Article: Mariners 14, Twins 3: Mejia Crushed, Gimenez Pitches Again

[Tom Froemming]

When the Twins lose, they really lose. Adalberto Mejia got hammered for nine runs, eight of them earned, over 3.2 innings and things didn’t get much better after that. It was the fourth time in the last 13 games the Twins gave up at least a dozen runs. How is this still a first-place team?Mariners 14, Twins 3

Box Score

 

Win Expectancy (via Fangraphs)

Download attachment: WX612.png

This one got out of hand in a hurry, as you can see from the sad, sad win expectancy graph. Mejia just didn’t have it today, and was forced to stay in a while in an effort to help protect the bullpen. From the below map via Baseball Savant, it looks like Adalberto struggled with command. Lots of balls too far off the corners and lots of others right down the pipe.

Download attachment: MejiaMap.png

The bullpen was bad, again. Chris Gimenez had to pitch, again. Alex Wimmers gave up a run on three hits and two walks over 1.1 innings. He was optioned out after the game. It’s possible Ryan Pressly will be on the way back (0 ER, 7 K in 4 IP at AAA), but no official announcement has been made, so who knows. Breslow gave up a pair of homers. Sigh.

 

UPDATE:

But, Buddy Boshers deserves a special mention as a silver lining. He pitched a pair of scoreless innings and has his ERA down to 1.64. The team could desperately use another relief arm it could depend on, maybe Buddy’s the guy.

 

To be fair, the bats didn’t exactly have a stellar day against Yovanni Gallardo (6 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 5K), either. Brian Dozier went 3-for-4 with a double. Joe Mauer hit a nice two-run double.

 

I suppose another positive is that Jorge Polanco returned from bereavement to pinch hit for Mauer late in the game. He stayed in at shortstop, forcing Ehire Adrianza over to play first base, a position he’s played once in his entire professional career.

 

Of course Gimenez was going to end up pitching in this one. He gave up a pair of runs in the ninth. This was his fifth appearance on the mound this season. He’s only caught 19 games, played first in three others and got an inning in at third once. I think it’s time we call him a two-way player. Who needs Hunter Greene or Brendan McKay?

Tuesday

Twins (Kyle Gibson, 6.52 ERA) vs. Mariners (Christian Bergman, 4.03 ERA)

Gibson is coming off his best start of the season against these Mariners. He featured his curveball much more than usual and it’ll be interesting to see if he leans on that pitch again. He actually has a 2.65 ERA over his last three starts. The Twins beat Bergman his last time out. The right-hander has also been pitching well of late, posting a 1.50 ERA over his last three outings.

 

AL Central Standings

Twins 32-28

Cleveland 31-29 (-1)

Detroit 30-32 (-3)

Kansas City 28-34 (-5)

Chicago 27-35 (-6)

 

Click here for today’s minor league report. While you’re at it, check out the Twins Daily draft day thread, read up on top pick Royce Lewis and get yourself familiar with other new draftees Brent Rooker and Landon Leach.

 

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[Danchat]

They're calling Ryan Pressly back up? He's had 3 outings to work out his kinks! He has the potential to be a good reliever, but there's a reason why we sent him to AAA! He has a 9.50 ERA for goodness sakes! I know ERA isn't the best way to measure a reliever, but compared to all MLB relievers with at least 15 performances, Belisle is the 3rd worst and Pressly is the 2nd worst (Dyson being the absolute worst) [not to mention their peripherals back this up]. There are other acceptable options - Hildenberger, Busenitz, Melotakis, Curtiss, etc... 

 

OK... I need to calm down... breath in... breath out... this team is waiving the white flag on the bullpen. They clearly don't want to exhaust the list of reasonable options they have. I understand that the best prospects have gone down to injury, but they need to try something else. Molitor is going to keep using Pressly and Belisle in high-leverage situations and we're going to lose more games because of it, but the Twins really don't seem to care. 

Edited June 13, 2017 by Danchat

[howeda7]

This game shows how poor Molitor's game management was yesterday. You have the lead in the 7th inning and you hold Duffey and Rodgers for a tomorrow that doesn't come. 

[jimbo92107]

Mejia's pitch graph looks like a shotgun accident. First lesson in pointillism? 

[USAFChief]

 

This game shows how poor Molitor's game management was yesterday. You have the lead in the 7th inning and you hold Duffey and Rodgers for a tomorrow that doesn't come. 

