Thiéres Rabelo

José Berríos finished last season on a high note, but the overall impression he made wasn’t the best. Many fans started questioning how good he actually is and started wondering about his future. Can he still be an ace? Today we look at three major leaguers who were having similar careers through age 26, to try to imagine what’s next for La Makina.At the start of 2020, many Twins fans had their hopes high that Berríos would continue to develop into an ace. Entering his age 26 season, he was coming off back-to-back All-Star Game appearances and had had some of his career-best numbers the year before. But things definitely didn’t go his way last season. To call La Makina’s 2020 disastrous might be a bit too much, especially if you consider the sample size. He didn’t have enough time to improve his overall numbers after his rough start, in which he had a 5.92 ERA in the first five starts. In spite of posting a 2.79 ERA in his final seven starts of the regular season and having his best postseason outing yet, overall, several of his numbers looked well worse than usual. Last year, Berríos had the highest walk-rate (9.6%) since his debut season and the highest hard hit-rate (39.7%) of his entire career. Also, his xBA (.249) and wOBA (.303), while not terrible, were both the highest since 2016. Talking about his traditional stats, the 4.00 ERA, 4.06 FIP, 1.317 WHIP and 109 ERA+ were all the worst in four years. Such regression, combined with Kenta Maeda’s stellar season, compelled a lot of Twins fans to simply rule Berríos out of the conversations for number one pitcher in the rotation. While this might’ve been true for most fans even before his disappointing 2020 season, maybe it’s a good moment to ask: what to expect from Berríos’ foreseeable future with Minnesota? Like Ted Schwerzler pointed out in his blog, Berríos is about to enter his prime and isn’t far from Cy Young contention, so extending him as soon as possible should make a lot of sense for the Twins. However, MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park believes it won’t be that easy to do so. Also, in his piece, he talks about how difficult it is to make any projections right now, so here’s an interesting way I found to speculate on what’s next on Berríos’ career. Using the Similarity Scores tool from Baseball Reference, here are three starting pitchers I found that were having similar careers to Berríos through the age 26. Pat Hentgen Here’s a guy who had some uncanny resemblances with Berríos, at least in the first years. He was drafted and developed by the Toronto Blue Jays and pitched for the club for nine seasons, from 1991 to 1999. He made it to the All-Star Game twice (1993 and 1994), but went on to have an abysmal 1995 season, posting a 5.11 ERA and allowing the most hits (236) and earned runs (114) in all of the majors. Entering the 1996 season, his career numbers were unimpressive, to say the least: 4.23 ERA, 4.54 FIP and 108 ERA+. But that didn’t stop him from getting right back on track and pitching his way to the AL Cy Young Award that very year. He did struggle for the remainder of his major league career, though, especially after having Tommy John Surgery in 2001. John Lackey The three-time World Series winner pitched four seasons until turning 26 and the start of his career in the majors wasn’t nearly as impressive as Berríos’ and Hentgen’s. In that span (from 2002 to 2005), he had a 4.15 ERA and 105 ERA+ in only 29 total starts. But things really picked up afterwards. In 2006 he had career numbers in bWAR (4.6), innings pitched (217 2/3) and ERA+ (127), only to improve each one of those even more in 2007 and finish third in the AL Cy Young voting, after leading the AL in ERA (3.01) and being named for his first All-Star Game. While he was never an ace, he had himself a very solid career from 2006 to 2017, pitching at least 160 innings in each season and having 3.84 ERA, 3.95 FIP and 111 ERA+ to show for it. Trevor Bauer The former Indian was first tested in the majors in 2012 and 2013, starting on only four games in each season. Taking over as one of Cleveland’s full time starters in 2014, he pitched four consecutive seasons with at least 26 starts. Unlike Berríos, he never impressed at all in his first years, having a career 4.36 ERA, 4.15 FIP and 99 ERA+ after his age 26 season (2017). But then, in 2018, he finally turned the corner and made it to his first All-Star Game and finished sixth in the AL Cy Young race, after posting a 2.21 ERA, leading the AL with 2.44 FIP and having a 196 ERA+. After a rough start to his Cincinnati Reds career, he went on to have a career year last season, with a league best 1.73 ERA, 2.88 FIP and 276 ERA+, winning the NL Cy Young Award. Similarity Scores are just fun coincidences to look at and of course they mean nothing for a player’s future. What we do know is that Berríos is a very hard-working kid, who’s earned himself the benefit of the doubt, even after a not ideal (and hopefully atypical) season. Whether he’s going to be an elite, top of the rotation starter and win Cy Young awards or just an OK number three guy shouldn’t matter for the decision of keeping him around or not. I think the Twins definitely should. What about you? MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email Click here to view the article

In his first game in more than two weeks, Luis Arráez recorded four hits, three of them doubles. His performance helped spark a victory that kept the Twins atop the American League Central. Home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs has also been secured.Box Score Pineda: 4.0 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 4 K Home Runs: None Top 3 WPA: Arráez .238, Gonzalez .094, Kepler .074 Rocco Baldelli said earlier this week that Michael Pineda was going to be the Twins starting pitcher in an eventual Game 3 of the Wild Card series, whomever they face. Even though there’s still no official announcement, he also said that this decision is unlikely to change. Naturally, Big Mike’s last regular season start would be his ‘final exam’ for the playoffs, even if he was not going to go the distance. However, he got off on the wrong foot, as it took him 34 pitches to end the first inning, nearly half of the total pitches he would throw in this game. He lacked command, throwing only two called strikes and giving up two walks, while