’24

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September 24: As the Twins’ freefall out of the wild-card race continues, what’s even more dispiriting is the view into the future. Each morning I watch Recap Rundown on mlb.com, which shows highlights of every Major League game from the day before. Time and again I am impressed by the exploits of some young player just called up from the Minors or some rookie firmly established as a budding star. None of these, however, belong to the Minnesota Twins. Sad to say, there is no young, or old, Twins hitter whom I am looking forward to seeing play in 2025. Let’s look at the roster: Two years ago, Jose Miranda was tearing up the Minors and made an impressive debut. For awhile this year he was hitting .300, but he hasn’t gotten a hit since. Royce Lewis looked like the next Mickey Mantle in his brief playing time last year. Now he looks like an incarnation of Byron Buxton: he can punish a mistake pitch, but he is oft-injured and routinely swings and misses. Brooks Lee looked like the next best thing in spring training and his first few weeks in the Bigs, but now it looks like average is his ceiling. Austin Martin is scrappy and useful to fill a hole, but the Twins have had many like that with no impact. The top-rated Minor League prospect is Walter Jenkins, a lefthanded-hitting outfielder, which means he will replicate, or replace, Trevor Larnach or Matt Wallner, both of whom hit occasional home runs and bat .250.  The Twins’ best hitter for the last month has been Kyle Farmer(!), a used-up veteran with no upside anymore. Manuel Margot, who should be long gone next year, is a poor fielder and set a record by going 0-for-30 as a pinch hitter. The catchers again next year will be Ryan Jeffers and Christian Vasquez, who are competent as far as that position goes, but won’t improve or carry the team. The best free-agent signing this year was Carlos Santana, who provided stability at first base and led the team in home runs before cooling off in September, perhaps showing his age at 38. Again, it won’t get any better. And then there are the two players who consume half the team’s payroll, Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton. Both have missed more games than they’ve played, not for the first time, and if either had a good year it would be considered a major “comeback.” The next biggest salary belongs to Max Kepler, and for that reason, among many, no one expects to see him back next year. So, where’s the energy, excitement and leadership going to come from, with the taste of this year’s horrendous collapse in everyone’s mind? They are who they are, and they aren’t very good.
What has kept the Twins competitive this year has been their starting pitching. Unfortunately, experience across the league has shown that a team needs at least eight, but more often ten, starting pitchers to get through a season. The Twins were depth-thin to begin the year, and when Joe Ryan went down it exposed their weakness at this position. For awhile Pablo Lopez and Bailey Ober were two of the best, but in the stretch they have both faltered, perhaps feeling the pressure of having to carry the team. Ober, in particular, has never been given any run support to make an outing easy. There is no one in the Minors whom we can look to for next year: the Twins scraped their prospects, even from Double AA, onto the team this year, such was their desperation. David Festa and Zebby Matthews do look like they could serve in the rotation, but when someone gets hurt, or hit, there’s little behind them. I won’t go into relievers, because they generally come and go. Next year, as usual, the Twins will roll the dice and pick up five or more relievers and hope that one turns out as Brock Stewart did last year. Among the regulars, it appears Caleb Thielbar is at the end of his career. Jhoan Duran has gotten worse, not better and continues to perform like a nervous rookie. Jorge Alcala was a rising prospect until they gave up and sent him back to the Minors. Griffin Jax is the star of the bunch, but good teams have three or four Griffin Jaxes they can use.
If the Twins were the Yankees or the Dodgers, you’d expect them to go out and get some free agents over the winter, but these are the Twins. Maybe the best thing is to blow up the team and start over–look what Kansas City was able to do this year, not to mention Detroit. But the Twins don’t have a Bobby Witt Jr. coming along. They’ll have to do something to make things interesting, but this year, I suspect, has killed a lot of the fan base. Except for one 12-game win streak, it just hasn’t been much fun watching, and rooting for them in 2024.

September 14: Which team would you rather see in the Playoffs: the Tigers, who carried a no-hitter for 8-2/3 innings and beat one of the Majors’ best, the Orioles, 1-0, and have won, approximately, 13 of 18 games; or the Twins, who brought in a reliever in the 7th who promptly walked his first batter then gave up a grand slam to the second, en route to an 8-4 loss, their 13th in the last 18 games? The day before was the Twins’ best in a long time, because they didn’t play while the Royals, Tigers and Mariners all lost. No such luck yesterday, as the Twins’ lead for the last wild card spot dwindled to 2-1/2. And it should be lower by weekend’s end.

September 12: As of last Saturday, the Bailey Ober game, I started rooting for the Detroit Tigers to take the third wild-card spot (after the Yankees and Royals) in the AL. They seemed a team with spirit, on a winning streak, defying the predictions. The Twins, on the other hand, were coasting downstream, listless, without an offensive leader, without an offense. The manager was at his juggling worst. And their best relievers had just blown up. To recap: Ober was winning 2-0, pitching a one-hitter, having retired the last 15 batters in a row and thrown only 83 pitches when the 7th ended. Instead of letting him stay on for the 8th, or even go for his second complete game of the year, Rocco Baldelli thanked him and sat him down. Bad enough, but then he brings in Jhoan Duran, who has a 9.00 ERA when pitching earlier than the 9th inning (but inexplicably has a good saves ratio). Duran struck out the first batter, despite throwing all six pitches out of the strike zone., which was a sign this wasn’t his day. Then followed single, hit batter, single and run. Duran never looks confident, but this time he looked clueless. Seeing his mistake, Baldelli quickly called for his ace reliever, Griffin Jax, who proceeded to give up three more runs and escape the inning only by having an overaggressive runner thrown out at the plate. As usual, the Twins went down meekly the rest of the way. It this is how they handle the pressure of a pennant race, count me out. Having to pitch a rookie the next day made the Twins sitting ducks for a Royals sweep. Even if they limped into the Playoffs, when you lose three out of three to your closest competitor means you probably shouldn’t be there. Oh, I forgot to mention: the big hit for the Angels in the four-run inning was a soft grounder to shortstop on which third baseman Lewis, shortstop Lee and first baseman (!) Farmer all underperformed. Not exactly a Major League infield.

