Make It Official! Twins 3, Athletics 0: Pablo López, Byron Buxton Get Right at Expense of A's

[Hans Birkeland]

The Twins bullpen got a nice day off on Saturday, with Bailey Ober pitching his first career complete game. Pablo López decided to extend that vacation (except for Griffin Jax) coming off one of the worst stretches of his career, striking out 14 across eight shutout innings. Byron Buxton had a homer and an RBI double to fuel the offense.

Image courtesy of © D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports

Box Score:
Starting Pitcher: Pablo López: 8 IP 2 H 0 ER 1 BB 14 K (102 Pitches, 68 Strikes, 66.6%)
Home Runs: Byron Buxton (5)
Top 3 WPA: López (.473), Buxton (.169), Willi Castro (.056)
Win Probability Chart (Via Fangraphs):

Coming off a brutal stretch that saw his ERA swell to 5.66, Pablo López was approaching the point where some uncomfortable discussions would need to be had if he couldn't bounce back and deliver an encouraging start against the A's on Sunday. Pitchers with that kind of (lack of) run prevention over 15 starts are either cooked, injured or not that good, no matter what their underlying metrics would indicate.

López came out like a man eager to prove that he was healthy, obviously in his prime and still really good, starting by emphasizing his fastball heavily in the first inning. It looked good sitting at 94-96 MPH, and he appeared to command it pretty well. The A's were clearly hoping to hit some sweepers and changeups, as the run value of those pitches has come in at the third and fourth percentile, respectively, thus far this year. López and Christian Vázquez responded by mixing in some sinkers and curveballs to keep the A's off-balance.

He was tentative with the changeup at first, throwing them for chase pitches while he tried to gain a feel for the pitch. He ended up striking out seven of the nine batters he faced in the first three innings. It would improve in depth and the conviction it was thrown with as the outing went along.

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Opposite López was lefty Hogan Harris, who got off to a shaky start against the Twins' lefty-mashing lineup. Manuel Margot led off with a sharp single, Carlos Correa was hit by a pitch, and Royce Lewis lifted a hanging curveball to deep left field. Fortunately for Harris, the fly ball was caught at the wall by Miguel Andujar, the former Yankee slugger who now multiple teams have tried to hide defensively. Andujar then made a heads-up throw to third base to nab a tagging Margot, and all of a sudden there were two outs and just a lone baserunner.

However in the second, Harris wasn't able to escape throwing a flat fastball on the outside edge of the plate to Byron Buxton, as Buxton torched it 112 MPH over the left field wall for a solo shot.

Harris settled in after that, setting down the next ten batters by commanding his 93 fastball at all corners of the zone. The Twins were close to barreling him up, but were just off much of the time, resulting in quite a few medium-deep fly balls. Harris was able to play his curveball and his slider off of each other to decent effect, whereas he entered the game with his slider being pummeled thus far.

By the fifth inning, López was starting to feel some confidence in his changeup, starting off All-Star DH Brent Rooker in the fifth with a right-on-right change for a strike, and then finishing Rooker off with another changeup down and in.

 

He carried a perfect game into the sixth, and struck out the first two batters with challenge fastballs. Lawrence Butler then jumped on a first pitch curveball and lined a clean single to right, ending the perfecto and the no-hitter. In a one run game, Max Schuemann then inexplicably bunted back to López for the third out.

The Twins were finally able to add on in the seventh. After Carlos Santana waited back on a fastball and punched it back through the right side for a leadoff single, Willi Castro blooped a ball off his hands into center field, with Santana aggressively taking the extra base and reaching third when J.J. Bleday bobbled the ball,

Buxton then delivered his second RBI of the day, rifling a slider into the left-center gap for a double that scored Santana and left with Twins with runners on second and third and nobody out.

Kyle Farmer then grounded a ball up the middle, and second baseman Zach Geloff smartly threw to third base to nab an advancing Buxton. it did appear that third baseman Tyler Nevin obstructed the base as Buxton slid in, but after conferring, the umpire crew decided the out call would stand. The third run did score on the play.

López fell behind in a few more counts in the seventh and eighth innings, but was able to make enough quality pitches to emerge unscathed before Griffin Jax took over in the ninth.

The Good:
-López pitched as angry as I have ever seen him. it reminded me of the episode of the Simpsons where Ned Flanders gets mad and cusses out the whole town. I half expected him to tell Rooker, ¨I don´t know you but I´m sure you´re a jerk" after he struck him out with 97 MPH down the middle in the seventh.

