Article: White Sox 9, Twins 0: Another Gimenez Game

[Tom Froemming]

Thursday was just a bad day for the Twins, no way around it. It started with a record-breaking rain delay, and when they finally got underway things went south in a hurry. To top it all off, the day ended with a hurried flight out to Cleveland.White Sox 9, Twins 0

Box Score

 

Win Expectancy (via Fangraphs)

Download attachment: WE622.png

Nik Turley was one of the feel-good stories of this season, but after Thursday’s thrashing you can’t help but feel bad for the guy. In his third career start, the 27-year-old former Indy leaguer recorded just two outs and gave up five runs off six hits, two of them homers.

 

The nearly five-hour rain delay couldn’t have helped Turley’s preparation for this start, but it’s pretty tough to give a free pass to a guy who now has a 16.39 ERA. The bullpen had to mop up 7.1 innings, but thank goodness Chris Gimenez came to the rescue once again to save another arm from being used. It was Gimenez’s sixth pitching appearance of the year.

 

When the Twins lose, they really go all out.

 

The team was also shut out for the first time all season, so this one was just terrible all around. Not the way you want to head out to play Cleveland. The offense combined for 11 strikeouts and left 14 men on base. The team combined for seven hits, all of them singles.

 

As you'd expect, the team is shuffling players around to try and get some reinforcements in for the Cleveland series.

One of the new pitchers will be Trevor Hildenberger, who has a 2.05 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 10.3 K/9 for Rochester this season. Seth has an excellent article on Hildenberger's callup, give it a read.

And we have the second name, Dillon Gee.

The Twins just signed Gee, who has a 4.13 ERA over 151 career appearances for the Mets, Royals and Rangers.

 

Bullpen Usage

Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days:

Download attachment: Pen622Update.png

Friday

Twins (Adalberto Mejia, 5.53 ERA) at Cleveland (Trevor Bauer, 5.54 ERA), 7:10 pm CT

 

Bauer has been tough on the Twins this season, picking up a victory in all three of his starts while posting a 3.26 ERA and 0.98 WHIP. Twins hitters have hit just .206/.267/.324 (.590 OPS) off Bauer in 2017. After working the bullpen hard Thursday, the Twins will be desperate for some depth from Mejia, who has only managed to eclipse five innings in two of his nine starts this season. The most pitches he’s thrown in a start this season is 95, and he’s only surpassed 85 pitches three times in those nine starts.

 

AL Central Standings

Cleveland 39-32

Twins 36-34 (-2.5)

Kansas City 35-36 (-4)

Chicago 32-39 (-7)

Detroit 32-40 (-7.5)

 

Be sure to also check out Seth’s preview of the projected roster of the E-Town Twins, who start their season tomorrow, as well as today's Minor League Report.

 

Also, I was on Cory Engelhardt's Baseball is Good podcast and talked a bit about this game, Twins Daily and these game recaps. It was a lot of fun, give it a listen.

 

Click here to view the article

[Cory Engelhardt]

Loved the recap. Also, it's scary to think that the Twins are almost as close to 3rd as they are to 1st now. If the weekend doesn't go well, 2nd place may not be in the cards either.

[DJSim22]

Does anyone know when the last time a postion player has pitched so regularly for the Twins?  I can't ever remember a position player pitching so often. 

 

According to baseball reference it looks as if he may be 1st in career appearances for the Twins unless I missed someone...

[yarnivek1972]

Does anyone know when the last time a postion player has pitched so regularly for the Twins? I can't ever remember a position player pitching so often.

 

According to baseball reference it looks as if he may be 1st in career appearances for the Twins unless I missed someone...

I don't think any other position player pitched more than twice in a single season or more than 4 times total.

[70charger]

Need some innings from Mejia. Although it's nice to see that it was pretty much only the ****tiest of bullpen arms that were used in tonight's debacle.

[yarnivek1972]

Duffey hasn't pitched since the 18th. Kinda odd. Of course, there was no need to use him today or yesterday.

[Han Joelo]

"Another Gimenez". Love it. Kind of like a "Maddox." Only different...

[HitInAPinch]

Report on yesterday's game:  Twins were under the weather with a case of the Quintana's. 