also giving up a couple of hits that helped Cincinnati jump to a 2-0 lead right away. But that was all the struggle Pineda would go through in the night, as he smoothly pitched three scoreless innings next, allowing only two baserunners. Had he continued in the game, he was in good shape to near a quality start. It wasn’t an optimal outing, sure, but not a bad one either. Welcome back, Arráez! After missing 13 games due to a left knee tendinitis that had him placed on the 10-day Injured List, he was activated earlier today to resume his season and also get looked at for postseason purposes. Fortunately, he didn’t even come close to disappointing. The Twins would score five runs in the first five innings to take the lead and Arráez was directly involved in four of them. He hit a double in each of his first three at bats, setting a career high. He doubled in the first and was scored by a Nelson Cruz single; doubled in the third to score Max Kepler and scored on an Eddie Rosario single; and doubled again in the fifth, scoring Kepler once again. Kepler (twice) and Marwin González also joined the doubles party making it six overall for Minnesota. After his double, MarGo moved up on a sac-fly and scored on a rare wild pitch by Reds starter Luis Castillo. The bullpen was also tested With the early departure of Pineda, the Twins bullpen would go through another tough test to prepare for the playoffs. They had been kind of struggling as of late, having allowed three runs in each of the past three games. Granted, in one of those they had to pitch seven innings in relief of Homer Bailey on Tuesday, but still, some fans had their confidence shaken. Tyler Clippard and Cody Stashak delivered two perfect innings in the fifth and sixth, but Stashak ran into trouble to start the seventh, when he opened the inning by giving up back-to-back singles. Taylor Rogers took over and immediately gave up an RBI single and hit a batter, loading the bases with only one out, under a somewhat heavy rain. He put himself together and retired the final two batters of the inning and keep the Twins’ two-run lead. He came back to pitch the eighth and got two quick outs, making it the first time this season he pitched more than one inning in a game, ending his outing with 1 1/3 inning and not allowing an earned run. Tyler Duffey came in and concluded the top of the eighth with no problems. More doubles, more run support and more Arráez The offense showed up again in the bottom of the seventh, after the Reds shortened the distances. Ehire Adrianza led off the inning with another double, the eighth from Minnesota in the game (the club record, set last year, is nine). Kepler drew a walk after him and then Arráez got his fourth hit of the game and scored his countryman. Eddie Rosario flied out to center, but hit the ball deep enough to score Kepler and push the lead to four runs, 7-3 Twins, which ended up being the final score. After getting the last out in the eighth, Duffey came back and pitched an outstanding ninth, striking out the side in 13 pitches. The Twins even up the series and are still in control of their own destiny, with the magic number now at one. If they win the rubber game tomorrow, they’re going to be back-to-back AL Central champions for the first time in 10 years. But even if they end up losing first place, they have secured home-field advantage in the Wild Card Series earlier tonight, with the Indians’ 8-0 loss against Pittsburgh. Postgame Pint Check out tonight’s episode of Twins Daily’s Postgame Pint live stream on or Facebook. Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet Download attachment: Bullpen.png Click here to view the article

Luis Arráez surprised many fans when he came up to the majors last year and played at batting title-worthy level. However, many of us decided to tread lightly, as his sample size last year wasn’t great. Now, he’s getting close to accumulating “full season” numbers and we decided to analyze how he’s performed so far.Currently Arráez has got 479 plate appearances as a major leaguer, nearing the minimum to qualify for a batting title, in a 162-game season. When comparing his two seasons (which we’re going to do shortly), we can find many aspects in which he’s had some regression, but also some improvements. Before we get to such comparison, let’s look at what he’s accomplished overall. In 122 games since making his MLB debut, Arráez has maintained a .323/.384/.414 (.798 OPS) slashline and, both, his wRC+ and OPS+ have been 116, which indicates that he’s been an above average hitter so far. Combining both seasons, his batting average is the fourth best in baseball (min. 450 PA) which is pretty impressive, if you ask me. But that’s not all. The young Venezuelan has also been one of the most disciplined batters in the league. Since the start of the 2019 season, his 8.4% strikeout rate (K%) ranks second best in baseball, while the 1.10 Walk-to-strikeout ratio (BB/K) ranks third. He’s been the best in baseball in Contact% (92.9), O-Contact% (89.2) and SwStr% (3.0). Only one other batter has had a better Z-Contact% than his (95.2). As we’re going to see next, some of his numbers this year were slightly worse than last year, but still, if he can pull off similar numbers over a full season, the Twins are in for a treat. Let’s dig some more to look in what things he’s regressed or improved this year, compared to last year. His regression Basically, Arráez has been striking out more and walking less this year. His ability to draw walks wasn’t good in the first place, with a 9.8% Walk rate (BB%) in 2019, but it’s gotten worse this year, dropping to 7.1%. He would rank 116th out of 146 qualified batters in that metric, if he qualified this season. His K% has also increased from 7.9% last year to 9.7% this year. But the good news here is that, in spite of the regression, his current rate would rank second best in the majors, if he qualified. Luck hasn’t been on his side when it comes to putting balls in play. His Batting average on balls in play (BABIP) has dropped from .355 last year to .319 this year. Shifting hasn’t played a role here, as opposing teams have shifted against him only 4.4% of the time, due to his constant opposite field hits. Besides, his Weighted on-base average (wOBA) against the shift this season has been .417, much better than the .290 when there’s no shift. His batting