IndianaTwin

For St. Paul, Boushley started Tuesday and Dobnak Wednesday, so those two would be off the table as No. 27 on Saturday. Festa is scheduled for today, followed by TBD on Friday and Woods Richardson on Saturday, so Woods Richardson would be a convenient choice. He threw five great innings in his first start, followed by getting shelled in 3.1 in his next. I would prefer he pitch more like he did in the first game.

Shucks -- the rare straight doubleheader, within driving distance for me, but I have plans for Saturday. I'm the mentor for a high school senior at our church, and his baseball coach has invited each senior to pick someone to throw out the first pitch at one of their games this season. I get Saturday. But I understand the decision -- if Detroit weather is like ours today in northern Indiana, it would be crummy conditions to play in.

Looking back through the comments, I don't know that any of us are saying we are excited about the move. There are just several of us saying it's a logical and not unexpected signing given the current injury context.

He also doesn't cost much.

Thoughts on who? That checks the boxes of "immediately available/ready to pitch today" and "no real cost"? This is a "don't use up an option/who can we waive with no real ramifications when Thielbar and Staumont are activated in a couple days/let's not add someone we want to keep to the 40-man roster yet" move. The options in that situation are pretty limited. If he actually shows enough to stay on the roster for more than a week, that's a bonus.

Unless I missed it, no one on Twins Daily posted anything about the significance of this past Monday in baseball history. Here is an adaptation of something I posted on Facebook that day. There's no Twins connection here, but hopefully this is okay, given the historical significance. ---------------------------------------------------- The eclipse was amazing. But between that and the place the Iowa Women's Basketball team has had in my brain space lately, it nearly snuck by me that today (Monday) is also the 50th anniversary of arguably the second most significant date in baseball history, following only April 15, 1947, the day that Jackie Robinson played his first game. Five decades ago tonight (Monday), Henry Aaron hit his 715th home run, passing Babe Ruth to become the Home Run King. In the interest of brevity (an unusual thing for me), I’ll not go into the details on the significance of the event, other than to say that Aaron was the victim of incredible hatred and voluminous hate mail for having the audacity to break the most significant record in baseball and perhaps even in all of American sports. Upon Aaron’s death a few years ago, my favorite singer John McCutcheon, wrote an amazing song, “The Hammer.” It’s shared below. If you’re a baseball fan like me, give it a listen. If you’re more like my wife, who once lovingly said, “I don’t like baseball, but I like some people who like baseball” (and presumably you do, if you at least have me among your Facebook friends), humor me and give it a listen. The recording concludes with the famous recording of Milo Hamilton’s call of the homer. I also love the call (linked in the comments) by the even-more famous Vin Scully, on the radio for the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers. Scully said, “What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A Black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol.” ------------------------------------------------------ I also added a couple comments to the post. Don't take them as insulting your intelligence -- I pasted exactly as I had them on Facebook, where not all my friends are as baseball-savvy as those here. 1. Here's a link to the Scully call: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjqYThEVoSQ. 2. In the interest of keeping the original post reasonably short, I‘ll just say that it wasn’t until I was well into adulthood that I realized how much effect Aaron had on my understanding of race. I’ve written about that a time or two. If you’re interested in reading it (and if I can find it on my hard drive), message me. 3. There’s a reasonable amount of baseball jargon in the song. Ask or PM if you are a Baseball as a Second Language student and need an interpretation. The lineup of greats in the last verse, in order of appearance, is: First Base and Third Base (“the corners”): Lou Gehrig and Eddie Mathews (John’s a Braves fan, after all). Second Base and Shortstop (“up the middle”): Jackie Robinson and Ernie Banks. Pitcher: Satchel Paige Catcher: Josh Gibson Bullpen: Warren Spahn and Tom Seaver (Cy Young and Christy Mathewson don’t make the team). DH: Babe Ruth. Left and Center Field (“at the wall”): Ted Williams* and Roberto Clemente Right Field: Aaron *I actually contributed to the song. John had shared the song in his e-newsletter soon after it was written, and I reminded him that his original late, great Center Fielder was actually, um, not so late. Thus he made a tweak to add Williams as the third outfielder. We agreed that, based on his reputation, Ty Cobb probably would have had a hard time being eligible for heaven’s baseball team. The Hammer - April 8, 2024.mp4

Wallner put it in play!

I thought it was the toy truck we played with in the sandbox when we were kids.

Not to mention having a phenomenally rested bullpen, which had thrown a total of 45 pitches in the previous three days, thanks to an off day and a rainout. I get the argument to keep Ober in the game, given how he was doing. But after his last outing, I also get the idea of pulling him with what had to have felt like a positive vibe.