Rogers now hasn't pitched since an inning Jun 8 at Seattle.

 

 Thanks, Molly.  Sunday is on you.

[The Wise One]

 

This game shows how poor Molitor's game management was yesterday. You have the lead in the 7th inning and you hold Duffey and Rodgers for a tomorrow that doesn't come. 

Yesterday the score was already 10-3 in Seattle's favor in the seventh. On the game the day  before Molitor stated something about Belisle with 19 out of 26 games without allowing a run. I have yet to see anything logical posted on why when Belisle is bad, it gets really bad in a hurry. I really do not expect anyone here to have the answer.to the conundrum that is Belisle's pitching this year.

[David HK]

It's tough for a pitcher going against the same team twice a week apart.  Gallardo had pretty much the same game he pitched against us last time, to his credit, and actually had a better stat line.  Mejia, on the other hand...  Holy Cow.

 

And now, Gibby, who had a good outing against the M's, also gets them in successive starts.  Will he fare like Gallardo did, or more like Mejia?  My money, sadly, is on the latter.

 

The rest of this series, after Gibby, has the Big Two starting, but then... 4, count 'em, 4 games with Cleveland, without Berrios or Santana.  I shudder to think.  Espn says Duffey gets a start in that series.  Maybe that's a good thing.  I hope so, but then we're going to need another BP arm, right?  Who's that gonna be?

 

It's great to be above .500, and great to see the top of the Central right now, but this next stretch, I fear, is going to be the last of maybe both of those things for the year.  That in itself is not a bad thing.  I want to keep running those kid relief pitchers up the ladder, even to the big club, and see what potential we've got. There's a couple of sticks down in Roch right now, too, that deserve a good look.   So they take some lumps?  It's all about auditioning and learning.  I'd rather see a young pitcher get lit and lose a game than  the manager give away more winnable ones with the retreads we keep trotting out. And the sooner I see new guys wearing Belisle's and Breslow's numbers, the better.  

[HitInAPinch]

2nd explosion for Mejia this season. Not happy with the "just didn’t have it today" narrative.  It was another slaughter.  Baaa, Baaa, Baaad.   

[wavedog]

 

 I know ERA isn't the best way to measure a reliever, but compared to all MLB relievers with at least 15 performances, Belisle is the 3rd worst and Pressly is the 2nd worst (Dyson being the absolute worst) [not to mention their peripherals back this up]. There are other acceptable options - Hildenberger, Busenitz, Melotakis, Curtiss, etc... 

 

 

That is interesting - we really missed out on picking up Dyson then - we could have locked up the 3 highest reliever ERA's in the league.  lol!  

[Tom Froemming]

 

2nd explosion for Mejia this season. Not happy with the "just didn’t have it today" narrative.  It was another slaughter.  Baaa, Baaa, Baaad.   

Oh, totally, Mejia got lit up. But there weren't many really big red flags to take away. The M's didn't barrel up any balls off him. They did have four hits of 95+ exit velocity, but the Twins managed to do that off Gallardo five times and he managed. Mejia got 12 swinging strikes on 77 pitches (15.6%), which is very good. 

 

His own error in the first inning hurt him. Two of Seattle's five hits in the second inning came off the bat at 76.4 (Cano's) and 75.4 mph (Smith's). It was a really bad game for him, but I'm inclined to give him a free pass on this one.

[Otto von Ballpark]

The rest of this series, after Gibby, has the Big Two starting, but then... 4, count 'em, 4 games with Cleveland, without Berrios or Santana. I shudder to think. Espn says Duffey gets a start in that series. Maybe that's a good thing.

I think ESPN projects starting assignments based on who is currently on the roster rather than any inside info. Previously they had Wilk listed to start a few weeks ago.

[Vanimal46]

Did Pressly learn his lesson after 3 AAA appearances? I'm quite worried we're going to see the same results from him. 

 

Also, how Belisle and Breslow continue to be employed is beyond my comprehension. 

[Taildragger8791]

 

Oh, totally, Mejia got lit up. But there weren't many really big red flags to take away. The M's didn't barrel up any balls off him. They did have four hits of 95+ exit velocity, but the Twins managed to do that off Gallardo five times and he managed. Mejia got 12 swinging strikes on 77 pitches (15.6%), which is very good. 