The Bad:
-Kyle Farmer made another out on the bases, ending the rally in the seventh by getting thrown out attempting to steal second, his fifth caught stealing of the year in eight tries.
-Lewis was due a bad game, and went 0-4 while striking out on a pitch at his eyes in the eighth.

What’s Next: Joe Ryan (5-5, 3.13 ERA) goes against Brandon Pfaadt (3-6, 4.37 ERA) as the Twins begin a series in Arizona against the Diamondbacks. Ryan looks to build on his case for his first All-Star selection, while Pfaadt, who was a highly touted prospect and started games in the World Series last year, looks to get his season going after some middling results thus far.

Postgame Interviews:

Bullpen Usage Chart:

	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN	TOT
Alcalá	20	0	16	0	0	36
Durán	10	0	19	0	0	29
Sands	23	20	0	0	0	43
Okert	19	15	0	0	0	34
Staumont	32	0	0	0	0	32
Jax	0	20	0	0	15	35
Funderburk	0	0	22	0	0	22
Thielbar	0	14	0	0	0	14

View full article

[BH67]

Ober and Lopez this weekend:

17 IP
1.06 ERA
0.41 WHIP
24 K
1 BB
.349 OPS

Not too shabby. They also retired the last 17 batters Saturday and the first 17 Sunday, only two fewer than the 36 that Pittsburgh’s Harvey Haddix retired consecutively in a 1959 game against the Braves (which the Pirates lost 1-0 in the 13th). There can’t be many other streaks that large across two MLB games.

[USAFChief]

Hellofan outing, Mr Lopez. 

More of that, if you please.

[Doctor Gast]

Great summary, Hans! Great battery of pitch selection! OAK were looking for sweepers & change-ups & got mainly FBs plus mixing in pitches very well. The Buck Truck arrived with needed deliveries of runs!

With great pitching efforts from Ober & Lopez. the pressure is on Ryan to do the same against AZ.

[Parfigliano]

Amazing how much easier it is to win with exceptional starting pitching.

[Danchat]

That's one way to hide a bullpen! Hopefully Lopez can get his season back on track. Always good to be dominating teams that are clearly inferior. Would also be cool if Buxton could get hot and start hitting. 

[Jocko87]

OK, WPA wizards.  Ober -0.025 yesterday and Pablo 0.473 today?  WTF.

Nice game, watching the replay now.

[DJL44]

29 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

OK, WPA wizards.  Ober -0.025 yesterday and Pablo 0.473 today?  WTF.

WPA is a total garbage stat.

[David HK]

Whaddya know, an actual Pablo Day.

As opposed to the too-often Pablo Day.

Keep it going, dude.

[ashbury]

1 hour ago, Jocko87 said:

OK, WPA wizards.  Ober -0.025 yesterday and Pablo 0.473 today?  WTF.

Nice game, watching the replay now.

 

40 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

WPA is a total garbage stat.

Are we going to do this every night?

WPA is not a garbage stat.

You're not going to read what I say, so I'll leave it at this: WPA is not measuring what you apparently want it to measure.  It addresses "why did the team win? (or lose?)".  Not "who had a good game?"  There are plenty of other stats for the latter.  Often the two forms of question line up; when they don't, there is insight to be had as to why not.

[DJL44]

45 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Are we going to do this every night?

WPA is not a garbage stat.

You're not going to read what I say, so I'll leave it at this: WPA is not measuring what you apparently want it to measure.  It addresses "why did the team win? (or lose?)".  Not "who had a good game?"  There are plenty of other stats for the latter.  Often the two forms of question line up; when they don't, there is insight to be had as to why not.

Any stat that completely ignores defense while trying to answer that question is a total garbage stat. WPA is a total garbage stat.

[Alex Wilde]

1 minute ago, DJL44 said:

Any stat that completely ignores defense while trying to answer that question is a complete garbage stat. WPA is a complete garbage stat.

50 minutes ago, ashbury said:

 

Are we going to do this every night?

WPA is not a garbage stat.

You're not going to read what I say, so I'll leave it at this: WPA is not measuring what you apparently want it to measure.  It addresses "why did the team win? (or lose?)".  Not "who had a good game?"  There are plenty of other stats for the latter.  Often the two forms of question line up; when they don't, there is insight to be had as to why not.

WPA is a situational stat that takes a snap shot of the game at every at bat and applies value to it based on the probability of winning. WAR is a stat that takes every play throughout the season and adds value to it no matter the situation. So there is merit to both stats.