September 6: Alas, the Twins are no longer interesting. They are punchless, and unless Lopez or Ober is pitching a shutout there is little chance of a win. But more than that, there is no hitter whose at-bat you anticipate. I can’t think of anyone on the team who would start for, say, the Orioles, Astros or Yankees. They won the other day with Lopez pitching and a three-run homer from Eddie Julien, a freak event. Royce Lewis, who was the hope at season’s start, is struggling at the plate and, for some reason, can’t run, which makes him less than exciting to watch. I keep waiting for either Larnach or Wallner to blossom into a legitimate offensive threat, but in the meantime the top two prospects in the minors – both highly rated – are both lefthanded-hitting outfielders, so there’s a surplus there. Meanwhile, Brent Rooker, a righthanded-hitting outfielder whom the Twins gave up on in favor of Larnach/Wallner has hit another 35 homers for the lowly A’s.

August 29: Ineffective relief pitching, poor defense, lack of clutch hitting and absent baserunning combined have the Twins on a 2-8 skid. The starting pitching has been good enough, but not by itself. Analytics recently calculated a more than 90% chance for Minnesota to make the playoffs, but 1) it’s hard to see how that’s possible if they continue playing this way, and 2) it hardly matters as they’ve shown they can’t beat any of the teams they could face in the playoffs. The Red Sox and Mariners, the principal competitors, were slumping badly, but both show signs of recovering.
Watching the daily recap of MLB, it strikes me that the Twins, unlike other good teams, don’t have a feared bat in their lineup. No Yordan Alvarez, Jose Ramirez, Bobby Witt Jr., let alone Juan Soto or Aaron Judge. How they’ve managed to come this far, relying on occasional good games from the likes of Castro, Jeffers, Larnach and Santana is pretty amazing. The hope was that Royce Lewis would be that guy, but he is looking worse and worse, missing pitches by six inches, as Buxton used to do. Oh, well…

August 24: The Guardians, Royals and Twins seem to have settled into a three-way contest for the AL Central title that, I hope, will last through September and perhaps result in all three making the Playoffs (although not the Twins, if they play games like yesterday’s 6-1 loss to the Cardinals). In the spirit of rock-paper-scissors, the Twins hold an edge over the Royals, who lead their series with the Guardians who have so far destroyed the Twins. I like all three teams: the Guardians for their scrappy, put-the-ball-in-play style, the Royals for their modest payroll, the fact no one expected them to be good, their ancient leader Salvador Perez and the best player in the division, Bobby Witt Jr., and the Twins because they’re from Minnesota. The Twins, however, drive me a little crazy with their inconsistency. There’s no one on the roster you can count on to make contact, let alone get a hit, with a man on third and less than two outs, a situation that should more than occasionally produce a run. Willi Castro, Ryan Jeffers, Royce Lewis are all offensive threats but have all let me down more often than I can count. I like Trevor Larnach’s cool approach and sweet lefthanded swing; but after getting four hits Thursday he struck out every at bat on Friday. The starters have done their job, especially considering three of the five started the season in the minors. It’s the relief corps that matches the offense’s inconsistency. Outside Griffin Jax, usually, it’s a crap shoot whether you’ll get someone who gets three easy outs or gives up multiple runs, and that includes the closer Jhoan Duran. So as I said, I just hope the Twins can keep the rest of the season interesting.
PS: The night I wrote the above, Larnach went 3-for-4, hit two home runs off a good pitcher, Sonny Gray, and drove in four runs in the Twins’ 6-0 win. Talk about inconsistent! Oh, and in yesterday’s excruciating 3-2 loss to the not-very-good Cardinals, the Twins had runners on 3rd with one out in both the 7th and 8th innings and couldn’t score, thanks to a double play and pop-up. There they are more consisten.

August 17: Playing without Correa and Buxton the Twins have crept within 2 games of the Guardians, who earlier this week boasted the best record in MLB. This means they are relying on the likes of Eddie Julien, Christian Vazquez and Austen Martin, all of whom scored in the 8th inning today to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead on the way to a 5-2 win, the third in a row over the Texas Rangers, who give no indication of being reigning World Champions. Most surprising, the Twins are getting solid starts from four rookies. Can they keep it up? Will the team perform as well against the Yankees and other top dogs? At the moment it seems luck and mirrors, with Minnesota still evincing a tendency to let runners on third with no outs die there without scoring.

August 11: After bemoaning the Twins’ record of hitting 6-for-60 with runners in scoring position agains the Guardians, Minnesota got two such hits in the late innings today…but no runs. Which just goes to show you that statistics don’t always tell the story. Since I last wrote, the Twins suffered the big blow of losing Joe Ryan, their second or third best pitcher, for the season with a tear of a muscle I’ve never heard of. Meanwhile, another starter, Chris Paddack, is showing signs of not rejoining the rotation this year; and in the infield, Carlos Correa is taking forever to recover from plantar fasciitis and his substitute, Brooks Lee, has gone on the Injured List. Having had plantar fasciitis myself, I know it is something you can’t “treat.” It will disappear when it wants to, and Correa may not be a force again this year. The last sour note is the continuing failure of Caleb Thielbar, which means that Baldelli has no reliable lefty to bring in – and he always wants to bring in a lefty to face lefthanded hitters, even when their records show they are quite capable of hitting lefties.

July 30: As much as we purists detest bringing in a position player to pitch in the last inning when a game is out of reach, it provided about the only enjoyable moments of last night’s 15-2 Mets win over the Twins. Starter Simeon Woods Richardson gave up six runs in the 4th and formerly reliable relievers Josh Staumont and Brock Stewart gave up five and four runs, respectively, in less than an inning each. Steven Okert pitched in between and wasn’t much better, allowing two of three inherited runners to score. Wanting to save his ‘A’ relievers, Baldelli brought outfielder Matt Wallner off the bench to get the final four outs of the game. And get them he did. The two runners he inherited in scoring position did come home, but he got out of the 7th and then surrendered only one hit in the 8th. He threw mostly oofus balls, around 40 mph, but he also snuck in a couple of “fast” balls at 80, surprising everyone. Wallner had been a pitcher in college and has one of the best outfield arms in the game but was instructed not to throw hard from the mound. (Why?) You have to wonder why hitters who handled Stewart’s 95 mph pitches with ease could only hit catchable fly balls against Wallner. Surprising, and fun.

