MIN 2, MIL 0: Take a Bow, José Berríos

I'll also say that after only two games, this board is a swirl of contentiousness already. Strong opinions in both directions. Frankly as in most things in the past few years, there is no middle ground and no one will more off their strongly held opinions, based on what I am reading. One side is just plain stupid to feel the way they do. the other side equally as stupid. Yay.

I agree with those who find strikeouts boring. Exhibit A is Sano. To enjoy a potential 500 ft bomb every 6th game, you also have to endure 5 games where he will fan minimally 10 times and kill perhaps as many rallies. If this is what everyone wants, fine. Be prepared for a season of it. And I will hope that that HR he hits every 6th game is a game winner. (no sarcasm...that too would be fine!)

Well, it was 84 pitches, not 80 (and as noted elsewhere, it wasn't a perfect game since he drilled Wong), but I'm guessing that doesn't matter to you. What if he had been at 90? or 95? It's his first start of the year.

 

But the true silliness is the idea that this will have any impact on whether Berrios will sign an extension with the Twins or walk when he hits free agency. do you really think this is going to eat at him? "Those bastards, I could have had a no-hitter but they made a priority of my long term health and career!"

 

I think if it's May or later and he's got some starts under him he goes out for the 7th for sure. But they're not going to risk the season for one night in april, and that's fine. That's just the way baseball is played now, and I'm sorry if you're holding on so tight to a notion of "old school" baseball that it's ruining your enjoyment of the game, but the old ways aren't always best.

I won't bother to go through the literally 100 or even 1,000s  of pitchers who had complete game shut outs in ***GASP**** April/May.

Not all pitchers have the same durability/injury risk much less even the same pitcher in different outings.

To be solely focused on pitch count alone is wildly simplistic and naive.

Yes there are other 'metrics' such as clear deviation in mechanics/control/velocity which are equally important. But that requires actually watching the game and not only the analytic cheat sheets.

Again, love analytics, but they need to be applied with real world observation/experience.

Remember that time Johan threw a no hitter and went way over his planned workload and was never a good pitcher again*?

That was cool.

*we don’t know for certain that the no hitter was at fault for his rapid decline but we don’t know it wasn’t, either

That seems like a bit of a false equivalence no?

We're going to discount the anterior capsule surgery and his age at that time? 

Personally I disagree with pulling Berrios, but there's a defense of that decision which doesn't involve speculation that Johan's career ended because he was allowed to complete his own no hitter. 

We get an idea how good Berrios can be when his mechanics are...just...right. Suddenly his heater hops up to 96. Suddenly his curve breaks a foot in the last ten feet of travel. Suddenly he's popping all his pitches within inches of where the catcher holds his glove. 

Glorious. Reminds me of mid-career Roger Federer, who could effortlessly serve a tennis ball into a far corner or right down the middle. Almost always it was 127 mph. Federer himself said he could hit it harder, but there was no need. Perfect control at 127 will do just fine.

Same is true for Jose Berrios. When the mechanics are...just...right, the ball explodes out of his hand, with minimum effort. Because of this, a hitter cannot key off of the pitcher's "muscling up" to heave a big heater, much less read the change up, which was getting helpless whiffs. Same goes for his curve: By getting all the power early from his legs and torso, with such good poise, he can toss the curve wherever he wants.

Funny thing is, Berrios should be able to dominate even more, if he can hang onto the mechanics he had Saturday. This could be quite a season for the guy we all want to become the ace of the Minnesota Twins. 

Is there game threads tis year? If so, where do I locate them?

Thank you.

'a rather meaningless individual achievement'. That comment doesn't deserve further comment.

In the end...Twins played real well..won the series and now have to 'worry' about where to play Arraez when Donaldson comes back. Keeping this hitting maching on the bench as a utility player is unthinkable.

The point being that pushing a pitcher outside his typical work load in pursuit of a rather meaningless individual achievement is foolish and risky.

