Tom Froemming

YESTERDAY’S RECAP Twins 6, Tigers 2: Pineda Pitches 7 Innings, Twins Take 4 of 5 TODAY Twins at Cardinals Game 1 2:15 pm CT José Berríos (4.29 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 2.35 K:BB) vs. Carlos Martinez (14.73 ERA, 2.18 WHIP, 2.00 K:BB) Game 2 to follow 30 minutes later Randy Dobnak (2.72 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 2.10 K:BB) vs. Daniel Ponce de Leon (7.82 ERA, 1.90 WHIP, 1.21 K:BB) These look like a couple of very good matchups for the Twins on paper, but Martinez’s numbers are all from one start (which happened to be against the Twins) and Ponce de Leon’s career numbers (3.91 ERA in 94 1/3 innings) are much better than what he’s shown in 2020. Berríos racked up 23 strikeouts over 17 2/3 innings in his last three starts, posting a 2.04 ERA in the process. Dobnak will be pitching on short rest, but he also threw just 61 pitches in his last start. It’ll be interesting to see how long he goes today. The schedule originally called for this short series to be played over the next two days, but the Cardinals had to move some things around after they had a number of games suspended. St. Louis will have an off day tomorrow before hosting Detroit for another doubleheader Thursday. The Twins will actually have the luxury of having the next two days off. The Cardinals are 17-16 this season, which is good enough to put them fifth in the National League playoff picture. They’ve won six of their last eight games. St. Louis is 6-4 in doubleheader games so far this season while Minnesota is 3-3. Nelson Cruz last played on Saturday, as he’s been dealing with a sore hip. It’ll be interesting to see if he plays in today’s doubleheader or if the Twins take the opportunity to give him a long period of rest with the two days off coming. AROUND THE AL CENTRAL CLE 5, KCR 2 1. CHW 26-15 1. CLE 26-15 3. MIN 26-17 (-1) 4. DET 18-21 (-7) 5. KCR 14-28 (-12.5) I took a look into the remaining schedules for each of the three top AL Central teams in the video below. SEE ALSO 3 Twins Players Heading to Free Agency at the Wrong Time You are Hereby Circled: The Legacy of Bert Blyleven The September Jolt We Forgot We Needed

Box Score Hill: 5.0 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 5 K Home Runs: Rosario (9) Bottom 3 WPA: May -.214, Smeltzer -.193, Romo -.186 Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs): Can’t Expect Perfection During the team’s five-game winning streak they carried into today, Twins relievers gave up just two earned runs over 20 innings pitched (0.90 ERA). *I’m including Matt Wisler’s “start” in Friday’s bullpen game in that total. Today, unfortunately, was a struggle. Trevor May gave up three runs on four hits while recording just a pair of outs. Tyler Duffey gave up two more runs in his inning and a third of work. Sergio Romo gave up a solo home run in the eighth inning, then Devin Smeltzer allowed two more runs to score. Eddie Being Eddie Third base coach Tony Diaz can only do so much. https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1302697478085652480 This is season six of The Eddie Rosario Experience, so we know what to expect. He’s one of the most aggressive players in the game, and that means he’s going to get burned on a somewhat regular basis. This was a nice two-run double from Brent Rooker, but Rosie got greedy. His decision to try to score resulted in the first out of the inning. Rooker later scored on a Jake Cave single, so it’s safe to say Eddie’s decision to go for it cost the Twins a run. As contradictory as this sounds, the Twins were also burnt by Rosario’s lack of aggression. In the eighth inning, he didn’t finish a play in which he was expecting a ground rule double to be called. It was not. https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1302720105072205829 Eddie also had a chance to rob a home run while Romo was pitching, but the ball bounced out of his glove. That would have been a great play, so can’t really fault him there, but what a strange day at the office for Rosario. Oh, and Rosario would have nailed another runner at the plate in the second inning had Willians Astudillo made a clean catch and tag, and, to cap it all off, Rosie hit his ninth home run of the year in the bottom of the eighth. Never a dull moment. Hill Wiggles Through Five Innings Rich Hill threw just 12 of his 21 pitches in the first inning for strikes. He fell behind 2-0 to three of the four batters he faced, but managed to strand Detroit’s only runner to reach base at third. The Tigers had a run expectancy of 0.99 before Miguel Cabrera and Jeimer Candelario struck out to end the inning. The Tigers managed to tally a single run in both the second and third innings, but Hill actually looked more sharp in those frames than the first. The Twins scored two runs in the bottom of the third to tie things up, giving Hill an opportunity at a fresh start. He managed to pitch around a leadoff double to keep Detroit off the board in the fourth inning. The Tigers had a run expectancy of 1.20 that inning before Hill shut them down once again, striking out Jorge Bonifacio when there was only one out and a runner at third base. It wasn’t an especially encouraging outing by Hill, but he did a great job getting outs when he had to. After struggling to find the plate in the first inning, Hill threw 41 of his 56 pitches for strikes from there forward (73.2%). He also did not issue a walk for the first time this season, though he did hit a batter. Beyond the Boxscore: Wade’s Day LaMonte Wade Jr. rejoined the Twins this weekend and recorded a pinch-hit single in the eighth inning Saturday. He had a good game today, even better than the box score indicates. Wade was maddeningly pesky at the plate, seeing 39 total pitches while fouling off 16 of them. He was so tough that the Tigers needed an assist from home plate umpire Ron Kulpa to get him out in a big spot. Wade was batting with two outs in the sixth inning and runners at first and second when this happened: https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1302708254238277632 Wade started in right field this afternoon, and made a great throw to nail a runner at third base. https://twitter.com/fsnorth/status/1302692999806291968 Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