average also dropped considerably, from .334 last year to .288 this year. However, both his AVG and BABIP suffered because of a specific slump he went through in early August. In the 15 games before he was placed on the Injured List (dating exactly to Aug. 12), he slashed .358/.382/.434 (.816), with a .380 BABIP. So, it may be safe to say that his overall numbers were greatly affected by that one, short slump. His improvements We discussed how luck hasn’t been in Arráez’ side this year, when looking at his overall statistics. And another way to prove that is to look at how he’s fared in the expected outcome stats, which assess a player’s performance without taking into consideration defense and ballpark factors. They provide a more pure way to look at how right a player has done his part. Three major expected stats are used more frequently by Statcast, to show a player’s pure performance: Expected Batting Average (xBA), Expected Slugging (xSLG) and Expected Weighted On-Base Average (xwOBA). Arráez has improved in all of them this year! His xBA improved from .294 to .307, his xSLG from .417 to .457 and his xWOBA from .342 to .361. Each one of them is well above league average, too. In other words, Arráez has been doing all the right things at the plate and he is due to a growth in his productivity. You couldn’t expect better news on the verge of the postseason. Last, but not least, here’s where the second baseman improved the most this year: his defense. This year’s sample isn’t very long (however less than 40% shorter than last year’s), but Arráez has evolved from a well below average defender at second base into a decent one. Among all second basemen with at least 240 innings on the field, he ranks 7th in baseball in Defensive runs saved (DRS), with +2, and 9th in Ultimate zone rating (UZR), with +0.6. They improved from -8 DRS and -5 UZR last year. In conclusion, Luis Arráez hasn’t disappointed in his first “full season” in the majors. He seems to be on the right path to become one of the most important pieces of the team's long term future. But not only the long term. If he keeps up his most recent numbers, taking them into the postseason, he’s bound to be a great contributor to an eventual long playoff run. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email Click here to view the article

Rich Hill delivered his best start as a Twin, but Kyle Hendricks was even better. The Professor schooled the Twins’ lineup, allowing just three singles over eight shutout innings while striking out 10 batters. Jeremy Jeffress finished things off as the Twins were shutout for the second time this season.Box Score Hill: 7.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K Home Runs: None Bottom 3 WPA: Donaldson -.269, Rosario -.134 Sanó -.093 Twins fans’ confidence in Rich Hill as a reliable postseason starter took a minor hit after his lengthy first inning. Before recording the third out at 27 pitches, he walked the first two batters and gave up an RBI-single to Wilson Contreras. However, he settled in after allowing the run, retiring nine of the next ten batters, eight consecutive. The only baserunner he allowed in that span came on a bunt single in the third. He caught a break when home plate umpire Ángel Hernández made a terrible call on a clear hit by pitch, saying Kyle Schwarber leaned into the pitch. The problem was that Kyle Hendricks was pitching just as brilliantly, shutting out the Twins lineup for six innings in a little over 80 pitches. A leadoff single from Byron Buxton in the first posed a threat, as he ended up reaching third on a groundout and a wild pitch. Eddie Rosario worked out an unlikely walk to put men on the corners, but the Twins never capitalized. The first Minnesota hit after the second inning came in the sixth, when Josh Donaldson hit a bloop single that came off the bat at 74.5 MPH and had a .090 expected batting average, per Statcast. Hill continued to impress, pitching four more shutout innings. This was the first time he managed to pitch more than five innings in a Twin uniform, making it his best start in Minnesota, with a season high in pitches thrown (95). His season ERA has now dropped almost a full run in his last three starts. If injuries don’t get in his way, his progression may point out to the fact that he can be a real contributor in the postseason. Hendricks completed eight innings of shutout, so the Twins’ only hope to win it came against reliever Jeremy Jeffress in the ninth. Things then got interesting. Buxton drew his second walk of the season with a nice eight-pitch at bat, to leadoff the inning. Buxton is 61-for-70 in stolen base attempts over his career (.871 success rate) and Jeffress has a 56.9 GB% this year, 24th among the 177 qualified relievers this season. It's easy to look back and wonder why Rocco Baldelli didn't have Buxton running in that situation. Instead, Jeffress induced a double play against Donaldson. Nelson Cruz drew a walk, Rosario started out the next at bat nicely, getting ahead 3-0 in the count, but struck out to end the game. Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet Download attachment: Bullpen.png Click here to view the article

The Twins’ lineup has been a sleeping giant for much of this season, but the Bomba Squad combined to blast five home runs against Cleveland tonight as they clinched the season series with a victory. Marwin Gonzalez, Willians Astudillo, Byron Buxton, Eddie Rosario and Miguel Sanó all went deep in this one.Box Score Hill: 5.0 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K Home Runs: Gonzalez (4), Astudillo (1), Buxton (8), Rosario (10), Sano (11) Top 3 WPA: Gonzalez .157, Buxton .109, Rosario .087 Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs): Download attachment: Winchart.png Minnesota scored three runs in the second. First, a slumping Marwin González broke a five-game hitless streak, smashing a second decker to center right, also scoring Brent Rooker, who doubled before him. A couple of innings later, he picked up his second hit of the night, making it his first multi-hit game since Aug. 23. This was only the second game with a hit for MarGo this month. Also, coming into tonight’s game, González was slashing .061/.158/.061 in the previous 12 games. What a nice way to snap a slump. Willians Astudillo is living a completely opposite moment. He didn’t make his season debut until