 

His own error in the first inning hurt him. Two of Seattle's five hits in the second inning came off the bat at 76.4 (Cano's) and 75.4 mph (Smith's). It was a really bad game for him, but I'm inclined to give him a free pass on this one.

 

The hits weren't hard but there were a lot of liners and grounders right back up the middle. I assume that means they were seeing his pitches clearly and weren't being fooled on speed or anything. If they were bloopers or seeing-eye grounders then I'd chalk it up to being one of those days, but it looked more like the hitters had him figured out a little bit. Might be time to make an adjustment, which should be expected when breaking in a rookie. Hopefully he figures it out.

[PDX Twin]

 

But there weren't many really big red flags to take away. The M's didn't barrel up any balls off him. They did have four hits of 95+ exit velocity, but the Twins managed to do that off Gallardo five times and he managed. Mejia got 12 swinging strikes on 77 pitches (15.6%), which is very good. 

 

His own error in the first inning hurt him. Two of Seattle's five hits in the second inning came off the bat at 76.4 (Cano's) and 75.4 mph (Smith's). It was a really bad game for him, but I'm inclined to give him a free pass on this one.

 

I was distracted and didn't watch every at-bat (and had to watch the Seattle broadcast because of blackout rules), but every hit I saw was a ground ball to short for which Adrianza lunged and missed. From what I saw it seemed like if Lindor had been playing SS behind him, he might have had a quite respectable result.

[OldTimeTwinkie]

It's bush league to keep running Geminez out there. Put a major league bullpen out there if you are going to charge $12 for a beer.

[Shaitan]

 

It's bush league to keep running Geminez out there. Put a major league bullpen out there if you are going to charge $12 for a beer.

Eh, his results are better than a lot of the pen so far...

[spanman2]

Another opportunity for Gibson to prove he intends on not being sent down in the near future.  Unfortunately from an inventory of legit talent standpoint we aren't overflowing in the pitching department at the big league level.  If Gibson can continue to repeat the last couple of performances that would certainly be an upgrade to 3 reliable starters.  Santana/Berrios/Gibson...Let us hope he can come through. 

[savvyspy]

 

Did Pressly learn his lesson after 3 AAA appearances? I'm quite worried we're going to see the same results from him. 

 

Also, how Belisle and Breslow continue to be employed is beyond my comprehension. 

Of course we are, he's a terrible pitcher. There just aren't any good options. Breslow and Belisle would have been released already by teams with even average options in the minors. We don't even have that.

 

We are going to be shuttling the same dreck to and from Rochester all season.

 

Maybe next year the golden boys will realize you actually need to address the worst bullpen in the majors 4 straight years by actually doing something to improve it?

[Danchat]

 

Of course we are, he's a terrible pitcher. There just aren't any good options. Breslow and Belisle would have been released already by teams with even average options in the minors. We don't even have that.

 

We are going to be shuttling the same dreck to and from Rochester all season.

 

Maybe next year the golden boys will realize you actually need to address the worst bullpen in the majors 4 straight years by actually doing something to improve it?

Trevor Hildenberger and Alan Busenitz say hello. They may not be great prospects, but they're at least average. They have been Rochester's best relievers all season long. It just seems like the team is pretending like they don't exist. 

[Twodogs]

 

It's bush league to keep running Geminez out there. Put a major league bullpen out there if you are going to charge $12 for a beer.

He will need Tommy John surgery by the end of the year as many innings as they keep pitching him

[Teflon]

"It was the fourth time in the last 13 games the Twins gave up at least a dozen runs. How is this still a first-place team?"

 

They seem to play a lot of games at both ends of the spectrum. While surrendering 10 or more runs in 10 or their 60 games already, they've also held opponents to 2 or fewer runs in 20 games, which is pretty impressive.

[bighat]

 

 

 

Also, how Belisle and Breslow continue to be employed is beyond my comprehension. 

 

I think the phrase goes something like "Better the devil you know...."

 

After Wimmers and Rosario flamed out, I think management is simply too gun shy to assume anyone down in AAA or AA is better than those two.  It's a sad state of affairs!

[Otto von Ballpark]

After Wimmers and Rosario flamed out, I think management is simply too gun shy to assume anyone down in AAA or AA is better than those two. It's a sad state of affairs!

I hope they're not judging the whole group this year on a guy who failed his audition last year (Wimmers) and probably the least experienced guy in the group (Rosario).

[bighat]

What in the Flying Spaghetti Monster's name is going on here?

[nater79a]

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