July 28: I’m ready to anoint Bailey Ober as the de facto ace of the Twins’ pitching staff. Lopez can be unhittable when he bears down, but for some reason he lets up somewhere along the line. Ober is simply business all the way. Joe Ryan has been the hard-luck pitcher this year and still deserves to be in the conversation.

July 25: Cory Provus called it the Twins’ best win of the year, and I think I know why he said it. Their 5-4 comeback over the Phillies was so unexpected–it was the kind of game the Twins have been losing for years. It wasn’t just that the Twins had fallen behind 4-1 going into the bottom of the 7th. They had demonstrated the kind of futility that gets Twins fans rightfully discouraged. Twice they had runners on first and third with one out and didn’t score. Then they loaded the bases and didn’t score. The absence of “timely hitting” has been a big bugaboo for years, maybe ever since they started relying on home runs so much. It looked like more of the same when they loaded the bases in the 7th with one out and Max Kepler hit a ground ball to first. But he beat out the relay throw and one run scored. Then Carlos Santana hit a long fly to left that the Philadelphia leftfielder Brandon Marsh misplayed for a game-tying double. In the 9th the Twins gave the ball back to Jhoan Duran, who had given up three runs in a similar situation the day before. This time, though, he did the job. Then the Twins parlayed a hit-by-pitch, wild pitch, sacrifice bunt (practically unheard of) and infield single by Kepler to walk it off.

July 22: The Twins at the All-Star break have pretty much established their identity: they’re a good team, but not elite. They can score runs but aren’t great in the clutch and they pitch well two out of three days. They will likely be in the Wild Card race until season’s end, battling with the Red Sox, Royals and Mariners; but the fact that they are 2-19 against the teams ahead of them in the standings leaves little room for expectations they will go far in the Playoffs. The most positive development so far is the emergence of Byron Buxton as a decent hitter, given how many more years the Twins are saddled to his contract. The most disheartening is their inability to stay healthy. Recurring injuries to Lewis, Miranda, Correa, Stewart, Paddack and others have kept them from fielding their A lineup even once. The most intriguing, and probably important, story for the remainder of the year will be who, if anyone, among the young players will cement their role as a future asset and become a Michael Cuddyer not a Bobby Kielty. In this large group I count Royce Lewis, Brooks Lee, Jose Miranda, Austen Martin, Trevor Larnach and Matt Wallner plus pitchers Simeon Woods Richardson, Jorge Alcala and whomever the Twins bring up to replace Paddack as a fifth starter.

July 12: A refreshing loss by the Twins last night. Although I didn’t watch it, the box score told a story more reassuring than the 7-1 defeat. They had twice as many hits (10) as strikeouts (5). What did them in was their bad performance with RISP (1-for-11), granted, a common problem. Still, as long as the offense keeps hitting they’ll do okay and normally be fun to watch. Unfortunately, Brooks Lee missed a home run by 18 inches, which ended their almost record streak of 28 straight games with a homer. Though Joe Ryan gave up most of the runs, he was let down by his defense, and he will be back.

July 5: The Twins lost to the red-hot Astros today, but I don’t mind. I didn’t even mind when they were about to lose 13-5 before they scored 7 runs in the bottom of the 9th! Why? Because they are hitting the ball, which makes the games fun. They lost today because at least four runners on third with less than two outs didn’t score, whereas Houston capitalized on almost every opportunity. Still, they got the guys to third. Oh, and Jose Miranda went 4-for-4, meaning he has gotten a hit in ten straight at bats, a Twins record. And rookie Brooks Lee, whom fans have been waiting for, is hitting over .500 after three games in the Majors. So, it’s fun. In hindsight it would’ve been nice if any of the relievers had been able to shut down the Astros, or if starter Pablo Lopez hadn’t given up six runs in five innings. But the Twins competed, and that’s all I want. At the moment they have the fourth best record in the American League. Margot and Castro had bad games, Larnach and Santana didn’t do much, but Buxton, Kepler, Vazquez and Correa all helped Miranda and Lee for the new offensive-minded Minnesota Twins.

June 28: Mid-Season Grade: B. The Twins have settled into an entertaining brand of baseball: very good pitching keeps them in most games and sporadic hitting emerges often enough to help them win two out of three from lesser teams. Their strikeouts are way down from last year, and early this year, which makes their at-bats watchable. Too many of their batters are streak hitters, and there is no consistent run-producer; so on any given night anyone can be the hero or the goat. Their relievers are okay but when three or four need to be used, one will almost always let in a run or two. No lights out. Unlike last year, there is no one on the roster that I want to get rid of, although Kyle Farmer and Manuel Margot could be replaced. With the Guardians playing “A” ball, there is no chance of winning the division, but the consolation prize of a Wild Card is in play. And I can enjoy the small dramas of seeing if, and how, players such as Royce Lewis, Jose Miranda, Trevor Larnach and Simeon Woods Richardson develop.

June 21: The Twins’ 2-1 series loss to Tampa Bay in three one-run games exposed their current biggest weakness: a thin bullpen. The Minnesota starters, with the notable exception of purported ace Pablo Lopez, are keeping the Twins ahead or in every game until they are pulled after six or seven innings (often five or less for Simeon Woods Richardson for no good reason), and Joe Ryan is having an All-Star-worthy season despite seldom getting credit for a win. At that point, however, the game often goes in one of two ways, depending on whether Baldelli uses his “A” relievers or, if they’ve pitched too recently, goes with the “B” squad. The most painful example for me was the middle game, which Ryan left holding a 2-1 lead. Cole Sands, Steven Okert and Josh Staumont were needed to pitch the next two innings; they somehow escaped giving up only the tying run, but it took them 74 pitches, mostly balls, to get six outs. Duran, by contrast, pitched the 9th in only 10 pitches, but he can’t throw every day. Yesterday Jay Jackson gave up three runs in the 9th, which Jose Miranda miraculously erased with a two-out, two-strike home run, which resulted in Jackson’s finally getting a one-way ticket out of town. Kelly Funderburk will return as the designated lefty specialist, a role in which Caleb Thielbar has sadly lost his touch. Okert is supposed to be the backup in this role, but it turns out he’s pretty useless against righthanded hitters. Once opponents see him enter, they pinch-hit righties, which every team has in abundance, and with Okert required to face three batters damage is regular, if not inevitable. Paging Brock Stewart and Justin Topa, who were supposed to provide solid bridges to Duran and Griffin Jax. Both are injured, with no sign of returning soon. If the Twins can pull off a trade-deadline deal, I suspect this is the area they will focus on, as they did last year in acquiring Jorge Lopez.