YESTERDAY’S RECAP Doubleheader Recap: Twins Sweep Tigers Behind Big Day From Jorge Polanco TODAY Twins vs. Tigers, 6:10 pm CT Kenta Maeda, RHP, 2.53 ERA, 0.75 WHIP Maeda’s last start was against the Tigers in Detroit. He gave up three runs on six hits over six innings pitched while striking out eight batters. Jeimer Candelario and Jonathan Schoop took him deep as the Tigers won that game 3-2. Maeda currently leads MLB with a 0.75 WHIP and ranks fifth in the AL with a 2.53 ERA. He’s given up just one run in 14 innings pitched at Target Field. Maeda has pitched at least five innings in all seven of his starts this year and six or more innings five times. After yesterday’s doubleheader, the Twins could really use some length today. Here’s how the bullpen looks heading into tonight: Tarik Skubal, LHP, 6.75 ERA, 1.61 WHIP Skubal is also facing the same team in back-to-back starts. He held the Twins to two runs on three hits over five innings pitched as the Tigers won 4-2. That was the best outing so far for Skubal, who pitched to a 2.42 ERA and averaged 13.1 K/9 over 122 2/3 innings between High A and Double A last season. The Twins have been awful against left-handed pitching so far this season, but the returns of Byron Buxton and Josh Donaldson should help turn things around. Rocco Baldelli will be taking it easy on those two, but with Detroit expected to start right-hander Casey Mize tomorrow, this appears to be a great opportunity for Buck and The Bringer. Brent Rooker also gives the Twins another new potential weapon to combat lefties. LINEUP NEWS & NOTES — The Twins have bounced back for their six-game losing streak to win four in a row. The pitching staff has surrendered just five total runs over this winning streak. — In addition to aiming for a return to the top of the AL Central standings, the Twins have an opportunity to put more ground between themselves and the Tigers. Detroit is currently ninth in the AL standings, representing the first team that would miss the playoffs, and come into tonight's contest trailing the Twins by five games. — Here’s an interest comparison between this year’s club and last year’s Twins via The Athletic’s Aaron Gleeman: https://twitter.com/AaronGleeman/status/1302247597772435456 — We only got a glimpse of Sergio Romo and Willians Astudillo in the same dugout, but it was glorious. https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1302079662546391040 La Tortuga was the extra man for yesterday’s doubleheader, and will return to St. Paul today. AROUND THE AL CENTRAL MIL 7, CLE 1 CHW 7, KCR 4 1. CHW 24-15 2. CLE 23-15 (-0.5) 3. MIN 24-16 (-0.5) 4. DET 17-19 (-5.5) 5. KCR 14-25 (-10) SEE ALSO A Beacon of Light in a Dark World: Kenta Maeda Brent Rooker Makes MLB Debut The Twins' 5 Most Effective Pitches