earlier this month, with tonight’s being only his sixth game of the season. Fortunately, he’s been scorching hot in that span and he hit his first home run of the season, giving the Twins back-to-back home runs and a 3-0 lead. It was a curious one, too. The ball came off his bat at 107.6 mph, the hardest hit ball of his career, but only with a 16 degree launch angle, the lowest of his career and tied for the lowest in baseball this season. Meanwhile, Rich Hill had no trouble pitching three scoreless innings to start the game, including an impressive performance in the second, in which he struck out the side, even though he fell behind in the count three times against the two batters he faced. But he pitched himself into a jam in the fourth, giving up a leadoff home run to José Ramírez that put Cleveland on the board, and then allowing Carlos Santana and Jordan Luplow to reach. The Indians came even closer with an Oscar Mercado sac fly that scored their second run, but “Dick Mountain” struck out the next batter to end the inning. Byron Buxton gave him a little breathing room in the bottom half of the inning, hitting a two-run bomb to center, his eighth of the year, pushing the lead back to three. Hill came back for a final inning and pitched a scoreless fifth, making this arguably his best start of the season. He struck out a season best seven batters and had his highest single game WPA in the year, at .083, per Fangraphs. His curveball was outstanding tonight, as it produced seven swings and misses and allowed only one hit. Mistakes lead to some drama Cleveland came back to score a couple of runs more, with the help of some sloppy defense. In the sixth, Matt Wisler gave up a leadoff walk to Santana, who advanced to second on a passed ball. Luplow then hit a ball well into deep center, but not long enough to become a homer. Buxton got under it to make a not so hard catch, but he lost track of the wall, this time expecting to hit it before he actually did, instead of crashing into it. While still in the air, he caught the ball, but dropped it, allowing Luplow to reach third and Santana to score. Tyler Clippard was pitching in the eighth and gave up a leadoff single to Ramírez, who later stole second and moved to third on a wild pitch. Tyler Duffey took over for his first outing in six days, to try and finish it, but a bad pitch led to a passed ball that allowed Ramírez to cut Minnesota’s lead to only one run. Eddie and Sanó to the rescue! Things didn’t look great to start the bottom half of the eighth, as the Indians got two quick outs against the top of the order. Home plate umpire Mark Carlson played a huge role in Josh Donaldson’s strikeout, with a terrible third strike call. But Nelson Cruz drew a vital four-pitch walk to keep the inning alive, allowing Eddie Rosario to jump on the first pitch and give the Twins some key run support. Still hitless on the night at that point, Miguel Sanó followed Rosie’s homer with a solo shot of his own, making it a four run lead for Minnesota. Miggy’s homer was the fifth in the game, a season high for the Twins. The previous high came on the first week of the season, when they hit four against the White Sox on July 26. Taylor Rogers closed out the game with an uneventful ninth, to secure the series win. Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet Download attachment: bullpen.png Postgame Pint 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. Click here to view the article

The Twins’ lineup was quiet most of Saturday night's game, once again, but Miguel Sanó seemed to break the ice with a monster home run in the seventh inning. Sanó also drove in the game-tying run in the bottom of the ninth, and Byron Buxton walked it off by beating out an infield single.Box Score Maeda: 6.0 IP, 2 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 8 K Home Runs: Sanó (9) Top 3 WPA: Sanó .597, Buxton .248, Donaldson .115 Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs): Download attachment: Winchart.png Facing rookie lefty Tarik Skubal for the second time in the last seven days, the Twins offense experienced much of the same difficulties they’ve had throughout this year against southpaws. In fact, he had an even better game tonight. Skubal held the Twins hitless the first four innings, as he cruised to pitch six innings of one-run ball in under 80 pitches. It’s not like Kenta Maeda was much less impressive. He did allow a home run to center fielder Victor Reyes to leadoff the first inning, but bounced back brilliantly, retiring the following 18 batters he faced. Before the seventh, 75% of Maeda's pitches were strikes and he produced a lot of swings and misses, with 41% Whiff% on his swings. To try and help their starter, Twins bats managed to bring a runner across home plate in the fifth. Rookie right fielder Brent Rooker led off the inning with his second major league hit, jumping on a 0-2 fastball for a single. Jake Cave came in to run for him and was moved to third after a Miguel Sanó single. He scored on a fielder’s choice when Eddie Rosario grounded into a double play, tying it up. The game shifted to a different direction in the seventh. Maeda allowed the first two batters of the inning to reach, which ended the night for him. Tyler Clippard took over and after successfully stranding all six runners he previously inherited this year, he couldn’t pull it off this time. He gave up three consecutive hits and Detroit took a two-run lead. Even with the bases loaded, he managed to retire the next three batters to end the inning. Minnesota shortened the distances in the home half of the inning, with Sanó clobbering a two-out, 414-foot bomb to left. Jorge Alcalá had yet another impressive outing, pitching a couple of scoreless innings on 24 pitches and allowing the Twins to bat in the bottom of the ninth with a one-run deficit. This was the seventh time this season that he pitched at least two innings in a game, not allowing a run in any of them. The rally started when Tigers reliever José Cisnero allowed both Josh Donaldson and Nelson Cruz to reach to open the inning. Sanó got his third hit of the night with a ground ball to left, scoring pinch runner Ehire Adrianza. Eddie Rosario sent Cruz to third on a force play and later stole second, putting even more pressure on Cisnero. Then came Byron Buxton, still hitless on the night, and walked it off with his super human speed. Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet Download attachment: Bullpen.png Click here to view the article