June 17: In the Twin’s up-and-down season they seem to have lit upon a new and more engaging personality: they are making contact, hitting to the opposite field and striking out less, much less. They even sacrifice-bunted once. There’s no question that the arrival of Royce Lewis has elevated everyone’s game. Jose Miranda, his quondam replacement, has continued to hit, which means there is one fewer automatic outs–usually Margot or Farmer–in the lineup, and Alex Kiriloff and Eduard Julien have been exiled to Saint Paul. Buxton is still a strikeout zone, but he has contributed some useful hits, while Carlos Correa, for the first time in his Twins’ tenure, is earning his salary and the premature Hall of Fame predictions that came with him from Houston. But back to my point: where early in the season the Twins regularly racked up 10 or more strikeouts per game, inevitably more K’s than hits, I have seen recent games where the strikeout total has been four, and once it was almost zero. Their home runs are down, too, which may be the trade-off, a welcome one.

June 1: The Twins have shown some life in past weeks as each starting pitcher has excelled, but then also faltered. The same with the bullpen. The pieces seem to be there, but, like my golf game, consistency is a problem. I particularly appreciated one stretch last week or so when the young guys–Miranda, Larnach and Kiriloff–combined for five runs and a win, then the next night the veterans–Correa, Kepler, Jeffers–did the same. The Guardians are playing amazingly, not just winning but crushing their opponents, and it is doubtful the Twins will catch them. Their series win over Kansas City brought them closer to catching the Royals for second, and a wild card berth is still a possibility. The upcoming excitement will come from the return of Royce Lewis and management’s decision as to whom he will replace. His immediate substitute, Jose Miranda, is one of the top two hitters currently. Also worth watching is Jhoan Duran’s role as closer: he has been ineffective four games in a row and you have to wonder if Griffin Jax would make us feel a bit more comfortable in the role.

May 19: The Guardians completed what the Yankees started: demoralizing domination of the Twins. With their offense next to nonexistent, I am checking out for awhile. It’s just no fun to watch. Twice today they got their leadoff man to second, but 1-2-3 he never budged as the following hitters flailed. When they did tie the score in the 9th it was due to two errors and Buxton’s speed, not a single hit. And although Paddack pitched a great game after giving up a two-run homer to the game’s second batter, Cleveland walked the Twins off with their second home run off Duran. Julien and Kiriloff seem to be in terminal slumps, Vazquez and Margot, when they play, are automatic outs. It’s a mediocre lineup, at best.

May 18: The manager and the relievers will be blamed for last night’s 3-2 loss to the Guardians (although Baldelli partly blamed the home plate umpire), but when you get only four hits it’s hard not to point at the Twins’ weak offense as the culprit. Baldelli brought in lefty specialist Okert to face a lefthanded hitter with a runner on third and one out after Woods Richardson had pitched five shutout innings. Okert got the lefty, but the next hitter, a righty, got Okert for a two-run homer (on an 0-2 pitch) that essentially decided the game. The Twins came back to tie on a rare pinch-hit double with RISP by Kyle Farmer. Baldelli then elected to use his closer, Duran, in the 8th, presumably because that was when Cleveland’s most dangerous hitter, Jose Ramirez, would bat, and Ramirez was 0-for-7 lifetime against Duran. (Baldelli may also have realized the low odds that there would ever be a save situation that night.) Ramirez, however, hit a home run.  Baldelli’s two relief choices gave up three quick runs. It’s probable no one else would have done much better, but it doesn’t make the manager look smart.

May 17: The Twins’ humiliating collapse at home before the Yankees did more than end their string of series victories and knock them off the pace in the AL Central: it essentially ended their fandom’s hope for championship-level play this year. Sure, we can beat up on the White Sox, but we have no hope against the Big Boys is the message. The always suspect hitting was nonexistent: 26 straight scoreless innings. In yesterday’s loss the Twins’ only three hits each came with two outs in the inning. Pablo Lopez was supposed to be a stopper, and his playoff win over the Astros last year, compared to putative ace Sonny Gray’s lapse, gave hope that he could rise to an occasion. But the Yankees battered him for 13 hits in five innings. The defense fell apart; so maybe Buxton’s return is necessary after all. There will be pleasures to watch for, good games to enjoy, but from now on the ’24 Twins will be just another team.

May 13: Unfortunately, I find my mood once again vulnerable to the Twins’ success, or lack thereof, each day. I should be able to brush it off, as just a game, but I found myself checking my iPhone while at Sotheby’s auction house yesterday to see how the Twins had done. The had won, 5-1, and my day was made. The day before I left for the movies with the Twins comfortably ahead, 7-1, only to discover upon returning home that they had blown the lead and lost 10-8. I could be grateful that, like the first month of their season, I wasn’t around to watch it.