Box Score Hill: 3.1 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, 2 K Home Runs: Sanó (7) Bottom 3 WPA: Rogers -.451, Clippard -.240, Polanco -.109 Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs): Top Down The first four hitters in the Twins’ lineup combined to go 0-for-16 with eight strikeouts and a pair of walks. Jorge Polanco had three strikeouts for the first time this year. Nelson Cruz also had three strikeouts. After recording just one three-strikeout game last season, Cruz has now done that twice in his last six contests. White Sox Gift Twins Runs Chicago is highly regarded in most defensive metrics, but they had a rough second inning tonight. The Twins scored three runs despite recording just two hits that inning, taking advantage of errors committed by right fielder Adam Engel and second baseman Nick Madrigal. They were unable to tack on after a third miscue by Lucas Giolito. The Madrigal misplay was especially damaging. https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1300606107577090051 Twins Return Favor The Twins were too polite to accept those gifts and not give the White Sox something nice in return. The Twins’ infield nearly fell into a triple play, but botched the execution. But, the only reason the opportunity was there was because a catch was botched. So a botch that followed a botch would be a … did I just finally figure out what a Boof is? Anyway, here’s the play below. Arráez was trying to catch this ball, missed it, then the Twins infield missed the chance to take advantage of the confusion. Just one out was recorded on this play. Chicago would score two runs this inning. https://twitter.com/cjzero/status/1300606881707237376 Max Kepler also just straight up dropped a routine flyball in the top of the ninth inning that eventually resulted in the go-ahead run scoring. Max Kepler! One of the most reliable, smoothest defensive outfielders you’re ever going to find. https://twitter.com/CoopCarlson/status/1300637359189512192 What is happening here!? Tonight we definitely learned that, no, cardboard cutouts cannot boo, and there’s apparently no booing programmed into Target Field’s sound system. Concern Over Hill’s Control The bases were loaded to setup that weird missed triple play opportunity because Rich Hill walked the first four batters of that inning. In his four seasons with the Dodgers, Hill posted a 7.7 BB%. So far this year, he’s walked 14.7% of the batters he’s faced. Hill threw 41 of his 65 pitches for strikes tonight, a 63.1% strike rate. That actually was an improvement on his season average, which is now 62.5%. His strike rate over his time with the Dodgers was 67.9%. Bullpen Notes Tyler Duffey, the first man out of the bullpen, also struggled to throw strikes. After walking just two of the first 47 men he faced in 2020, Duffey issued a pair of free passes to the seven batters he faced tonight. Luckily, he got away with it. Tyler Clippard gave up back-to-back singles to open the sixth inning, but then retired the next two batters. With José Abreu at the plate, Clippard threw a wild pitch to allow both runners to advance. The count was 1-1 at that point, and the Twins decided to pitch to Abreu with first base open. Abreu entered tonight 0-for-5 with four strikeouts against Clippard over his career, but he’s having the type of season where stats like that are changing quickly. He entered tonight with a .996 OPS, which would represent a new career high. Abreu worked a full count, then delivered a game-tying two-run double. Trevor May had to bail out Clippard in the sixth inning, then came back out to handle the seventh. He’s not had much success in outings that spanned multiple frames so far this season. Tonight was the third time he’s done it, and all three times he’s given up a home run after returning from the dugout. Tonight it was Luis Robert who got him. When pitching in a single frame, May has surrendered just two earned runs over 10 2/3 innings pitched. He’s now given up five earned runs in 3 1/3 innings otherwise. Sergio Romo pitched a perfect eighth inning before Taylor Rogers had a rough ninth, no thanks to Kepler’s error. All three runs Rogers gave up were unearned, but he’s already given up half as many runs (overall runs scored, not earned runs) as he did in all of 2019. Cave Shines Jake Cave had a go-ahead single with two outs in the sixth inning and made an impressive catch in center field to prevent a run from scoring. https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1300627407892885505 Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet Postgame Pint https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wj2oglcNC0&feature=youtu.be