The Twins managed to collect just eight total hits en route to suffering a doubleheader sweep at the hands of the Tigers Saturday in Detroit. The losses dropped the Twins to third place in the AL Central.Game 1: DET 8, MIN 2 Box Score Dobnak: 4.1 IP, 12 H, 6 ER, 2 BB, 1 K Home Runs: Cruz (12) Bottom 3 WPA: Dobnak -.261, Avila -.087, Cruz -.061 Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs): Download attachment: Winchart1.png Game 2: DET 4, MIN 2 Box Score Home Runs: Cruz (13) Bottom 3 WPA: Duffey -.271, May -.193, Sanó -.160 Win Probability Chart: Download attachment: Winchart2.png Facing lefties this year has been one of the toughest tasks for this Twins offense. Coming into this series, Minnesota had the 10th worst OPS (.686) and wRC+ (89) against southpaws as a team. The Tigers had two lefties lined up to start both games and they didn’t have much trouble in dominating the Twins lineup for the day. Offense was bad... For Game 1 Rocco Baldelli made some experiments with the lineup, promoting two big changes. Max Kepler, who batted either first or second in 24 of his 30 previous games this season, started this game batting eighth, only for the second time this year. The other one was Miguel Sanó batting second for the very first time this season. Luis Arráez and Jake Cave sat this one out, as Minnesota tried to overcome their struggles against left handers. The strategies didn’t work very well. Minnesota’s offense was absolutely dominated by Tigers starter Matthew Boyd, who allowed only one hit through the first four innings, a Polanco leadoff single in the first. Even the only Twins run he allowed on that stretch came after first baseman Jeimer Candelario allowed Kepler to go to second on an error and Polanco scored him on a sac-fly. The Twins offense simply couldn’t figure Boyd out this afternoon. Not only hitting, but they couldn’t draw a single walk against him either. Minnesota’s other run came on a Nelson Cruz solo home run in the sixth. ...and pitching was worse But that wasn’t even the worst performance from Minnesota in the game. Randy Dobnak had the worst start of his young career, giving up six earned runs on 12 hits. It was brutal and a bit surprising, given his great start to the game, throwing a six-pitch first. His pitch to contact approach failed him today, as 11 of the 12 hits he allowed were hard hits. Curiously enough, only three of those resulted in extra bases. To go with such bad pitching performance, the Twins fielding also had a day to forget. From a bizarre throw to first from Polanco in the second inning to retire Candelario (a runner who would later score), to Eddie Rosario and Mak Kepler failing to glove a couple of hard hit balls that became RBI doubles, the defense was awful. Candelario’s single, by the way, had a .050 xBA and came off the bat at only 82.7 mph. Lewis Thorpe wasn’t much of an improvement when he took over for Dobnak in the fifth, with the bases loaded.He gave up a total of four hits, including a two-run double in the sixth to Miguel Cabrera. After a promising start to the season, he finished a rough month of August with an 8.49 ERA, the worst month of his young career. Bullpen studs struggle Things didn’t look much better in the second game. Detroit brought in another lefty in rookie Tarik Skubal, who held the Twins to only three hits in the first four innings. However, Minnesota was able to capitalize this time, starting with a sac fly from Marwin González in the second inning to take the 1-0 lead. The bullpen game had been working really well for the Twins this year. Well, not today. Matt Wisler started the game in great fashion, ending his outing one out shy of delivering two scoreless innings. But then the unthinkable took place. Two of the team’s best and most reliable arms of the year, Trevor May and Tyler Duffey, had terrible outings. Detroit took the lead against May in the third with a one-out, two-run homer from Candelario. Tyler Clippard came in to finish the inning and pitch a scoreless fourth. With him on the mound, Minnesota tied it up with Cruz’s second home run of the day, his 13th on the year. Duffey took the mound in the fifth, and after giving up a walk, Miguel Cabrera made him pay, homering to right for his third hit of the day to put Detroit ahead, 4-2. Some really good defense from the Tigers helped them to hold on to win. Cruz and Rosario both reached to open the final inning, but Sanó grounded into a double play. Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet Download attachment: Bullpen.png Postgame Pint Seth Stohs is joined by Matthew Trueblood, Nate Palmer and Twins Daily's live virtual audience to discuss the Minnesota Twins' bats going silent versus the Tigers. 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. Click here to view the article

The Twins bats showed up in support of Randy Dobnak on Saturday night. Eddie Rosario provided the first inning jolt, and then Miguel Sano did the work later in the game with a couple of big, loud hits. Dig into the details below.Box Score Dobnak: 5.0 IP, 8 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 K Home Runs: Rosario (7), Sano (5) Top 3 WPA: Tyler Duffey 0.227, Eddie Rosario 0.126, Miguel Sano 0.104 Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs): Good pitching, good defense and bombas. Everything worked out for Minnesota on Saturday night, as they snapped a five-game losing streak at Kauffman Stadium dating back to the last game of last season. They even this current series and can win it this Sunday. That would also avoid a season series loss for Minnesota against the Royals. With injuries piling up, the Twins could have had morale affected. Hours before tonight’s game, the club announced that Jake Odorizzi (chest contusion) and Zack Littell (right elbow) had been placed on the 10-Day Injured List, making it seven key players sidelined now. However, if that was the case, they sure managed to hide it very well. Minnesota put together a nice lead in the top half of the first. Max Kepler and Jorge Polanco opened up the game with back-to-back hits, Max’s being a double. Then came Eddie Rosario with a swing at the first pitch he saw, homering to the fountains at Kauffman Stadium. The Twins got at least one piece of good news