 

If you hit 40 home runs and do that all while being up by 5 or more runs, your WAR probably looks pretty damn good, but you probably didn’t help win the game so your WPA would show that as well by being much much lower.

 

Same thing applies vice versa. If you only hit 10 home runs but they all gave your team the lead to win the game your WPA is going to be off the charts, but your WAR might not be fantastic because you only hit 10 home runs.

 

Obviously this is purely hypothetical but Gleeman might approve!

[DJL44]

2 minutes ago, Alex Wilde said:

WPA is a situational stat that takes a snap shot of the game at every at bat and applies value to it based on the probability of winning.

And it only applies that value to the batter and the pitcher while ignoring defense. I understand what WPA is. It is a total garbage stat. It should never be used outside of charting the context of run scoring during a game and any use of it to assign value to a particular player should be ignored. It is misleading at best and totally worthless for most purposes.

[JD-TWINS]

1 hour ago, ashbury said:

 

Are we going to do this every night?

WPA is not a garbage stat.

You're not going to read what I say, so I'll leave it at this: WPA is not measuring what you apparently want it to measure.  It addresses "why did the team win? (or lose?)".  Not "who had a good game?"  There are plenty of other stats for the latter.  Often the two forms of question line up; when they don't, there is insight to be had as to why not.

Not here to be difficult but if what you say is true about WPA …….”why did the Team win?”

How does Bailey Ober’s shutout on Saturday not merit a big piece of “why the Team won?”…….he didn’t let the opposition score - seems to be a big reason! I know it’s not your fault…….,but how does this make sense?

[DJL44]

With the off day on Monday the bullpen should be very well rested.

[DJL44]

Duran may be losing the closer job. I trust Jax a lot more in a close game at the moment.

[Alex Wilde]

21 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Not here to be difficult but if what you say is true about WPA …….”why did the Team win?”

How does Bailey Ober’s shutout on Saturday not merit a big piece of “why the Team won?”…….he didn’t let the opposition score - seems to be a big reason! I know it’s not your fault…….,but how does this make sense?

Because he could have given up 9 runs and they still would have won. That’s basically the whole idea there. He pitched really well but they won more so because the lineup scored 10 runs not because he pitched a complete game.

[singlesoverwalks]

Well I, for one, appreciate the A's. It's going to be a rude awakening playing an average MLB team in the D-backs.

[bean5302]

2 hours ago, Jocko87 said:

OK, WPA wizards.  Ober -0.025 yesterday and Pablo 0.473 today?  WTF.

Nice game, watching the replay now.

I noted this yesterday, but WPA cares about how much of a difference the performance of a player made to the outcome of the game. Ober pitched well, but he could have pitched terrible and still won the game. His WPA was low because he gave up a run in the first inning (9.00 ERA) after the Twins took a 1-0 lead at the top of the inning. This means Ober's pitching made the Twins much less likely to win the game. After that, the Twins destroyed the Athletics pitchers and spotted Ober a 6 run lead, and the Twins packed on more from there. So Ober could have pitched pretty terrible the rest of the game and it wouldn't have impacted the outcome of the game. Thus, low WPA.

Today, Pablo Lopez put up zeroes in a close game, and those zeroes were important for the Twins to win. Thus, Lopez's pitching had a much greater impact on whether or not the Twins won. High WPA.

[bean5302]

Lopez's brutal stretch... AKA 2024. It's great to get a good start out of Lopez. He's not going to be able to recover to have a decent season at this point, but maybe he can whip himself into shape where he's good for the playoffs again. 

[Jocko87]

4 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

I noted this yesterday, but WPA cares about how much of a difference the performance of a player made to the outcome of the game. Ober pitched well, but he could have pitched terrible and still won the game. His WPA was low because he gave up a run in the first inning (9.00 ERA) after the Twins took a 1-0 lead at the top of the inning. This means Ober's pitching made the Twins much less likely to win the game. After that, the Twins destroyed the Athletics pitchers and spotted Ober a 6 run lead, and the Twins packed on more from there. So Ober could have pitched pretty terrible the rest of the game and it wouldn't have impacted the outcome of the game. Thus, low WPA.

Today, Pablo Lopez put up zeroes in a close game, and those zeroes were important for the Twins to win. Thus, Lopez's pitching had a much greater impact on whether or not the Twins won. High WPA.

 

I should have put this disclaimer gif on my first post, lol.

