ashbury

You don't think Hernandez earned his win?

This just in: he is quite good at his craft.

Same kid with 4 errors on one road trip? Yeah. But the one error I witnessed in person, it was him seemingly getting flustered by the pitcher not covering first, and he threw essentially to where the pitcher had been instead of where he was heading. D'oh! But that kind of thing seems coachable; the vacuum-cleaner action on a sharp grounder far to his right not so much, he's either got the knack or he doesn't. It is annoying, though, that by age 25 he hasn't gotten the kinks out of his game. He's almost not a "kid" anymore. Who is the middle infield coach at Rochester and up with the Twins?

tl;dnr

A lot of his ERA is manufactured in Safeco; his road ERA in his four years for the Mariners is above 4.5 and his 2012 hasn't moved that appreciably He'll likely draw $8M in arbitration, then elect free agency after 2013. Still interested?

The brain trust will bring him up when it reaches zero.

Casey Fien so far hasn't looked like a guy who should have put up 4+ ERA numbers in AAA the past two years.

We're not talking about millions here, but I don't think the Twins get to stop paying Gray if they DFA him; even if they poisoned his Gatorade, they'd still have to pay Gray's estate for the rest of the season. So, it seems that the Twins must believe that Slama would be no better than Gray, and thus they'd be paying twice for the same caliber of performance. They seem to really have faith in their scouting conclusions, that somehow his strikeouts won't translate to the major league level, and the high level of walks will do him in. You could envision, for instance, AAA batters getting themselves out on 2-2 pitches in the dirt that major leaguers won't swing at. All that said, I'm with most here, in wanting to see him get the chance anyway.

If you like fastballs with no movement, they should bring back Willie Banks.

The team is in the bottom half of the league in runs scored per game. It's the starting pitching that has the team on a pace for around 100 losses; but even if the pitching staff had been league-average, we'd be looking at a below-.500 team with the offense that's currently in place. Whether that's cause for bringing Bruno into the coaching mix, or a reflection of the caliber of talent in the 7-8-9 slots of the lineup of most games which Terry Ryan gave them to work with, or tactical choices like starting Butera very much instead of getting another bat in there, isn't my point. But offense has definitely been an issue.

Not as disastrous as being saddled with a bad player under an untradeable contract, I agree. But as an "opportunity cost", the one year deals can still be bad if the thinking is that a few low-cost contracts (Marquis, Burroughs) are better than what you already have in the system or can be obtained on the waiver wire, rather than combining those funds to get somebody who's actually good. It wasn't particularly a problem for the 2012 Twins, and it's mostly second-guessing for me to point at the Marquis signing now; I'm just pointing out the downside when paying old talent at what seems like a bargain price.

Did you get that from the Department of Redundancy Department? I know I've seen that somewhere before...

I've said before that I'm not ready to anoint Glen Perkins the closer role, but since his last blown save he's run a nice sequence of 16 games with a 2.16 ERA; he's given up runs but not in close games where it cost anything. Closing out a one-run game against a top team today is a nice accomplishment. I'm very hopeful my earlier view that 2011 was a career year for him turns out wrong by several seasons' worth.

Accurate observation is called cynicism by those who can not do it. -- George Bernard Shaw

Good times, those were. Good times.

Totally random thought: I was glancing at Yahoo Sports' in-game box score page, and it shows Doumit facing Mike Adams at the moment, and darned if the two photos don't look like randomly generated player photos in this computer game I used to play. You'd think they could find a better photo of Doumit at least; Adams, I am afraid he just looks like a Sim, period.

Where were you sitting? You should have waved or something. As if I hadn't written enough already... but yeah, if I had done another round of proofreading I might have remembered that I commented to my son that during Plouffe's early stretch where he hit .150 it was said he was getting good swings and this looked like another such period. OTOH, another poster in tonight's game thread says that Plouffe hasn't looked good since he came back from the thumb injury - he's seen more games than I have, no doubt, and there's plenty of room for opinion here. Now, that's some fine detective work there, Lou. Y....eah. Yeah they do.