regarding player injuries. Luis Arráez was back at the lineup after missing three games due to a sore knee. He helped turn two inning-ending double plays that helped Randy Dobnak to quickly pitch through the first two innings with only 20 pitches, keeping the Royals scoreless. Sanó stays hot, Dobber in trouble Dobnak this year isn’t used to a lot of run support, but he got some more of that in the fourth. Having a great month of August, in which he was having a .947 OPS before this game, and a 1.184 OPS in the previous seven games, he blasted his longest (458-feet) and hardest (115.8 MPH) home run of the year, with a solo bomb to lead off the inning. The Twins starter induced yet another double play in the bottom half of the fourth, his third of the game, a career high. But he was roughed up a bit in the fifth, giving up a lead off home run to Alex Gordon and later an RBI-double to Nicky Lopez. Overall, he gave up four hits in the 19-pitch inning and saw his comfortable four-run lead be cut in half. Although his pitch count still looked good (79 pitches), Dobnak’s evening was done early in the sixth. Two Kansas City runners reached to start the inning, with a catcher interference on a Jorge Soler swing, followed by a Ryan McBroom single. Tyler Duffey took over and, in spite of hitting a batter to load the bases, came through big to get out of the jam, striking out two. The offense ambushed reliever Ian Kennedy to break the game open. After Alex Avila and Kepler reached, the Royals chose to walk Rosario and face Marwin González with the bases loaded instead. Command wasn’t there for Kennedy, who walked Margo. Sanó stepped up and hit another rocket (106.6 MPH), which this time stayed in the park, but was enough to bring home a couple more runs. Veteran lefty Danny Coulombe, whose contract was selected by the Twins after the recent IL moves, had a good outing. He pitched the final two innings of the game and did not allow a run. He did give up a hit and a walk in the bottom of the ninth, causing Sergio Romo to start warming up, but he finished it off and secured the win. Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet Postgame Pint Immediately following the Twins 7-2 win over the Royals, Nick Nelson, John Bonnes and Cody Pirkl were joined by a virtual crowd and attempted to identify the player of the game amid several worthy candidates. 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. Click here to view the article

Nelson Cruz had a big day at the plate, hitting a pair of home runs to go with a double, as the Twins split a doubleheader with the Royals today. José Berríos gave up four runs over four innings pitched in the second game, seeing his ERA jump to 5.92.Game 1: Twins 4, Royals 2 Box Score Odorizzi: 4.0 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 6 K Home Runs: Cruz (5) Top 3 WPA: Cruz .218, Duffey .100, Rogers/Romo .083 Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs): Download attachment: Winchart1.png Jake Odorizzi looked much better in his first start since the shaky one in Kansas City a week ago. Back in Missouri last Saturday, making his season debut after starting it on the IL, Odorizzi needed more than 70 pitches to complete three innings. He struggled with his command a little bit and allowed two earned runs on four hits, to go with two walks and two strikeouts. But today, with the same amount of work, he completely dominated the Royals lineup and went on to pitch into the fifth. With only 40 pitches, Odorizzi threw three perfect innings, while fanning five. Overall, he ended up retiring all the first eleven batters he faced. Right then, in the bottom half of the third, Jorge Polanco doubled against lefty reliever Gabe Speier, as the Royals were having a bullpen day. They didn’t want Speier facing Nelson Cruz, so they brought in rightie Tyler Zuber with two outs. Cruz hammered a mammoth 448-feet home run to back up Odorizzi’s great performance. After going 0-for-15 in his previous five home games, Luis Arráez snapped out of his funk with a single in the bottom of the fourth, sending Miguel Sanó to third. Later on Arráez would get his second hit of the day, making it his first multi-hit game at home since 9/21. Byron Buxton then flied out to left, but it was deep enough to score the big man, giving the Twins a three-run lead. Maikel Franco ended Odorizzi’s afternoon with a two-run home run in the fifth. The third baseman has now homered in back-to-back games against Minnesota. The bomb came after Ryan McBroom hit a leadoff double and Odorizzi had gotten ahead in the count against Franco at 0-2. Nonetheless, it was a very encouraging performance from the Twins rightie. Bats kept clicking as Minnesota responded right back in the bottom half of the inning. Cruz nearly homered again on a liner towards Alex Gordon, who managed to rob him of the dinger, but couldn’t hold on to the ball, allowing Nelly to reach second. Eddie Rosario stepped up and swung on the second pitch he saw, hitting a fly ball to deep right field, reaching second and scoring Cruz, giving the game its final numbers. Taking over for Odorizzi in the fifth with no outs, Tyler Duffey started out an amazing outing from the Twins bullpen. Duffey and Sergio Romo combined for two perfect innings with only 22 pitches. Romo pitched his 700th and 701st career strikeouts in the sixth. Taylor Rogers allowed a couple of hits in the seventh, bringing the tying run to the plate twice, but he induced a double play and struck out Gordon to earn his fifth save in the season. Game 2: Royals 4, Twins 2 Box Score Berríos: 4.0 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 4 BB, 7 K Home Runs: Cruz (6) Bottom 3 WPA: Berríos -.247, Buxton -.146 Sanó -.109 Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs): Download attachment: Winchart2.png Command wasn’t there for José Berríos, who threw just 12 of his 26 pitches in the first inning for strikes. He loaded the bases with two outs, after back-to-back walks., but worked out of the jam. This has contributed to an unsettling trend: Facing Danny Duffy for the second time this season, the offense posed a threat early on. Mitch Garver reached on a fielding error, advanced to third on a wild pitch by Duffy, and later scored on a sacrifice fly from Marwin González. Struggles continued for Berríos, as his command continued to elude him. He gave up three singles in the