May 10: How to explain the Twins going from the second-worst (to the White Sox) team in the American League to the hottest, winning 15 of 17, and most quite handily, although none as easily as yesterday’s 11-1 drubbing of the Mariners? I was overseas during much of the bad stretch, thankful to miss the parade of high-strikeout, few hits with RISP games. When the Twins got to face the White Sox, most thought their wins, some of which were lucky, resulted from playing inferior opposition. The scheduling cooperated, with 10 games against the White Sox and L.A. Angels. But then the Twins played Boston and Seattle, both boasting superior pitching staffs, and they won five of seven. Even the losses were understandable (see May 8, below) and weren’t without good hitting and pitching.
There have been minor adjustments in personnel. Trevor Larnach, with the sweetest swing I can remember, replaced the flailing Matt Wallner. (Once a hitter’s confidence goes, there’s not much he can do.) Max Kepler came off the Injured List and changed his terrible season start to an extra-base force. In a case of addition by subtraction, Byron Buxton went on the IL: his strikeouts disappeared and Willi Castro got regular playing time and a hitting streak. Jose Miranda was brought up and contributed. Ryan Jeffers continued to grow. There were dropoffs, though: Kiriloff and Julien stopped hitting; Margot and Santana struggled below .200; Farmer stayed well below his past productivity. In general, though, strikeouts were down and the offense became fun to watch.
The potentially most impactful personnel change came on the pitching side: Simeon Woods Richardson replace Louie Varland, who was getting battered every outing. It’s still early, but Woods Richardson, at a very early age, is showing star potential. Chris Paddack has been as good as hoped and Pablo Lopez, after a few off games, has turned serious and reclaimed his ace status. The bullpen is still short an arm or two, namely Brock Stewart, but Jhoan Duran has come off the IL even better (more mature?) than last year.
The Twins aren’t quite a lock when leading after six, but they’re getting close. It’s too early to get excited: let’s see how the next two series, at Toronto and home with the Yankees, go. But for now the Twins have regained the confidence they need to make the summer interesting.

May 8: Last night’s loss to the Mariners is on the manager. Having only his “B” bullpen to work with, he lifted starter Bailer Ober after only five innings, despite Ober’s cruising with a 4-2 lead. (84 pitches was his reason). Then, needing length, he removed his “long” reliever, Cole Sands, after a 1-2-3 13-pitch inning. When Baldelli turned to Jay Jackson to start the 7th, I said, “Ober’s win is gone.” Sure enough, after four batters Jackson had loaded the bases and was done. Next man up, Steven Okert, couldn’t find the strike zone and fed a meatball to pinch-hitter Cal Raleigh, who turned it into a 440-foot grand salami. Okert is a left-on-lefty specialist, and bringing him in to face a righty with no margin for erro was not a formula for success. Running out of relievers, Baldelli then used Jorge Alcala for a successful eighth inning, but possibly concerned about having to play extra innings, with the score tied at 6, left him in for the ninth. Unaccustomed to pitching a second frame, Alcala unraveled and gave up four runs and the game.
Meanwhile on offense, Baldelli subbed out the two lefties at the top of the lineup for righthanded hitters in the 5th inning because a lefthanded pitcher briefly took the mound for Seattle. Farmer for Julien I could understand, as Julien has gone a week without a hit, but Margot, hitting .172 for Larnach, hitting .354?! On their second at-bats Farmer doubled to open the inning. Needing only to advance him, Margot grounded weakly to third, essentially killing the rally before it started. Later in the game, Baldelli put Austin Martin in for the other lefty, Alex Kiriloff. Martin did beat out an inside single, which led indirectly to the tying run; but in the next inning Martin, not used to left field, misplayed a long fly into a triple that opened the floodgates for the Mariners’ win.
Baldelli overmanages. He always has and will continue to do so. The Strib reported today that in 35 games he has used 34 different starting lineups. He also has the Little League approach that everyone on the team has to play. If someone hasn’t started in two games, you can be sure he will be in the lineup the third day. Hence, players like Margot and Jackson, who do not belong, will still be used. One can only hope that when Brock Stewart and Justin Topa are healthy, Jackson (and probably Funderburk) can be dismissed and Baldelli wil have a full deck to play his cards with. As for Margot, one hopes that if/when Buxton returns, they will keep Martin and groom him for the future rather than hang on to Margot and recollect his past.

The main story from the Twins’ Opening Day 4-1 win over Kansas City was, simply, the injury to potential superstar Royce Lewis, who pulled up lame with a quad injury as he rounded second base. It’s not that a sustained injury, if it proves as serious as it looked, will hurt the Twins’ prospects this year; they could still win their division, though not so handily. The bigger concern is for Lewis’s career. He has charisma, leadership ability and all the athletic attributes you could want. He homered in his first two playoff at-bats last fall, and he homered in his first Opening Day at-bat yesterday, following up with a single to go 2-for-2 before getting hurt. But he hasn’t played a year of professional baseball without a serious injury. Is he snakebit, injury-prone, or is this a fluke? All anyone can think of is Byron Buxton, who is 8-for-9 in seasons ruined by injury. The Twins and Minnesota need Lewis. All we can do now is hope.

April 4: The desultory performance by the Twins’ offense in their home opener against the Guardians reminded me of all I disliked about their 2023 season and resurrected my worst fears for this year now that Royce Lewis is gone. The headlines: Twins were 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position (Guardians were 2-for-7) and had 15 strikeouts to 1 walk. Kiriloff tripled with one out in the 1st, then Buxton struck out. In the 2d the Twins loaded the bases then Julien struck out looking. In the 7th again the bases were loaded with one out before Buxton struck out and Kepler popped up. Correa led off the 8th with a double then watched the next three batters fan. The defense wasn’t much better. Cleveland’s game-deciding three-run rally started when Wallner shied away from Steven Kwan’s looper instead of charging and diving, then the third run resulted from a botched rundown play. The Guardians, by contrast, constantly put the ball in play. I’d love for Minnesota to have a player like Kwan; with a runner on third and less than two outs, you know he will get his bat on the ball. Unlike Buxton, Kepler, Santana…go down the lineup. In all, it was an enervating game to watch and a deterrent to watching anymore for awhile.

A general thought concerning official scoring and statistics: In his final inning (the 6th), Pablo Lopez got two quick outs then gave up a single and left the game “responsible for the man on first.” The Twins reliever, Kelly Funderburk, hit his first batter and walked the second. The third hit a ground ball that Correa booted, resulting in a run scoring and being charged to Lopez. Clearly, Funderburk was more “responsible” for the run scoring than Lopez. I would give the official scorer the discretion to attribute the run in this situation: a runner not in scoring position can be assigned as the responsibility of the relief pitcher if he enters the game with two outs, or maybe even one.

