The Minnesota Twins

Go Twins! They just blew a huge lead though and are now losing 14-13 with the 9th inning coming up. If we lose this game... I'll be extremely mad. Morneau had 7 RBI's for god sake.

Any other Twins fans here?

what an awful game. we lost that one at the plate when cuddyer got robbed, then we won in extra innings, then we got destroyed 16-1 today by the A's!

i hope to god we make a move for freddy sanchez and maybe a reliever. id be happy with sanchez though. i dont think wed ever trade for a reliever.

I have a 9 game winning streak on my MLB bets If the Red Sox win tonight, which they look like they will (Up 4-0 in the 4th) it'll be 10!

Stealth Falcon wrote:

I have a 9 game winning streak on my MLB bets If the Red Sox win tonight, which they look like they will (Up 4-0 in the 4th) it'll be 10!

dude thats legit. how much money have you made?

and my twins finally got a good pitching performance from anthony swarzak of all people last night. hopefully we get more of that during this upcoming series with the chi sox and then again against the angels at home. we really could use a sweep of the sox right now...

Twins season is in serious jeopardy (which is why Cabrera is useless, we should get Sanchez instead). Slowey's injury is a big problem, as Swarzak isn't putting up great numbers when you look past ERA. Slowey coming back would have given flexibility in possibly demoting/moving Liriano to the pen, but that's no longer a choice.

Swarzak is pitching very well for the Twinks. He isn't a big strikeout threat or anything, but he is doing very well and thoroughly keeping his team in games. His ERA is very good, and as long as he wins, he will be in the rotation. I would hope. lol.

Webmaster wrote:

Swarzak is pitching very well for the Twinks. He isn't a big strikeout threat or anything, but he is doing very well and thoroughly keeping his team in games. His ERA is very good, and as long as he wins, he will be in the rotation. I would hope. lol.

*sigh*. ERA is not the state you want to measure a pitcher by. ESPECIALLY over a short period of time. It's not useless but using it as the sole means of judging a pitchers effectiveness is foolish. In looking at it, you also need to look at other stats, like WHIP (Walks/Hits Per Innings Pitches), FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching), and K/BB ratio.

Another reason ERA is bad: say a pitcher gets 2 outs, the 3rd batter reaches on an error, and that team goes on to score 10 runs. None of those runs count as earned runs, even though 9 of them at least are his fault.

K/BB ratio is generally a good means of measuring without delving too deep (FIP is better IMO), though there are exceptions to that for pitchers with a very high GB%, something Swarzak doesn't have. He also is giving up 1.36 WHIP, which tells me you can expect his ERA to drift back north of 4.50.

By the way, sorry if I come off as argumentative, baseball is just my game, and I am about as big of a Twins nut as you get (ask mjfanatic)

theglobalcowboy wrote:

Webmaster wrote:

Swarzak is pitching very well for the Twinks. He isn't a big strikeout threat or anything, but he is doing very well and thoroughly keeping his team in games. His ERA is very good, and as long as he wins, he will be in the rotation. I would hope. lol.

*sigh*. ERA is not the state you want to measure a pitcher by. ESPECIALLY over a short period of time. It's not useless but using it as the sole means of judging a pitchers effectiveness is foolish. In looking at it, you also need to look at other stats, like WHIP (Walks/Hits Per Innings Pitches), FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching), and K/BB ratio.

Another reason ERA is bad: say a pitcher gets 2 outs, the 3rd batter reaches on an error, and that team goes on to score 10 runs. None of those runs count as earned runs, even though 9 of them at least are his fault.

K/BB ratio is generally a good means of measuring without delving too deep (FIP is better IMO), though there are exceptions to that for pitchers with a very high GB%, something Swarzak doesn't have. He also is giving up 1.36 WHIP, which tells me you can expect his ERA to drift back north of 4.50.

By the way, sorry if I come off as argumentative, baseball is just my game, and I am about as big of a Twins nut as you get (ask mjfanatic)

I realize all of that, but the fact of the matter is he is winning games. There is no better solution right now, that's for sure. As long as he keeps winning ball games, I can't see him falling from the rotation.

Quote :

I realize all of that, but the fact of the matter is he is winning games. There is no better solution right now, that's for sure. As long as he keeps winning ball games, I can't see him falling from the rotation.

Yes, with Slowey done, I'll give you that. But if Slowey was available to return, I would still take Liriano over Swarzak, their xFIP numbers tell a different story in predicting future success.

mjfanatic8403 wrote:

Stealth Falcon wrote:

I have a 9 game winning streak on my MLB bets If the Red Sox win tonight, which they look like they will (Up 4-0 in the 4th) it'll be 10!

dude thats legit. how much money have you made?

Over the streak, $210. I normally don't bet more then around $30. I just do this for fun with my friend. lol and the guy still tries to give me advice, smh.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Liriano is going to continue to improve. As the globalcowboy just explained to me in person his "numbers behind the numbers" (as he said) indicate that his numbers will continue to improve if he keeps pitching with good control. I am a big fan of Liriano and he has improved drastically from the beginning of the season. The idea that he should be removed from the rotation is absolutely ludicrous, and I thought that without even looking at the stats, just from watching his starts.

It's a shame the Slowey is out for the year, but at least it means that we will get to see what Swarzak has for a full year, as well as Liriano for a full year.

What do you guys think about Gomez? I have been seeing dramatic improvement from him this year. He has 16 walks in 200+ AB's this year and had 25 walks in 577 AB's last year. That alone tells me how much better he has gotten about taking pitches. And his OBP this year is actually higher (or it was when I checked the stats yesterday) this year at .298 than it was last year (.296) even though his batting average is about 22 points lower.

Twins-White Sox again tonight. 0-0 in the top of the 3rd. Baker looks ok so far, but his problem innings are the 4th and 5th inning much like Liriano. Hopefully he continues to pitch well as he has given up only 2 hits in his first 2 innings (1 each).

I really hope we can get to Buerhle, he is as big a Twin Killer as there is though so it won't be easy. Hopefully we can get him out of there in the 5th or 6th inning by wearing him out and then we can add a couple runs on their bullpen.

Baker with the strikeout. That might be his 4th or 5th tonight.

Twins sweep the White Sox.

We won 3-2 as Nathan got the save.

Mr. Offseason wrote:

Nathan got the save.

[evil accent]Good. Good.[/evil accent]

My Twins are playing so poorly right now. We just lost 2 in a row to the Cleveland Indians. Jesus christ...

Our pitching is looking ok, but our offense is doing worse now.

We can't catch a break.