Doubly so if the pitcher is in his first start of the season.

Ignoring the assumed knowledge of where the line for manageable is, and what happens when it's crossed, he threw 84 pitches yesterday, which doesn't even put him into the typical workload range. The guy started the season with complete game just a couple years ago but letting him to continue to cruise yesterday was foolish and risky? Disagree.

Sign of the times: during the first 4 days of the 2021 season, no starting pitcher went further than 7 innings...and there were very few who managed that. If anyone chooses to go back into the archives of the 60's and 70's, they would see a totally different result from starting pitchers.

The game as we knew it has definitely changed. Some like it, some don't. I guess we just need to hop into the canoe and paddle downstream with the winds of change.

Great effort by Berrios.

 

Overall though, this game was still pretty tough to watch. The Twins struck out 17 times on Friday, 13 times last night. The strikeout is the most common out for the Twins so far this year and it isn't even close. Combine that with Milwaukee's 17 strikeouts last night....frankly, reruns of the "Golden Girls" might be more exciting.

 

You can frame it as a "classic pitcher's duel" if you must, and sure we can get away with that summary today. But this type of strikeout-heavy performance has become all too common in today's MLB. If the Twins strike out 15-20 times again today, even if they win, it's frankly unwatchable baseball. As someone else mentioned, if you wonder why MLB is losing fans, the strikeouts are Exhibit A.

 

Striking out not only removes chances for hits, but it also eliminates those exciting and athletic defensive plays that we come to the ballpark to see. Not sure what MLB can do aside from moving the mound back. Might be time for that discussion.

 

Great job Berrios, wish he'd have gotten the 7th. Here's hoping Buxton stays healthy! Arraez looking great so far at 3B. Duffey looking pretty shaky.

 

I'll take 1-1, here's hoping the Twins win the series today!

I too wish it was 1920. Lets deaden the ball and move the mound back and ban the shift and start throwing at players who show joy again. Sounds like a great plan.

Some may be upset at Rocko yanking Berrios but a no hitter with many pitches thrown can hurt a pitcher more than help. So the question is if a pitcher has a no hitter through 7 innings and has thrown 100 pitches, do you keep him in or pull him? Remember that today's philosophy- for better or worse- is to not let the pitch count get too high. This isn't the 1960s anymore.

Ignoring the assumed knowledge of where the line for manageable is, and what happens when it's crossed, he threw 84 pitches yesterday, which doesn't even put him into the typical workload range. The guy started the season with complete game just a couple years ago but letting him to continue to cruise yesterday was foolish and risky? Disagree.

This was adeptly worded. Let's just assume the practices every team in the league is adapting is based on assumptions and conjecture. Let's ignore the multitude of medical experts that have been consulting in adapting these practices. Let's assume the teams have not put substantial investment in time and money consulting specialists / medical doctors and are just making up stuff. That's not a foolish assumption at all. I mean ... they did it in the past. They could not have possibly learned anything that would justify changing their practices now.

This was adeptly worded. Let's just assume the practices every team in the league is adapting is based on assumptions and conjecture. Let's ignore the multitude of medical experts that have been consulting in adapting these practices. Let's assume the teams have not put substantial investment in time and money consulting specialists / medical doctors and are just making up stuff. That's not a foolish assumption at all. I mean ... they did it in the past. They could not have possibly learned anything that would justify changing their practices now.

That's an interesting twist on what I actually posted. Rather than making assumptions about points I didn't make, instead, let's assume you're capable of searching through medical journals and finding peer reviewed articles that are comfortable making any sort of concrete statement when it comes to pitch counts, and then show me that Berrios was maxed out at 84. That is the bar you've chosen to set after all.

Save everybody the time reading your replies and just copy paste "They know more than us," in every thread...

Ive said multiple times that I would have sent him out for the seventh but no way am I running him up over 100 pitches in his first start after the weirdness of 2020. It may be a small risk to leave him out there but it’s still a risk and with 161 left to play for a contending team, I’m fine with the manager being quite risk-averse with his second-best pitcher.