second, allowing the Royals to tie it up with a Whitt Merrifield RBI-single. A 1-2-3 third had everybody thinking he was finally back on track, but then a couple of walks came back to haunt him in the fourth when he gave up a two-out, three-run home run to the same Merrifield. It was the second time this season that Berríos failed to pitch more than four innings and the third time he gave up at least four earned runs, in five starts. His season ERA is now up to 5.92. Nelly hit a leadoff home run in the bottom of the fourth, his second bomba of the day, and kept Minnesota very much in the game. Jorge Alcala tossed a couple of scoreless innings in relief of Berríos and Zack Littell, coming back from the IL, pitched a great 1-2-3 in the seventh. Overall, Minnesota’s bullpen combined for six innings without allowing a run in the two games. However, the Royal bullpen did an equally good job, holding on to the lead in the final two innings and avoiding the double header sweep. Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet Download attachment: Bullpen.png Click here to view the article

A Twins lineup lacking some of its key pieces tallied just two runs, both on solo homers, in a 3-2 loss at Kansas City Friday night. The bats mustered just five hits and had only two at-bats with runners in scoring position.Box Score Smeltzer: 4.1 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 K Home Runs: Buxton (2), Gonzalez (2) Bottom 3 WPA: Rosario -.139, Cave -.111, Adrianza -.103 Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs): Download attachment: Winchart.png While the Twins offense has been somewhat productive so far this year, ranking fifth in runs scored (68) and fourth in home runs (20) coming into this game, they have also produced some unimpressive stats, such as a .236 AVG, .731 OPS, .265 BABIP, .319 wOBA and 106 wRC+. Tonight, even with a solid performance from the mound, the bats didn’t show up when needed. Byron Buxton homered to lead off the third inning, hitting a 442-feet bomb to left center. It was the fourth longest home run of his career and this was the first time he went yard in back-to-back games since May 16 of last year. Momentarily, Buxton’s OPS improved from .548 to .731 with that dinger, which may be an indicator that his slow start might be behind him sooner than most of us imagined. After completing the first two innings rather quickly, Smeltzer put on a sweat to pitch throughout the third. Royals third baseman Maikel Franco hit a leadoff double and was later brought home by a single from center fielder Nick Heath. Smeltzer managed to limit the damage to the one run, not allowing any other base runner. Minnesota got back on top immediately afterwards, in the top of the fourth, with yet another home run. Marwin González hit his second of the year. Smeltzer rained out The game was halted by a rain delay in the bottom of the fifth, which fortunately lasted only a few minutes. However, it was long enough to end the night for Smeltzer, who had given up a leadoff single to Alex Gordon, later scored by a one-out single from Nicky Lopez, in the very last pitch before the umpires decided to pause the game, tying the game. Smeltzer’s pitch count still looked good, with 62 pitches to complete 4 1/3 innings. Matt Wisler came into the game in his relief, after the tarp was rolled up, to try to get the final two outs of the fifth inning. He walked the first batter he saw, but then got bailed out by an amazing catch from Jake Cave, preventing the Royals from taking the lead. Wisler is having a really nice start of his Twins career, but he made a mistake in the sixth inning, as a hanging slider in the middle of the zone was crushed by first baseman Ryan McBroom, making it 3-2 Royals. It was the first run allowed by Wisler in the season. Bullpen keeps Minnesota alive, but the offense doesn’t deliver Once Wisler departed from the game after the sixth inning, Caleb Thielbar and Sean Poppen (making his season debut) pitched a couple of scoreless frames to keep the Twins alive. However, the offense couldn’t come through for them. After Miguel Sanó was intentionally walked in the fifth inning, Twins batters went 0-for-13 with a walk to finish the game. Nelson Cruz, who originally got the night off, came into the game to pinch-hit for Ehire Adrianza in the very last out of the game. In spite of the good eight-pitch battle against reliever Trevor Rosenthal, he ended up striking out. Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet Download attachment: Bullpen.png Click here to view the article

With Homer Bailey placed on the Injured List due to a bicep injury, Rocco Baldelli was forced to go with a bullpen game Sunday against Cleveland. Six Twins pitchers combined to hold Cleveland to just one run, as Minnesota took the game and the series, 3-1.Box Score Home Runs: Garver (1) Top 3 WPA: Clippard .105, Wisler .084, Smeltzer/May/Romo .083 Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs): Download attachment: Winchart.png It was more of the same in the final game of the series against Cleveland. Just like we saw happening several times this week, the offense provided the early lead and the pitching held on to it brilliantly during the whole game. This is the first 7-2 start for the Twins since 2001. Tyler Clippard said after the game, "Obviously, they're definitely going to be one of the teams that will be at the top of our division. So it was really nice to win three out of four from them." The Twins announced on Saturday night that Homer Bailey, the starter who was supposed to pitch on Sunday, was pushed for the Monday series opener against the Pirates. With that, the club decided to use the “opener” strategy, choosing Tyler Clippard to start the game. Moments before the first pitch, the team announced that Bailey was being placed on 10-day injured list, with Sean Poppen being recalled to replace him. Clippard made the most of this opportunity, providing Minnesota with two perfect innings. Inducing a lot of weak contact, he managed to retire all batters he faced with only 21 pitches. In his support, the Twins’ new trademark early offense provided him with one run in each of his innings. After Max Kepler hit a leadoff triple (which upon challenge was turned into a ground-rule double), he was later brought home by a weak, opposite-field single by Polanco. The exit velocity of that