Twins Preview ’24

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As the Minnesota Twins’ 2024 season opener approaches I am more doubtful than sanguine. While the national prognosticators uniformly pick the Twins to win their division, I read this more as a referendum on the weakness of their rivals than an endorsement of the Twins’ strength. And given their success last year–winning the division plus a playoff round–a mere division title this season will not satisfy Minnesota fandom.
Of the five most important considerations in making a prediction, two are related but particularly unknowable. (One consideration that is not important is spring training, where the Twins finished in last place. It would have been nice to see some of their pitchers dominating and their hitters collecting hits, but when someone named Hellman is getting more at-bats than any regular and non-roster pitchers are pitching the last four innings the final scores hardly matter. I don’t know what Buxton, Correa, et al., were doing instead of facing live in-game pitching, but I have to presume the organization knows what it is doing.)
The two big unknowables are injuries and roster additions. The era of the day-in, day-out player is gone. (If you want to know an unbreakable record in sports, look no further than Cal Ripken’s consecutive-game streak.) But who will be hurt and miss how many games can make a big difference. Even though Carlos Correa played most of the year, we are now told that his plantar fasciitis changed him from a future Hall of Famer to the league leader in hitting into double plays. Byron Buxton has been a Platinum Glove winner and offensive Player of the Month, but he is now better known for the variety of injuries that have shut him down, year after year. What will be his story in ’24? Then, partly due to injuries, every team has players contribute who aren’t on the opening day roster and, for most fans, haven’t even been heard of. At this time last year I knew nothing of Eduard Julien, Matt Wallner or Louie Varland, yet they played significant roles by season’s end and are counted on heavily this year. In one memorable year, a midseason trade for Shannon Stewart totally transformed the Twins’ season. Who will it be this year, and how big an impact will the unknowns make?
A third consideration, already alluded to, is the strenght of competition. As someone who predicted that the Guardians were building a dynasty at the end of 2022, I have no claim to expertise in this area. I see a lot to like when I look at the lineups for the Guardians, the Royals and even the Tigers–not so much the White Sox–and I wouldn’t be surprised if one or all posed a more serious challenge than others are predicting. But that comes down, and brings me, to the two areas I am comfortable discussing: the Twins’ pitching and the Twins’ hitting.
Pitching: Pablo Lopez was anointed as their ace when they gave up batting champion Luis Arraez to acquire him, and by the time of the playoffs he had earned the designation. He started the season slowly, however, and his spring training, as for all the Twins’ starters, has been unimpressive. Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober are similar young studs, who have to dominate with their fastballs. Assuming they can stay healthy, which they haven’t yet, they can be the meat of the staff. Even when they are on, though, their fastballs become a home run here or there. Depending on the Twins’ offense that day, that can mean a loss. I am unusually optimistic about Chris Paddack, the fourth starter. After missing almost all of last year, his health and durability are in question, but I’m hoping he will be the surprise of the staff. Varland has potential as the fifth starter, but he has yet to prove it and his similarity to Ryan and Ober makes me wonder if the Twins would not do better with a crafty lefthander mixed into the rotation. Perhaps the biggest concern is, who will the Twins use when, not if, one of these five gets hurt. Varland was to have been the first call-up, the safety net. With him now starting at the Majors, there are only unproven prospects waiting below. And maybe Randy Dobnak?
The relief corps is supposedly what raises the Twins above the competition this year, but already three are on the injured list. Then there is the overriding issue that success for a relief pitcher one year seldom repeats itself. Even within the same year, a reliever can go from unhittable to unreliable: see Jorge Lopez’s record with the Orioles and Twins last season. Or, for the reverse, look at Emilio Pagan’s year with the Twins. That said, here’s my rundown on key relievers: Jhoan Duran, the closer, lacks swagger and makes me nervous. A 101 mph fastball is no longer an oddity for batters and his “splinker” is not in the reliability league of, say, Mariano Rivera’s cutter. He can’t hold runners on base, he rarely posts a 1-2-3 inning, so all too often the tying run is in scoring position when the game ends. Griffin Jax is the most-used late-inning reliever, and we’ll see how he does as a closer while Duran is injured. I like Caleb Thielbar, the ranking lefty, but he is getting old, which makes me wonder. Jorge Alcala has always been touted as the next best thing but has yet to stay healthy. Brock Stewart was a revelation, but that was last year. Then there is a bevy of newcomers whom I have not seen: Topa, Staumont, Okert, Jackson. As mentioned, a relief pitcher is a crap shoot. There are no guarantees here; one can only hope.
Hitting: This is where the rubber meets the road. If the Twins hit at, or close to, potential, they will win games even with mediocre pitching. But for every one of their players, as high as is the ceiling, the floor is very low. And the low floor contains a lot of strikeouts–the Twins led the league last year–which can make a game not fun to watch or read about. Byron Buxton is the poster boy here. I get sick of seeing him look over his shoulder at the pitcher as he walks back to the dugout after striking out. He has power and great speed, and he hits mistakes a long way. What he doesn’t do is make contact when that is all that is needed. He never bunts, when that would be an easy way to raise his average and cause havoc on the basepaths. And in clutch situations, a good pitcher can almost always strike him out. We don’t know what he could accomplish by playing a whole season, and no one really expects it to happen this year.
Carlos Correa, based on his salary and experience, should be the engine that drives the offense. He wasn’t last year, at least not until the playoffs. If he could hit more line drives and fewer ground balls to shortstop, the lineup could come alive. By OPS rankings, the next two key offensive weapons are second-year players Eddie Julien and Matt Wallner. Both impressed early on, but both cooled off as the season ended. How much was fatigue, how much was opposition scouting? I am especially doubtful about Wallner, who was useless by season’s end and got about two hits all spring training. I fear that a sophomore slump is more likely than a further blossoming, for Wallner especially. Which raises the question, will we see Trevor Larnach or Brooks Lee make contributions this year?
I have much less concern about a sophomore slump for Royce Lewis. He has shown a Buxton-like propensity for unusual injuries, which is the only thing that will keep him, I predict, from stardom. I’m also comfortable with a first-base tandem of Alex Kiriloff and Carlos Santana, although one is oft-injured and the other is relatively old and worn. On their worst days, both will be an upgrade from last year’s Joey Gallo. Ryan Jeffers provides offense at catcher; Christian Vazquez can cut down base stealers and can’t hit worse than he did last year. I love both Willi Castro and Kyle Farmer as utility backups.
The outfied may or may not be centered on Buxton. If he can play regularly, the defense is elevated a level. Manuel Margot was acquired offseason as insurance for Buxton. I like his experience with the Rays, and if he starts to hit he can spell Wallner in leftfield against left handers, but his production remains to be seen. Wallner/Larnach in left leave me queasy. Max Kepler is back in right, despite expectations the Twins would trade him, if they could. Every year we talk of his great potential, which he never lives up to. Eliminating the shift helped his average last year. You just hope that for once he can “put it all together.”
Overall: The Twins could be an offensive powerhouse. Or they could strike out a lot and have a lot of batters hitting .240. Someone needs to be a spark: it could be Lewis, or Correa, or even Buxton. Hitting is contagious, but it has to start somewhere. As it did last year, the pitching will keep the Twins in most games, but depth is an issue. On paper, based on last year’s numbers, the Twins should be good. But this is this year, and the games aren’t played on paper.