I'm well aware of the dynamic you've described.  In fact, had Royce ate his cheerios this morning and hit that 3-run home run, Pablo's contributions would be all for naught.  WPA speaking, of course.

I've read the articles, I know how it works.  There is a fantastic bit of statistical gymnastics involved in telling the "story of the game" without defense or any meaningful measurement of the starting pitcher (unless he really sucks, like Sears).  These last two games are outliers in modern baseball so the modern analytical model struggles with them, one on the bottom side with Ober and one over the top with Pablo. 

Any statistical measurement attempting to tell us who was responsible for the winning of any specific game that gives a pitcher that throws a complete game allowing 4 (four!) baserunners a negative value is broken. Period.  Back to the drawing board.  The hypothesis is defeated.

If I'm being honest, just don't rate pitching with WPA.  It overvalues relievers, undervalues starters and doesn't attempt to factor defense.  Just use it for offense and it won't be offensive.

Also, really good clean game. I wish Buxton would hit that pitch on the outside edge to center or right center but I'll take left center when it works.

[knothole61]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

And it only applies that value to the batter and the pitcher while ignoring defense. I understand what WPA is. It is a total garbage stat. It should never be used outside of charting the context of run scoring during a game and any use of it to assign value to a particular player should be ignored. It is misleading at best and totally worthless for most purposes.

Having lived so long in the "limited stats" era of baseball I find it difficult to arrive at anything approaching an organic understanding of the bevy of modern statistical categories--especially anything that incorporates a + sign! Apparently Fangraphs lists 121 baseball stats and Baseball Prospectus adds a dozen more. Is that right? At any rate, admitting that most of this is lost on me, I do find WPA rather intriguing. DJL, if tweaks were made, such as adding a defensive component, would you be willing to take WPA out of the garbage bin? I'm also wondering if WPA is essentially a "clutchness" index, or am I way off base?    

[Parfigliano]

2 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Duran may be losing the closer job. I trust Jax a lot more in a close game at the moment.

Duran has not been anywhere near last years Duran.

[Blyleven2011]

Everyone is talking about the WPA  ...

The game is what counts , twins win ...

 

[h2oface]

7 hours ago, David HK said:

Whaddya know, an actual Pablo Day.

As opposed to the too-often Pablo Day.

Keep it going, dude.

No need to the matching yellow paper bag, today. But then, only home games are Pablo Days. Hats, and bags off for Pablo Day Lopez. What a game. I hope he can be at least somewhat consistent. And even do it for the home fans, against top teams. But today, it was his day, and gets all the deserved credit, and we could all use a little, no, a lot more of that kind of start.

[wabene]

If Pablo gave up a couple of early runs and still went 8 with the Twins winning 3-2 he could've boosted his WPA, lol. Opportunity lost!

Baby steps for Pablito today, sort of like getting sent down to AAA for one get right start against that lineup, lol. I like his chances of righting the ship the rest of the way.

[rv78]

Pablo López, Byron Buxton Get Right at Expense of A's

Sorry, I disagree. They got right for 1 game. Against one of the worst teams in MLB. Lets try a month where they perform at a high level against quality teams before we start shouting in the headlines they are "Right". That's about as accurate as saying the Twins are a really good team because they've beat the White Sox every game this year.

[jmlease1]

Great job by Pablo. Fun to see that bullpen chart with so many guys registering a zero pitch count for a few games; can't be sad about a well-rested bullpen going into the AZ series. Pablo's stuff had been still good even in this tough stretch, so it's good to see him putting it back together and having a dominating start. No loss of concentration, no hard luck inning, just dominating. Oakland is a poor offensive team, but shutting them down so completely 2 games in a row is still excellent work, and Oakland actually had a decent crowd for Pablo Day.

Glad to see Buxton rip a dinger. He's not up to his ability on offense yet this season (though he's not actually been bad; we and he all just expect more and he's capable of more) but it is nice to have him playing so much because the defense is still excellent. If he can tick the offense up a bit he's going to have a nice solid season and maybe a dinger like this that is impactful on the game will help get him going. A hot Buck sure would be fun this summer...

[Peter]

Total domination!!!

[Parfigliano]

11 hours ago, DJL44 said:

And it only applies that value to the batter and the pitcher while ignoring defense. I understand what WPA is. It is a total garbage stat. It should never be used outside of charting the context of run scoring during a game and any use of it to assign value to a particular player should be ignored. It is misleading at best and totally worthless for most purposes.

Im with DJL44 on WPA