single was 56.6 MPH. In the second inning, Mitch Garver broke his curse and hit his first home run of the year, a solo leadoff shot to center left. Devin Smeltzer took over in the third inning and had a solid outing, bouncing back from his first rough first appearance in Chicago. He was one out away from completing three innings of one-run ball, giving up two hits and a walk. He also had some run support. After Kepler doubled to leadoff the third, Nelson Cruz hit a ground ball up the middle to bring him home, making it 3-0 Twins. Smeltzer allowed a leadoff double from César Hernández to score in the fourth, when Francisco Lindor hit a hard single. However, he was caught trying to stretch it into a double by a laser throw from Eddie Rosario. Rocco Baldelli took him off the game after back-to-back strikeouts in the fifth, on nine pitches. Is the offense still cold? Wins are coming and that’s obviously the most important thing. But is the Twins offense going through a bit of a slump? After the RBI-single from Cruz in the third, the following 13 Minnesota batters were retired consecutively, before Marwin Gonzalez his a leadoff single in the eighth. If you consider the lineup that started today’s game your best one (maybe replacing Gonzáles with Josh Donaldson), it is now combining for a team OPS of roughly .644. How worried should we be? Matt Wisler, Tyler Duffey and Trevor May went on to pitch three scoreless innings, not allowing a single hit and striking out six, compensating for the offense slow afternoon. Wisler took over in relief of Smeltzer in the fifth and managed to face the top of Cleveland’s order in the sixth. He gave up a walk to Hernández, but retired the remaining Indian batters, including a strikeout against José Ramírez. Both him and Duffey have yet to allow a run in the season. Sergio Romo was chosen to close the game in a save situation and after a lenghty at-bat against Ramírez, he managed to retire Lindor and Carlos Santana without much trouble. MItch Garver said after the game, "We have a really good back end of the bullpen. Like today, we can go to Romo if we need a save situation and we're all very comfortable with him having the ball." The bullpen new it had a big job to do on Sunday. Clippard said, "We really take pride in games like this as a bullpen, getting the job done and helping our team win by putting up zeroes. It's a good feeling, and it's nice to be a part of it." Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet Download attachment: Bullpen.png Seth Stohs contributed the quotes to this story. Click here to view the article

Randy Dobnak pitched his way through five shutout innings to help lead the Minnesota Twins to a 4-1 victory over Cleveland Friday night. The 25-year-old right-hander lowered his career ERA to a miniscule 1.45 with this outing.Box Score Starter: 5.0 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 4 K Home Runs: Kepler (3), Avila (1) Top 3 WPA: Dobnak .213, Rosario .106, Kepler .078 Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs): Download attachment: Winchart.png Bats back up Dobnak’s solid start early Minnesota sent out a lefty-filled lineup to try to get to Indians starter Mike Clevinger and it worked perfectly early on. Max Kepler started things off by once again hitting a leadoff home run, like he did a week ago in Chicago. Since homering twice that evening, he slumped pretty hard, going 2-for-17 in the following four games. Eddie Rosario smacked a two-RBI double later on, after Josh Donaldson and Nelson Cruz reached. He went way up to get that four-seamer and give the Twins a 3-0 lead. Another lefty took Clevinger deep to leadoff an inning, as Alex Avila pounded a fastball inside to hit a 405-feet no doubter in the second, his first in a Twins uniform. The early push from the offense was in tune with Dobnak great performance. The rookie cruised through the first couple of innings, including a nine-pitch second. He did put a lot of work into getting through Francisco Lindor in the first, throwing eleven pitches before recording the out. While Twins batters didn’t produce runs in the following two innings, they did manage to wear out Clevinger. The Indians starter was done after concluding the fourth, inning in which Minnesota drew three walks, two of them after two outs. Meanwhile, Dobnak did a great job keeping Cleveland scoreless through five, despite allowing some strong contact (his average exit velocity was 94.5 MPH). In fact, only three out of the thirteen balls in play he allow actually materialized into hits. Indians relievers cool off Twins offense The Twins failed to score in a couple of key moments in the middle of the game, against the Cleveland bullpen. They opened the fifth inning with back-to-back hits, including a leadoff double by Jorge Polanco, which were pitched around by Indians reliever Phil Maton. In the following inning Avila reached on a hit by pitch and was later advanced to third by a two-out double from Ehire Adrianza. However, Polanco flied out against Oliver Pérez. Cam Hill pitched an easy 1-2-3 seventh for Cleveland, against the heart of Minnesota’s lineup, and Dominic Leone pitched around a walk from Luis Arráez in the eighth, completing the four-inning shutout by Cleveland bullpen. Fortunately, the Twins bullpen responded accordingly. Tyler Clippard allowed an RBI-double from Franmil Reyes in the sixth, after a but he was followed up by a lights out 1-2-3 seventh from Tyler Duffey and a similarly great outing from Sergio Romo in the eighth, striking out two batters. Taylor Rogers came in and easily earned the save with five pitches. Donaldson left the game early Donaldson hit a single and scored a run in the first inning, but when he was supposed to bat again in the second, Adrianza was replacing him. Turns out he was pulled from the game for precautionary reasons, after presenting right calf tightness. While this doesn’t immediately sound like a serious problem, it’s important to remember that calf issues were the most serious injuries he had to face in his career. Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet Download attachment: Bullpen.png Postgame Pint AS the Twins bounce back versus Clevinger, Twins Daily's writers celebrated. Watch it below, or download the podcast to be a part of the action You can also find Saturday night's gathering a PostgamePint.com. Click here to view the article