Wow, yes. If Raider Nation chooses to show up at a game, that would be a big negative for me too. I don't always shell out the big bucks for $30 seats, and still I haven't encountered what you did. But maybe my daughter would tell me some tales, if she's gone to other games there. One time many years ago, I was actually the lout there at the Coliseum. It was back when Eddie Guardado was on the Twins, and I thought I was being amusing when I groaned a little loudly "oh no, not Eddie Guano" when he was called in to pitch. A guy a couple rows down from me turned around and said "you know, the players' wives are right down there", gesturing a few rows in front of him. Whether he was right or not, I slunk down in my seat for the rest of the game. OK, so that's pretty weak tea compared to what you've seen there.

There was only one throw in earnest from Ben, the one I mentioned, and he kind of floated it to the shortstop. Still, that's a lot better than the only other memory I have of him on TV, two-hopping it last year from right-center to a cutoff man who had already come out pretty deep. It's in keeping with the reports I had seen this season.

Rightly or wrongly, I'm posting this as a new thread rather than add to the game-day thread. My son and I made the trek down from Lake Tahoe to see the Minnesota Twins play in Oakland in an afternoon getaway-day game, which the Twins lost 5-1 on a three-hitter; guess either they or the umpires had a plane to catch. Here are a few observations and highlights. I don't get to see the Twins enough in person, so a lot of what I have to say arises from that. - From a Twins fan perspective it was a dreary game, but the event itself was really enjoyable. I do not understand the hatred for Oakland's Coliseum; yes it's a mixed-use stadium, but having spent far too many days and evenings in the old Metrodome I have an appreciation for outdoor baseball in a town where the weather is almost always pleasant; it was sunny at 12:37 for the first pitch, temperature around 70 or 75 with typical low humidity. I have had much worse experiences in Wrigley and Fenway than I have ever had in Oakland, after probably 10-15 visits by now. Plus, instead of struggling to get tickets, you call up and ask what time the game is, and they ask what time you can be there. Thirty dollars buys a seat behind home plate about 20 rows up and just slightly on the first base side, just a walk-up sale. (Parking is $17 though. Sheesh.) - Foul ball: came about the closest to a foul ball I ever have. Bounced two rows above us, was retrieved by the guy sitting next to my son, and he handed it to the kid behind us who had almost come up with it. Usually I'm too cheap and sit farther from the action. - Florimon: a really nice play by the Twins' callup from Rochester, laying out to his right to snare a grounder by the A's catcher Kottaras and then getting the throw over to first in time to get the out. Didn't make the Web Gems for the night, and it's a play that commonly gets made, but it was a major league play nonetheless and hardly routine. He later was charged with an error on a 3-6-1 attempt at a double play, but the back end of that play was goofed up with the pitcher (Robertson) late in covering, and I'm not sure whether Mauer's throw from first was textbook or not, so someone had to get the error and Florimon's throw was the clearest one to charge it to. An older Florimon probably just eats the ball after making the forceout at second; I don't hold this play against him, though Gardy might. - A's defense: four errors for the game. It was laughable, with dropped pop flies and a ball through the shortstop's legs and a bobble transferring from the glove for a throw from the outfield. A terrible black mark for the Twins not to capitalize; their only run was actually an earned run in the second, after a popup by Doumit fell in for a "hit" (E3 for a fifth error in my book) and an RBI groundout to short by Butera, who proves that sometimes it pays not to hit the ball too hard. - Florimon, again: he came into the game with a gaudy batting average in 5 games but against a good pitcher like Milone he looked like a minor leaguer. As the old saying goes, you shake the Baseball Tree and about 9 gloves fall out for every 1 bat. It's right to pick up guys like Florimon and Mastroianni on waivers because you sure don't want to have to trade for someone like them, even though as I said above I'm optimistic about Pedro's defense. If his offense is a little better than I saw, he can be a proper replacement for Casilla as the utility guy. - Mauer: playing first base (after only DH'ing in the game the night before?), he also made a quite nice diving play or two, to his left, and generally looks comfortable playing there. I'd sure love to see him at third, except that Plouffe has dibs there at the moment. - Plouffe: I didn't see Plouffe at short last year to understand what knock Gardenhire (and many many others) had on Plouffe's play at short - must have been to do with the pivot - but he definitely looked like a shortstop at third base to me, and I don't mean that in a "fish out of water" way. I was wrong also about Chipper Jones and his ability to hold down a shortstop job, twenty years ago when I saw him in the International League championship game, so don't hire me as a scout. If Trevor can be a third baseman with some percentage of Jones's success it'll be all right with me. - Hendricks: Frustrating. I wonder if he's tipping his pitches - it didn't seem like the off-speed pitches were fooling the batters. The exception was his fifth (and final) inning, where suddenly his command seemed a lot better and he was getting better results, through the heart of the A's order; Reddick fouled off several tough pitches just barely getting wood on the ball before working a walk (and then getting nailed trying to steal), and Liam struck out Cespedes on a pitch in the dirt and then got Carter to center. Too bad if he couldn't bring his best stuff in the first inning - that's a bad trait for any pitcher, starter or reliever. - Revere and Willingham: speaking of getting guys out in center, Revere certainly looks very good out there. A base was taken on his arm, but maybe not many other CFers would have gotten the runner at third on that particular play. And he went back and got a couple of balls that probably were par for the course in the majors but still required some skill. By contrast, our stone statue in left, though we love him to pieces at bat, let at least one ball fall in for a base hit in front of him, and a double to the wall would have been a nice challenge for Revere had he been playing there - I felt it could have been snared for a Web Gem. Unfortunately Ben isn't capable of playing two positions at once - or maybe we don't know because the rules of baseball don't allow it. Unfortunately, like the rest of the team, Ben didn't show me much more at bat than I thought coming in. - Burnett: I thought Alex looked really good, and his results showed it (4-3, strikeout looking, popup caught in right). In a season where the Twins have had so much trouble with the starting staff, I don't know why Burnett hasn't been given consideration for a few starts. Like a lot of relievers, he was a starter in the minors when at some point he was converted. He's a big strong looking guy and he seems like someone who should be able to go six if asked (you'd have to stretch him out via longer stints, at the present time of course). - Other Twins pitchers: Robertson's delivery bugs me, seems like a shoulder surgery just waiting to happen, and as noted above he also flunked his spring-training pop quiz on covering first. Fien did his job but I think depends on location for any success and will never be more than a mid-inning reliever. Perkins looked good - I am not on the Perkins-for-closer bandwagon but he certainly seemed like he's got every aspect of his game buttoned down at present. - Tommy Milone: he's a good pitcher who was on a bad streak, and the Twins sure helped him get well. We listened to the A's post game show on the radio and he was interviewed - I wish the Twins had been forced to listen to an opponent talking about "having fun" and "feeling comfortable out there". Like a lot of lefties, he had a good move to first that flirted with the balk rule but safely stayed on the good side of it; the Twins didn't have many baserunners but when they did I played the game of trying to guess whether the pitcher was going to first or to home and he really didn't give me much clue. - Seth Smith: speaking of comfortable... this lefty crowds the plate like no one I recall seeing recently. I of course don't want beanball wars, but felt the need to explain to my son who Sal Maglie was and how he got his nickname: Smith desperately needed a fastball under his chin, sorry to say. But Butera and Hendricks (and Burnett and then Perkins) were content to allow it and had good success, resulting in 0-4 on this day.

Came here for the Jeff Gray outrage. Left satisfied.

That's why I like the english language - it is always growing and evolving, with new words being created every day! Very perspicacious of you.

The search box at the top of each page is your friend here. Admittedly, for this player you may have to try variations like Mastrionni or Macaroni before being sure. /edit: Oops, sorry, didn't see your followup when I began typing, but it's still worth noting the Search feature in case you or others missed it, so I won't delete.

My snap response is "but, but, but, Thome! Chipper!" However, baseball-reference.com provides the interesting "Similarity Score" feature down near the bottom of Willingham's page, and it's instructive to look over the list of players whose careers Josh's resembles. Not a lot of guys like him play past the age he's already at, actually.

Make me.