jimbo92107

So, if Busenitz tries to throw a curve, I wonder where it will land... Hey, he got one in! A little baby 84mph duck down curve! And then he got a ground out. Bingo! Good first inning, young man!! Very quick arm. Stands very straight on the mound. Mid to upper 90's heat.

Should be fun watching the new kid try to throw the ball a thousand miles per hour. Bid-ness? Booze-nits?

The Indians aren't this much better than the Twins, but it's amazing how a team that's hot and one that's not can look like men against boys. - Chief I'm not seeing a great team when I look at Cleveland. I'm seeing awful pitching by the Twins.

Just watching some of the first game today. Adam Wilk belongs in the International League, pitching for an opponent of the Saints. That would be fun.

Are you suggesting the Twins have a Strasburg or some such fabulous talent that sits unused in the minors? If so, by all means let's bring 'em up! However, if you will recall last season, we did bring up our most fabulous talent, Jose Berrios. He pitched horribly, as rookies sometimes do. We are now seeing some of that from other guys that are rookies or inexperienced, like Turley and Wilk. I have no objection to bringing up Hildenberger, Melotakis, Curtiss, etc. But if you expect them to catch fire immediately, you could be very disappointed. If anything, Nick Turley looked like almost a sure thing, didn't he? Great ERA and K/BB rate in AA, so good the Twins brought him up with the assurance that he'd get more than one start. As is typical with rookies, his pitch chart indicates his heart rate - out of control. Heart rate is actually a big factor in why the Twins stick with declining talent like Belisle and Breslow. These guys may not have the dazzling stuff they used to, but one thing they have on the mound is a cool head. That's why they might give up one or two runs per inning, but usually not four or five (besides the buzz saw Breslow faced in Houston). I'm with you that I want the Twins to "Get on with it!" as Monty Python might say. But let's not pretend the rookies in AAA and AA won't blow up, just like Turley did. And when that happens, don't be surprised if the Twins suddenly find themselves ten games out of the race.

Other than a poor outing by the starter and the relievers, the Twins did pretty well.

Thing is, this season should still be considered developmental. This team simply isn't ready to make a serious chase at a title. Understanding that, I can't blame the Twins for fishing around for pitching talent, especially lefty talent. Turley definitely had earned a cup of coffee. I'm not so sure about Wilk, but he has shown flashes of filthy stuff, just not consistently. Again, if we chill our enthusiasm just a bit, the idea of trying out middle rotation guys like Turley and Wilk makes sense, just as it will make sense to move away from them if they don't show significant improvement after a few outings.

I do like the powder-blue Twins letters... Just got here. I assume Wilk looked about like Turley from yesterday. Got pounded early?

Give 'em the business, Busenitz! Whoa, that one took max effort.

I watched some of that game yesterday. Turley's pitching chart couldn't possibly have looked like that in the minors, or he wouldn't have gotten the call. We have to cut rookie pitchers some slack for elevated heart rate. Turley clearly was nervous, flinging balls all around the zone. Cleveland has a good hitting team. A nervous pitcher getting himself in trouble with counts is not going to do well against them. Let's hope Mejia has a bit more control today than the other newbie.

I'm increasingly impressed by and hopeful for Dereck Rodriguez. The converted outfielder is gradually making himself into a legitimate pitching prospect. Keep it up, young man! I mean, keep it down...well, you know.

Pressly hit 98mph in that last at bat. His curve is snapping, too. He looked good.

Buxton is getting close to doing it right. He hit that ball harder than he could with just a slap.

Good discussion...probably should be its own thread, but oh, well... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71F2iWb57o8 I'll see your Soriano and raise you a Ted Williams. He recommended stepping towards the pitcher. Some guys have longer strides, some shorter. One thing I see from the Williams vid is that Buxton definitely is not swinging the bat like he's trying to chop a tree, as Williams suggests. You can see that all the great hitters in Ted's video lag the bat head longer than Buxton does. In fact, Aaron and Ruth both have huge forward strides, yet as they slide forward, what's the bat doing? It's counter-rotating! How in heaven's name will that piece of wood ever get around to the ball? The answer is, fast. Really, really fast. That counter rotation, along with all the power supplied by a strong leg drive, has to end somewhere. When it ends by jamming down that front foot, it triggers an explosive, quick turn of the hip, which drags the hands around in a small arc, while the bat head automatically snaps outwards with terrific force. As Ted described, the wrists don't roll over before or as you're meeting the ball, because you are intent on driving your back hand in line with the approaching ball, not to supply power, but to keep the bat square to the ball. Only after the bat is well past contact do the wrists roll over, so you avoid injuring them. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, Buxton. He should do something like that.