And ultimately, it simply didn’t matter. The Twins won the game (and the series) and Berrios is ready to go next time. Why is anyone putting this much emotional energy into a no hitter that doesn’t really matter in a team sport?

I didn't have a problem with it a few years ago; I certainly wouldn't have decried Berrios getting a similar opportunity the other day. 

I know you don't actually believe individual awards/accomplishments don't matter to these guys. Yes, it's a team sport, but I can't imagine a single pitcher would tell you they wouldn't want the opportunity to achieve something rare such as a no hitter at the major league level. 

That's an interesting twist on what I actually posted. Rather than making assumptions about points I didn't make, instead, let's assume you're capable of searching through medical journals and finding peer reviewed articles that are comfortable making any sort of concrete statement when it comes to pitch counts, and then show me that Berrios was maxed out at 84. That is the bar you've chosen to set after all.

 

Save everybody the time reading your replies and just copy paste "They know more than us," in every thread...

You are right about one thing, I have not accessed medical journals in arriving at an opinion. I would add that I don’t have access to the medical professionals who advise the Twins. I would also add that I have not been in the numerous meeting the Twins have had on this topic. I also have not been in the meetings or consultations with medical experts specific to the course of action they recommend given the short season last year. You are actually understating how little I know or how little all of us know relative to the people making the decisions. The difference in our positions is I know what I don’t know.

Not only do you not have all the information but your logic of he did a couple years ago does not consider the highly unusual circumstances of last year. How many pitches did he throw in that game you used as your justification for him going on? Did he throw 125-130 pitches which is the pace he was on to pitch 9 innings? Even if he did there is just no way any competent FO / manager and/or pitching coach would let him go 125+ pitches on opening night after last year so I don't see your point unless they let him throw 140+ pitches in the start you reference. He was not finishing that game unless he had three (5-7) pitch innings in a row so why are we debating this decision.

You are right about one thing, I have not accessed medical journals in arriving at an opinion. I would add that I don’t have access to the medical professionals who advise the Twins. I would also add that I have not been in the numerous meeting the Twins have had on this topic. I also have not been in the meetings or consultations with medical experts specific to the course of action they recommend given the short season last year. You are actually understating how little I know or how little all of us know relative to the people making the decisions. The difference in our positions is I know what I don’t know.

 

Not only do you not have all the information but your logic of he did a couple years ago does not consider the highly unusual circumstances of last year. How many pitches did he throw in that game you used as your justification for him going on? Did he throw 125-130 pitches which is the pace he was on to pitch 9 innings? Even if he did there is just no way any competent FO / manager and/or pitching coach would let him go 125+ pitches on opening night after last year so I don't see your point unless they let him throw 140+ pitches in the start you reference. He was not finishing that game unless he had three (5-7) pitch innings in a row so why are we debating this decision.

No, the difference is I'm not using speculation about no hitters ruining entire careers and suspect association claims regarding the medical necessity to remove him from in game, in an effort to rationalize the decision. As far as I know the only things I pointed to were his low pitch count relative to a "normal range," and the decision of the current manager and FO to let him throw over 100 pitches in a CG to begin the season a few years ago. Again, if you're just going to appeal to authority posting in dedicated fan threads seems like an odd choice.

When does 2020 become an example of "if you give them an excuse they'll use it?" Honestly. He made starts all through the shortened regular season & brief postseason, he went through an offseason routine, he had a normal ST, and he isn't coming back from any sort of injury/surgery ect. At some point it's 2021. Numbers like 125, 130, (140?) ect aren't really relevant because they took him out at 84, while he was mowing down that Brewers lineup. Maybe he continues on that pace which would put him right around his CG pitch total after 8 innings. Maybe he gets a couple quick outs. Maybe he starts to labor or gives up a hit. The point is, he wasn't afforded to opportunity for any of the above scenarios to play out.