 

 

 

 

Stupid Rule 2

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While baseball has a stupid rule or two–one less next year, as I’ll discuss later–football has a doozy that has more actual impact on the game: the fumble-out-of-the-end-zone-for-a-touchback rule. When this rule was invoked against the Vikings in mid-season it may have cost them a win and led to general speculation that the rule would be changed in the offseason. Now that it almost cost the Kansas City Chiefs their spot in the AFC championship game, on national television, the chances of a change must have gone up exponentially. The “rule” is this: when an offense fumbles and the ball goes out of the end zone without being recovered, a touchback is called and the team on defense gets the ball on the 20-yard-line. The team on offense, which has worked its way downfield, not only gets nothing, it loses possession. Why? There is no equitable reason for such a result. If a player fumbles out of bounds anywhere else, his team retains possession and the ball is spotted at the site of the fumble. There should, obviously, be no reward, in terms of yards gained, for fumbling. But the defense, which may have caused the fumble but was not able to recover it, gets no reward. Why should it be any different at the goal line? If the defense recovers the ball in the end zone, it’s a touchback. There’s no reason the outcome should be identical when they don’t recover! The fix is obvious: apply the same rule that governs fumbles everywhere else on the field. The offense keeps possession at the spot of the fumble. If there is something different about an end-zone fumble and you want to penalize the offense accordingly, spot the ball back at the 10. But there’s nothing different and that makes no sense.
Getting back to baseball: the late Gordon Harriss and I once had extended debate about the injustice (my position) of calling the batter out when he is hit by a throw from the catcher while running to first base inside the foul line. My point was that for a righthanded hitter, the natural, direct route from the batter’s box to first is necessarily inside the foul line and it makes no sense, and is impractical, to require him to reroute his path to the bag. The Rules Committee finally recognized this injustice by creating a lane inside the foul line where, from now on, the runner to first will be protected. Hallelujah!

Winter Birding

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Even when there are no new birds to be seen or locales to visit, birding can give me great satisfaction, as two days this weekend demonstrated. On Friday, December 29, the day before Santa Barbara’s annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC), I took the noon-to-two Snowy Plover docent shift at Coal Oil Point. The beach had been altered by the storm and high tide the day before. Whether that was the cause or not, there was a concentration of white shore- and seabirds at the slough edge. I rarely find a Bonaparte’s Gull on my shift; this day there was a flock of ten, bobbing lightly on the water, black dots on their cheeks. A half-dozen Royal Terns was not unexpected, but still a treat. More surprising was a lone Forster’s Tern–not a rarity but a bird I hadn’t seen sitting on my beach before. The usual Snowy Plovers, Sanderlings, Semipalmated Plovers and Black-bellied Plovers were there in the hundreds, too numerous to accurately count. A Western Grebe, normally on the ocean, was floating by itself in the slough, and an American Pipit, an occasional sighting, was hustling back and forth along the beach. I walked up the Pond Trail to pick up some land birds for my daily count. The Blue Gray Gnatcatcher was there, as it was the week before, and this time, instead of four Cassin’s Kingbirds in the dead tree above there were fully a dozen, taking turns making sorties out over the pond. The big surprise, though, was two birds that aren’t supposed to be here in winter: a male Red-winged Blackbird, with bright red epaulet, flew into the reeds along the pond edge, and a Barn Swallow came racing over the pond, heading toward the ocean. The latter proved a miss on the following day’s CBC, which is a pretty thorough canvass of the avian population.
The next day, Saturday December 30, I spent three hours at Westmont College, for the last ten years my “territory” for the Santa Barbara CBC. There are probably 25 species I regularly see, with up to another six that vary from year to year. This year was no exception, as I logged 27 birds from 7:30 to 9:30. For another hour I wandered back to my car through the main campus and was happy to belatedly pick up a Townsend’s Warbler, Bewick’s Wren and, near my parking lot, a White-breasted Nuthatch. Near the administration building I saw what looked like a common House Finch land 20 feet up in a leafless tree. On closer inspection I saw a strong line through its eye, which identified it as a female Purple Finch, a bird so far unreported on the count. A moment later a male Purple Finch, with a bright red crown and throat patch, took her place. 36 species on Friday, 31 on Saturday, but it was the individual surprises that made both days special.
January1,2024

 

World Series

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A quick note on Game 2 of the Rangers-Diamondbacks series: yesterday the Diamondbacks bounced back from a heartbreaking extra-inning loss in Dallas to whump the Rangers, 9-1. Arizona struck out only two times the whole game. With 16 hits. I wonder if the Twins were watching.