Kintsler's two seamer fading to catch the outside corner. Two perfect pitches. Nice game. I shall allocate myself a small smile from the smile drawer.

Waiter, there's a fly in my soup! But sir, you ordered fly soup. ...Well then, there should be more flies!

Eight complete for Berrios. He could pitch complete games, with just a bit more efficiency.

I like Polanco's "rubber bat" grip. Another power trick.

Buxton broke the impact by deflecting with his right arm. Prevented a concussion.

I was watching Buxton's can of corn fly ball to right-center. Where does easy power come from? it comes from putting energy into the square area of the sweet spot, of course. But that energy does no good unless it's headed in the right direction, which is basically right back at the pitcher. If you recall how the Angels corrected Alex Meyer's tendency to fly open on his delivery, they made him pound his glove back into the baseball just before his shoulder/forearm torque. That allowed Meyer to store energy from his long leg drive, then deliver it in a straight line towards the plate. Without that pound, Meyer would fly open, causing his pitches to drift wide arm-side. Similarly, a hitter must store the energy from his leg drive, then transmit that energy to the sweet spot of the bat traveling into the path of the ball. One common mistake hitters make is opening up their hips and shoulders too early, preventing them from covering the outside of the plate, and causing the sweet spot of the bat to slide away from a direct path through the ball. A second common mistake is to start bringing the bat head around too early, in an attempt to "catch up" to that speedy baseball. Even if you avoid opening up your hips and shoulder early, bringing the bat head around too early will waste a lot of that energy. Byron Buxton tends to make both those mistakes. Not his fault; this is a coaching error, and it is fixed fairly easily. If you're looking for a good example of how to produce easy power, the best example on the Twins is Eddie Rosario. From his relatively modest frame Rosario is able to put an excellent charge into baseballs to all parts of the field. How? First, he's in an athletic crouch, which gets his body out of the way of an outward snap, and allows him to drive with his leg and body. It also allows him to carry the sweet spot through a long sweep in line with the pitch, with power. Second, he holds the bat counter-rotated towards the pitcher, allowing him to lag the bat head as he bring his hands forward. Third, he drives through and up with his rear hand, executing what Bert calls the "uppercut swing." The uppercut motion from an athletic crouch gets your torso muscles driving through the swing. If you want to hit a ball really hard and far, that's the way to do it. Buxton right now does have an athletic crouch, but he still tends to open his hips and shoulders too early. The heel tap helps a little, but it's nowhere near enough. Buxton also tends to open up the bat head early, rather than lagging it behind to store energy. Last, he also throws a roundhouse punch, not an uppercut. This will cause him to slap and pull the bat's sweet spot off the ball. Watching Buxton ground out to SS now, I see he's trying to do most of the stuff I was mentioning, but he's not quite there. He needs a little more crouch, a little more counter rotation of the bat, and he needs to tilt his head to get more of an uppercut swing. I would also get him to close his stance. so his hip points more at the 2B. I get the impression too that he's opening up the bat too soon. Hard habit to break.

If you're a Yankees outfielder, you'd best smash baseballs very hard. No more wimpy Twins all-field contact hitting, which was stifling Hicks's natural power development. Their message was clear: Drive towards the pitcher and hit the ball hard, or hit the road. I couldn't be happier for Aaron Hicks.

Looks like Buxton is finally moving his hips better. I predict a major hot streak, starting two games ago with his previous home run. His swing now covers the outside part of the plate better, and his hip action is quick and compact. Boom.

Just got here... did Santana take a pitching lesson from Gibson?

The best thing about the late rounds is that you know there are gold nuggets somewhere in this load of gravel. Sometimes a team can even take a piece of gravel, polish it up, give it a new function, and it becomes an unexpected gem. At the moment I'm thinking of Derrick Rodriguez, but there could be something like that in any round. Sometimes it's just a matter of teaching a guy a new pitch. Sometimes it's a matter of working a guy's tail off on his fielding. As a former sports coach, I'm an optimist.

I remember reading about a kid like this at a California school. He was kind of fat, very out of shape, but he could throw a ball pretty hard, low 90's. Early in spring training the team's crazy strength coach started riding the kid, calling him fat, lazy, etc. He challenged the young man to really get in shape for the first time in his life. It hurt the guy's feelings, but he decided to give it a try. After a while, this kid found that he was starting to enjoy the feeling of being in better shape, so he really took to weight training. He lost several bags of weight, got a lot stronger, and his fastball velocity shot up to the upper 90's, even 100 mph. Eventually, Stephen Strasburg got drafted, made it to the show, and has been doing pretty well since then.