TODAY Twins at Tigers Game 1: 12:10 pm CT Game 2: 30 minutes following We’ll see another 2020 special today, as the Twins and Tigers play two seven-inning games today in Detroit. The pitching matchup in Game 1 will be Randy Dobnak vs. Matthew Boyd. The Twins have not yet officially announced their starter for Game 2, but the Tigers are going with rookie Tarik Skubal. Both of Detroit’s starters are left-handers, so it’ll be interesting to see how the Twins fare when faced with one of what’s been their biggest weaknesses so far. In 324 plate appearances against lefties, the Twins have hit .251/.327/.359 (.686 OPS). That .359 slugging percentage ranks 23rd in the league for that split. I’m sorry, isn’t this the Bomba Squad we’re talking about here? In 2019, the Twins led all of baseball by slugging .521 against lefties. Maybe today’s the day things turn around. Boyd has an 8.48 ERA and leads the league with 27 earned runs allowed and Skubal, who is making his third career start, has given up five runs on 10 hits over 4 1/3 innings. Lewis Thorpe has been recalled to serve as the 29th man for this doubleheader. Again, no Game 2 starter has officially been announced, but it seems logical to assume Thorpe will shoulder the load. Reliever Juan Minaya was added to the active roster and Danny Coulombe was designated for assignment. Minaya pitched 125 games for the White Sox over the past four seasons. NEWS & NOTES — Yasmani Grandal hit a walk-off homer last night to give the White Sox a share of the AL Central lead. Chicago has won 10 of its last 11 games. https://twitter.com/whitesox/status/1299546594765934595 — Fellow AL Central leader Cleveland is not expected to trade Mike Clevinger, despite a rocky past few weeks in the clubhouse. Jon Heyman reported that the asking price is ridiculous. — Among the items discussed on SKOR North’s trade deadline show was Darren Wolfson reporting that the Reds are not expected to deal Trevor Bauer. — Jason Isbell Tweeted about Randy Dobnak. See, not everything about 2020 is bad. https://twitter.com/JasonIsbell/status/1299709926735065088 AROUND THE AL CENTRAL CHW 6, KCR 5 CLE 14, STL 2 1. CLE 20-12 (+44 run differential) 1. CHW 20-12 (+42) 1. MIN 20-12 (+36) 4. DET 13-16 (-30) 5. KCR 12-20 (-19) SEE ALSO Twins Up the Middle Players Lead Offensive Struggles Predicting the Twins' Final 28 Games 4 Right-Handed Relievers the Twins Should Target Before the Trade Deadline 4 Left-Handed Relievers the Twins Could Target This Week

Tuesday night’s game was so insane, the twists and turns after Maeda’s exit nearly overshadowed his brilliant performance. Make sure to check out the excellent game recap from Andrew Thares if you haven’t already. Maeda gave up just one hit, walked a pair of batters and recorded 12 strikeouts while throwing 115 pitches, 78 of which were strikes. Maeda’s record-breaking strikeout streak started in the third inning and carried all the way into the sixth. He was untouchable. Here’s a video I recorded that takes a closer look at each one of those at bats: Before last night’s game, Cody Christie wrote a great article asking who the current staff ace was on the Twins. Maeda has certainly staked his claim, make sure to swing over to that article and weigh in with your take in the comments. Click here to subscribe to Tom's YouTube channel. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email

Box Score Home Runs: Cruz 2 (8) Win Probability Chart (via Baseball Savant): Nelson Cruz hit a pair of solo bombas tonight, giving him eight on the season. This was Nelson’s 23rd game played of 2020, it took him 37 games to hit eight homers last year. Sergio Romo, Mr. Excitement, managed to catch Cruz’s second home run in his cap. https://twitter.com/betsyhelfand/status/1295573945882685441 How fun is that? In addition to Cruz, both Jorge Polanco and Eddie Rosario both had two-hit nights. Cruz blasting baseballs is nothing new, but the Bomba Squad seems to be turning in a web gem every game so far in 2020. Tonight it was Rosario, who once again played a ball off the left field wall perfectly and threw a strike to second base to retire the runner. https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1295538603016192001 This was a bullpen game for the Twins, and they nearly turned in a shutout. Matt Wisler opened the game with two no-hit innings to lower his ERA on the season to 1.50. What a find he’s been so far. Devin Smeltzer was the primary pitcher, delivering 2 2/3 innings of scoreless ball while striking out three batters. From there, Tyler Clippard recorded four outs before Tyler Duffey and Trevor May each turned in a scoreless frame. Zack Littell gave up a solo homer in the ninth. All told, the Twins combined to give up seven hits and two walks while striking out nine batters. Speaking of bullpens, what’s going on here? https://twitter.com/AirGeeky/status/1295559605582520321 The new rules regarding video weren’t made crystal clear before the start of this season — there were plenty of other rule changes to catch up on — but Kansas City is clearly trying to cover up the TV that’s playing video. Here’s what Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci wrote about the new regulations on July 21: “Every player and staff member will be assigned a personal tablet to use during games. In past years teams shared a few tablets. But the tablets are preloaded with information and video commonly associated with scouting reports and are “locked down” with no connectivity once the game starts. There is no capacity to review at-bats in the course of a game.” So it’s not clear to me whether the Royals were doing something wrong or not … but they sure looked like they were up to no good. Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet Postgame Pint Immediatey following the game, John Bonnes, Nash Walker and Ted Schwerzler discuss the 4-1 win over the Royals and compete for the Postgame Pint Pooh-bah title. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMtRSXrwuXY&feature=youtu.be Download The Postgame Pint Podcast You can also listen to the Postgame Pint and never miss another one. Just head over to our iTunes page and subscribe. Every morning you'll have a new episode waiting for you. Or listen wherever you download your favorite podcasts.