It's actually pretty out of character for Rocco to use one of his higher-leverage relievers with a deficit, but I assume it had something to do with usage. Before last night, Jax had thrown one inning since March 30. That was on April 3. (As a preemptive comment for if Stewart gets used tonight in a deficit, he's also only pitched one inning since March 30, also on April 3.)

It would take a rules change. Currently, if a DH comes into play defense, the team loses the DH and the pitcher moves into the replaced player's spot. For example, last evening if Jeffers had moved from DH into the catcher's spot, the current pitcher would have slid into Vazquez's spot in the seven hole. The Twins did have an interesting situation last week, when they were getting shelled by the Royals. Had they not had an off day the next day, I wondered if they would bring in a position player to pitch. See this lineup: In this case, the potential logical choice to pitch is Castro, based on him having done it three times last year. If so, Austin can move to SS (or Farmer, with Martin going to 3B). And then the logical thing is to bring Margot in from DH to play center. In this case, they would have been losing the DH, BUT the new pitcher is Castro, so I believe that he would have just stayed in his spot. His position in the box score would just show up as 3B-SS-P. (At least, I'm pretty sure how that would have been handled.) It does mean that if Castro was replaced as a pitcher, the new pitcher would then have been batting in Castro's spot, just as if it was a straight-up substitution in the olden days when pitchers hit. (And for the record, through eight games, Castro seems to be hitting like a pitcher with his OPS+ of 23.)

I've been loving these posts, Al. It's been funny to see that we've flip-flopped on what we think of some sets, but that's part of the fun of this! You didn't care for 1976, and that's my favorite. You've liked 1978 and that's one of my least favorites from that time. I liked the colorfulness of some of the previous sets, so 1978 seemed a little drab. I do remember "Gor" coming up and having high hopes. I don't remember the specifics on his leaving the Twins and coming back, but it did seem to ring a bell. That he played 89 games for Tacoma in 1975 and only 39 for Denver makes one think that the transaction happened after the June 15 trade deadline that I think was still in effect at the time. That, and hitting just .239, sorta points to being waived, but that's speculation. He tore it up for Denver, however, so if the Sox then declined to keep him, one could see the Twins wanting to take a second chance. The Google machine did have a couple links that seemed to offer potential on his story, but they were behind paywalls. Another snippet said he was the 200th player to appear as a Twin. While Googling, I did find this: https://wpial.org/hof.aspx?hof=19. It says he had committed to Penn State football after having received offers from Ohio State, along with Pitt, Maryland, Miami, Michigan, North Carolina State, and Notre Dame. He'd rushed for 3,350 yards in his career. Keep these articles coming!

Overall, it speaks to the emphasis the Twins have been putting on depth and roster flexibility. When you've got 13 legitimate hitters on the roster, you're always going to have someone decent in that spot. Few teams have that.

I don't know if this is allowed on Twins Daily. If not, feel free to delete the post. But if someone would like to buy a copy, I'm glad to sell mine. It looks like the cheapest version on Amazon is $22.50 including postage. Send me a message and I'd be glad to work out a Venmo for $18 including postage. My hardcover copy is clean, no marks, just read once.

Another set from my childhood. I was a Wynegar fan, so that was my favorite. I didn't remember the autograph being of "Harold Wynegar."

If the win probability chart means anything, the second homer dropped the likelihood down to 8.8 percent. Add in that Singer had looked really sharp through two innings and that the Twins had used their three highest-leverage relievers yesterday, and the real likelihood was probably somewhat less.

I’m not sure that Dobnak was piggybacking Festa so much as the Saints dealing with the reality that one of them was supposed to start Friday and the other Saturday. This kept their starters more on schedule, particularly given they have the regular off day on Monday.

Looking at the list of relievers, I’m thinking Brigham gets either half or twice as much time as he ought to.

Bringing in Julien and shifting Farmer to third wasn’t the only choice. They could have put Wallner in left and moved Castro to third. (Not arguing for or against either choice, just saying that what they did wasn’t the only viable option.)

Captain Jax got us by tonight.

Carlos did not ground into a double play, by the way. Of note is that he also seemed to get down the line much more comfortably than he did a year ago.

Indeed. Bonus of being near Ben & Jerry’s headquarters

And in the case of one of those, zero command of the English language.

Fifty years ago this summer, I went to my first Major League Baseball game — TIgers at Kansas City. Out of all the turf stadiums, it’s always been the most attractive. But each time I see it on the screen, it gets nicer and nicer. Is there a park in MLB that has aged as beautifully as Kauffman? I’m sure they are longing for new bells and whistles, but I think it’s a bummer that they are talking about building a new park.

You think Chief doesn’t know ancient history? He was there.