stringer bell

The Twins have one week remaining in a regular season which has seen them stay relevant throughout the entire season. One thing that has transpired in the course of the season is that a regular lineup has developed. The nine players with the most plate appearances on the year fill the nine positions on the field and in the batting order and these nine players are the ones getting the bulk of playing time during the stretch drive in September. I looked at yesterday's box score and made a couple of mental notes. The first was "no .300 hitters" and the thought was no one is close. Three players that won't qualify for the batting championship (Sano, Escobar, Rosario) could have the best batting average of the nine regulars. The likely high qualifier is Joe Mauer and he's hitting only .266. The next note to myself was "no truly bad hitter". The lowest average (.240) belongs to Dozier, who slugs and draws walks, so his OPS should be decent. Kurt Suzuki is toward the bottom (.244), but he's a catcher and not many catcher compile good hitting stats. Here's a look at the Twins' nine regulars for 2015 and where they rank in selected offensive stats: Name PAs BA OPS OPS+ OPS rank Sano 300 .277 .940 153 1 Escobar 420 .268 .767 106 4 Mauer 636 .266 .716 95 12 Rosario 450 .265 .744 98 10 Hicks 365 .259 .727 97 9 Plouffe 608 .245 .744 100 8 Suzuki 464 .244 .622 70 11 Hunter 540 .242 .712 91 11 Dozier 673 .240 .771 107 8 For those devotees of WAR, here are the numbers courtesy of BBRef: Dozier (3.0), Plouffe (2.3), Rosario (2.3), Sano (2.1), Hicks (1.6), Escobar (1.5), Mauer (1.5), Suzuki (0.5) and Hunter (-0.5). Here are my conclusions: Recalling Sano, Rosario, and Hicks and making Escobar the regular shortstop earlier might have won another ballgame or two. Outside of Sano, there are no standouts here--Dozier had an All-Star first half, but despite the 28 homers, his numbers are off from last year. The Twins' offensive numbers have taken a step back, but for the position players, the biggest improvement has been defense.

Hi everyone! It looks like the Eddie and Pelf show tonight. I have some advice. Don't give Pelfrey much rope. Edit: No rope at all!

Confidence is a big part of it for Perk. I said on another thread that he's got two above-average pitches, but neither of them are dominating. He has to have great command and trust his stuff. Even with that, sometimes he will get hit. It seemed that most of the hard-hit balls in the first half were at someone, not now. To the question in the title, I trust Perkins to be a reliable bullpen arm, but he's not elite.

Well, no. Bert was pitching for the Rangers then and he had left Minnesota firing double barreled one-finger salutes to the few fans left in the stands for Twins' games. My daughter was born that day and I got home just in time to hear it mentioned that Bert had pitched a no-hitter.

Cleveland's top three hitters went 1-11 with an ill-advised sacrifice bunt, while the top three Twins hitters were 5-11 with two walks, two doubles, a triple , two runs scored and two RBI.

I started a thread for this.

On the 38th anniversary of Bert's no-hitter, the Twins win to stay alive in the wild card race. It also happens to be the 38th anniversary of my oldest child's birth.

Perkins pitches to contact and escapes the 8th.

Plouffe apparently saw a couple, one too many.

Jeff Manship has a 1.06 ERA? Cleveland's pitching coach needs a raise.

Very nice seven innings from Santana. 100 pitches on the button. May in the eighth?

The top three hitters in Cleveland's lineup are hitting .302, .318, .315--top three for the Twins: .260, .236, .266.

I don't think there are any guarantees about the future. Having a Kepler waiting at AAA in the event of injury or hard regression is a good problem to have, especially if he continues to develop. What is slated to happen can be derailed by the player's own struggles (see Arcia, Oswaldo) as well as others who figure to play the same positions. As far as Kepler's profile, yes, there are real similarities to Mauer--sweet LH swing, contact and strike zone discipline and late-developing power. I am not willing to write Kepler off as a big slap hitter just yet. He's hit the ball for extra bases more this year and the homers mostly came late in the season. He just might develop 20+ homer power.

Kepler gets this promotion as a reward for a fine minor league season. That is fair and right. Would he have helped the Twins for the last three weeks? Maybe, but only because he would be a better pinch hitter than Danny Santana. It is not like he would be starting any games. As Seth said, service time shouldn't be an issue at all. Kepler will almost certainly start 2016 in AAA. Instead of having to stay for three weeks to gain another year of control, it would be five weeks.

I think this team might have reached its expiration date at 145 games.

Maybe not 100% efficiency on the route, but still an impressive catch.

Here's an additional thought. If the Twins win their next four games, they WILL be in the second wild card position. Texas is playing Houston, who leads them by 1.5 games. If Texas wins 3 of 4, the Twins will be tied with the Rangers and half a game ahead of the Astros. If they split, the Twins will be a game up on the TRs and a half game behind Houston.

What about Perra?

Great point. Defense, especially outfield defense is much improved. I'd like to see a defensive upgrade at catcher, but everyone is at least capable, with the three fast outfielders having a chance to be elite.

Zuke has picked it up and there is no question he's the best option in the organization. However, his overall numbers just don't merit all the playing time he has received. He should be sharing time with another catcher and it sure looks like that guy will have to come from someone else's system.

Thank you Robin Ventura.

The power hitting keystone combo.

Kinda makes up for the K in the first.

Sano called out on strike five. Of course, when a guy exhibits such lack of control, he isn't going to get many corners.

Baseball note: Suzuki is in the starting lineup tonight. He has had a less-than-productive season hitting and has problems throwing out base stealers, but is damn tough. I thought he was done for the season. Give it up for one tough Hawaiian!