Post mortem: I was part of why this was the least watched World Series on TV. Texas v. Arizona with a lot of new names just wasn’t as captivating as the matchup we expected, Phillies v. Astros. Other than Game 1, the games weren’t that close, either. The concluding game was tight until the Rangers ran away at the end, 5-1, but still that was only Game 5. Corey Seager was the deserving MVP, which gave Twins fans some hope that his counterpart, Carlos Correa, might play such a role in the future. Rather than anointing a Series hero – a la Jordan Alvarez or Adolis Garcia in division championships this year – I was struck by one goat (in the negative sense, not the “greatest”) who almost singlehandedly determined the Diamondbacks’ quick exit, with an assist from another teammate. I had never heard of Christian Walker before, but he showed up at the pivotal moment of three separate losses. In Game 3, when Series’ dominance was on the line, he ran through a belated stop sign by his third-base coach and made the inning’s first out at home plate. Instead of runners on first and third with no outs, Arizona failed to score, and in their next turn at bat the Rangers broke the scoreless tie and gained momentum that carried them to victory. In Game 4, Walker (a Gold Glover, we were told), muffed a ground ball in the third inning, which led to five unearned runs and put the game out of reach (although the final 11-7 score was within that five-run margin of error). Then Game 5 was a scoreless pitcher’s duel, with the D’back’s Zac Gallen throwing a no-hitter through six innings. Nathan Eovaldi, on the other hand, was in constant trouble over the same span. Most significantly, somewhere around the fourth inning, Arizona’s first two batters hit singles. Sensing the importance of scoring first, Arizona had its #3 hitter lay down a sacrifice bunt (his first of the year) to move both runners into scoring position and bring up the cleanup hitter, Walker. The middle infielders played back, willing to concede a run on a ground ball. But Walker struck out, and when the next batter hit a grounder to short it was the third out. The Diamondbacks’ best chance was gone, as was their momentum and perhaps their spirit. They never scored until they were down 5-0 in the ninth. Three game-changing plays, all by Walker. The secondary goat was Arizona’s closer Paul Sewald, who entered the Series with six saves and no runs allowed in the postseason. The two-run homer he gave up to Seager in the ninth was the decisive play in the Game 1 loss, and the four runs he allowed in the ninth in Game 5 made sure there was no comeback there.

Women’s World Cup

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Much of the reporting on the USWNT’s overtime loss concentrated on Sweden’s winning penalty kick, which crossed the goal line by one, or maybe two, millimeters after being largely saved by US goalie Alyssa Naeher. Had it been saved, however, there was no guarantee the result would have been any different. The US would still have had to convert a penalty and hope for a corresponding Swedish miss, when the US women had already flubbed three of their last four tries. No, the crucial game-defining moment was Sophia Smith’s attempt. The US, thanks to Naeher’s save, had a 3-2 lead. If Smith scored, the US would be up 4-2 with only one Swedish shot to go. I was already envisioning an American celebration. The press, however, has been nice to her, which is okay, but different than they would be to, say, Kirk Cousins. She is young, gifted and Black, and has a lot of time to make people forget this one bad moment. Megan Rapinoe’s shot was even worse. As it turned out, the Americans would have won if she had converted, although we didn’t know that at the time (Naeher’s save came later and effectively neutralized the damage for the moment). Rapinoe, the face of women’s soccer and, indeed, of women’s sports for the last decade, was understandably given a pass as well. Kelley O’Hara was the third US player to miss–her soft shot (why?) bounced off the post–giving Sweden its opportunity to close out the match. O’Hara had been substituted into the game in the final minute (along with Kristie Mewis, who made her shot), solely to take a penalty kick if needed. One is tempted to blame the coach as much as O’Hara for putting her in that spot. Why not let the players who have played 120 minutes get to decide the outcome?
I am not a goalie, although I played one for the Aujila town team in Libya, but I wonder that goalies invariably dive left or right when facing a penalty kick. Yes, they generally have a 50/50 chance of guessing the correct direction, but that is not enough. If the shot is higher than their outstretched arm or too hard to stop, the correct guess won’t matter. Of the ten penalties on goal in this game, the goalies dove in the right direction a majority of the time but stopped only one shot. If I were a shooter–and I only attempted one penalty kick in my soccer career–I would aim straight ahead. There’s less, maybe no, chance of missing the net, and so long as the goalie dives, it doesn’t matter in which direction she goes. Naeher was the only shooter who took this route, scoring easily. The converse advantage for the goalie is that if she stays on her line and guesses right, the save will be relatively easy, whether the kick is low, high, hard or soft. Even if the US is no longer playing, I’ll be watching how penalty kicks play out the rest of this World Cup. And I’ll be rooting for Japan.

PS: The penalty shootout in the Australia-France game underscored just how bad the U.S. effort was. The two teams combined for twenty (20!) PKs, and not one went over the crossbar. All 20 were well struck; and while three hit the post and four were saved, or vice versa, none of the strikers were as embarrassed as the three missing Yanks should have been.

A Stupid Rule

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On Sunday (7/11) the Twins blew a game, 7-6, to the Blue Jays when Emilio Pagan gave up two singles and a home run in the 8th inning, but the loss equally belonged to Carlos Correa, whose throw in the dirt on the back end of a sure double play allowed the Jays’ three previous runs to score. One run came in on the play, two more when the next batter hit a home run with two outs. Twins pitcher Louie Varland was charged with three earned runs, because you can’t presume a double play. In other words, if the defense gets the first out on a force, they won’t be charged with an error for not completing the double play, even if the throw from second to first clearly beats the runner. Why not? The throw from second to first is not inherently difficult; infielders practice it all the time, to the point it’s second nature. It’s not like a ground ball that’s “too hot to handle,” or a bad hop that handcuffs the infielder. It’s a play that’s totally within the control and competence of the middle infielder. If he throws wildly, or if the first baseman drops the throw, it’s an error in the mind of everyone but the official scorer. I’ve yet to hear an argument that supports this “rule,” nor can I think of any. Well, something good happened, and you can’t count on anything more. Really? It certainly affects one’s opinion of the fielder’s play, and his evaluation deserves downgrading. More humanely, it’s unfair to the pitcher, in this case Varland, who would have exited the game having given up only one run instead of three had Correa made a halfway decent throw, resulting in a major bump in his ERA. Anyone?
PS: On later thought, I expect the rule’s basis to be the situation where a fielder slightly bobbles the grounder at the start of the play and the resulting throw on to first is late or even not made. In that situation, I can understand that it is too much a judgment call whether a cleanly handled ground ball would have resulted in two outs. But when the throw clearly beats the runner and is dropped, no judgment is required to deduce that the second out should have been made and an error should be charged. (8/7)