[NDTimIrish]

Can we start getting Gimenez on the bullpen chart? 'Preciate it . 

[Jham]

No joke, if Giminez can pile up some innings this year, he's a pretty valuable back up catcher.

[ashbury]

Win Expectancy (via Fangraphs)

Download attachment: WE622.png

From yesterday's game thread, a closeup of the graph for that first inning:

 

http://www.bankruptcylawnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/flatline.jpg

 

 

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

No joke, if Giminez can pile up some innings this year, he's a pretty valuable back up catcher.

I'm not so sure.  If the Twins had really been rotating minor league pitchers with options at the back of the pen, Gimenez's mop-up relief would be pretty meaningless.  (At times perhaps counter-productive, if it's taking a development opportunity away from an actual pitcher who could help later.)

 

That said, it's a very minor effect compared to rostering Breslow all season, or giving Alex Wimmers 6 games, etc.  And I am enjoying the statistical oddity of it!  I do perhaps wish we didn't have so many games where Gimenez is needed, though...

[Tom Froemming]

 

Can we start getting Gimenez on the bullpen chart? 'Preciate it . 

I put him in the very first one I did and thought "nah, nobody's ever gonna wonder if Gimenez is fresh" and took him out. But the way things have gone it's a legit concern when he's potentially not available.

 

Justin Haley was probably only going to mop up innings and was likely to have some ugly numbers, but I think his absence has really hurt this bullpen.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Justin Haley was probably only going to mop up innings and was likely to have some ugly numbers, but I think his absence has really hurt this bullpen.

I think they are better off without Haley.  First, it's not clear yet that Haley can even be effective enough to eat multiple innings in MLB long relief on any given day.  Second, he can never be optioned out for a fresh arm.

[Jerr]

LOVE these recaps, but more fun when Twins win the game  

[wsnydes]

If the Twins aren't careful, they could find themselves in 3rd place of the division by weekends end.  The Royals have been playing some good ball since their awful April.  They're closing quickly.

[drjim]

If the Twins aren't careful, they could find themselves in 3rd place of the division by weekends end. The Royals have been playing some good ball since their awful April. They're closing quickly.

Clearly the Royals are lucky not to play the Twins recently.

[Tom Froemming]

 

I think they are better off without Haley.  First, it's not clear yet that Haley can even be effective enough to eat multiple innings in MLB long relief on any given day.  Second, he can never be optioned out for a fresh arm.

That's fair, I just think it would be valuable to this team to have a guy who could eat four innings in these blowouts. Is it too late to get Gimenez stretched out? 

[Sarah]

Sorry if this has been covered before but does anyone know what the record for a position player pitching in one season is? It seems like you might see it once, maybe twice in a season...

[Mike Sixel]

 

Sorry if this has been covered before but does anyone know what the record for a position player pitching in one season is? It seems like you might see it once, maybe twice in a season...

 

some interesting data here:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-era-of-position-players-pitching/

 

One of the problems of analyzing anything based on a small number is that fluke events can skew things. We’re talking about 14 non-pitcher pitching appearances in 2017, but Chris Gimenez has made five of them. Five times, the Twins have asked the catcher to pitch, and that’s extraordinary. That’s already a single-season high for a non-pitcher over the last 50 years, and the Twins have another 101 games to play. I might as well note that Gimenez pitched in three games before this season, giving him a career total of eight appearances. That’s also the high for a non-pitcher over the last 50 years. Things are weird, but Gimenez is very weird, and that second part influences the first.

 

Edited June 23, 2017 by Mike Sixel

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Sorry if this has been covered before but does anyone know what the record for a position player pitching in one season is?

The record?  You're looking at it!  (Assuming you are looking at Chris Gimenez right now )

 

The Twins really should be doing more to promote this thing.  History is unfolding before our very eyes!

[Tom Froemming]

Something exciting I missed: Buddy Boshers got 10 swinging strikes in his two innings of work. That's a ton! His whiff rate is now a team-high 13.8 percent. Unfortunately, he also gave up a pair of runs, but his ERA is still only at 2.81 over 16 innings pitched.