Thursday, May
13, 2010
Droppin’ some Notes
After spending three-plus hours hanging out with six great kids at Chuck
E. Cheese for my young’ns 4th birthday
party, I don’t have a lot left in me tonight, so here are some notes:
EVENTS
1.)
I will be on KFAN and KFAN.com with
Paul Allen today at 9:15 am, so be sure to check out
on your radio or listen online.
2.)
On Saturday at noon, the Twins and Yankees will be
playing in New York. The TwinsCentric guys will be
hosting another TwinsCentric Viewing Party
during the game. This will be at Majors Sports Café in Bloomington. Hopefully
many of you will be able to attend. There will again be drawings for prizes
including a couple of Twins tickets. And not just that, but there will again be
drink and appetizer specials. Oh, and you can watch the Twins game with a whole
bunch of Twins fans.
3.)
Be sure to follow me on Twitter and Facebook for updates.
TWINS NOTES
1.)
The Twins got another two-run, seven inning
performance from Carl Pavano. It was the third
straight game that he gave up two runs. It was the first one in which he
recorded a win. The veteran gave up two first inning runs, but that was it. He was excellent
again. Brian Duensing and Matt Guerrier
pitched a perfect 8th inning before Jon Rauch threw a perfect ninth
inning for the save. A Justin Morneau single scored Denard Span to tie the game at two a piece in the 3rd.
Then in the fourth inning, Span singled in Delmon
Young.
2.)
What a day for Delmon
Young. First, if was Delmon Young Day in the Twins
blogosphere. He responded by going 3-4, including doubles in his first two at
bats.
3.)
JJ Hardy was put on the Disabled List, and to no one’s
surprise, the Twins promoted the no-hit, decent glove Matt Tolbert. Yes, I am
bitter. There is no reason that the Twins should not have called up Trevor Plouffe and given him a week’s worth of starts.
4.)
After the game, the Twins activated Jose Mijares from the Disabled List and optioned Wilson Ramos to
AAA Rochester. The decision to demote Ramos makes complete and total sense. He’s
a terrific prospect with tremendous upside with the bat, both in terms of
batting average and power, but he has work to do. The
semi-surprise was that Jose Mijares was brought back
from the DL so quickly. He was really bad before he was put on the Disabled
List. He worked and rehabbed for a few weeks. He went to Rochester and got hit hard
both Friday and Sunday, and then he was activated by the Twins on Thursday. Why
not have him make another appearance or two with the
Red Wings? Brian Duensing and Ron Mahay
have been tremendous. A player on a rehab assignment can be in the minor leagues
for 20 days, so I just don’t understand the need to rush him back.
5.)
In a Dan Barriero interview
with Bill Smith on KFAN on Wednesday afternoon, Smith said that Jose Morales
was going to begin a rehab assignment in Rochester today. With both Morales and
Ramos going back to Rochester, it will be interesting to watch the catching
carousel. I assume that Allan de San Miguel will stay in Rochester. Jair Fernandez will likely go back to Ft. Myers, although
he could go to New Britain and allow Danny Rams to go back to Beloit. It will
be interesting to see what happens.
TWINS/YANKEES SERIES
The Yankees series is going to be talked about by
Twins fans all over. What do the Twins need to do? After losing every game in
2010 to the Yankees, could it be a successful series if the Twins win just one
game? Would it be the end of the world if they were swept (of course not, but
there are some who seem to believe that.) Obviously, they are the Yankees. They
spend a ton. They have some very good players. Many are past their primes (yet
still productive). The Twins have nothing to be intimidated by though. They can
beat this team. So what do you think? Here are the position-by-position
matchups (although they don’t actually match up:
a.
Catcher – Joe Mauer or
Jorge Posada – Advantage Twins, and by a long shot.
b.
1B – Justin Morneau or
Mark Teixeira – Push – Normally, I’d probably acknowledge Teixeira by a slight
margin, but first, it is close enough, and second, Tex isn’t off to a terribly
good start while Morneau is among league leaders in
about everything.
c.
2B – Orlando Hudson or Robinson Cano – Advantage Yankees,
and by quite a bit, at least offensively. Hudson may be a bit better with the
glove.
d.
3B – Nick Punto or Alex
Rodriguez – Advantage Yankees, and I hope I don’t need to add too much to this.
e.
SS – Harris/Casilla or
Derek Jeter – Advantage Yankees, and if JJ Hardy was playing, it wouldn’t be a
whole lot closer.
f.
LF – Young/Kubel or Randy
Winn – Advantage Twins, even if Gardner or Thames is out there for the Bombers.
g.
CF – Denard Span or Brett
Gardner – Advantage Twins, although Gardner has taken steps forward this year.
h.
RF – Michael Cuddyer or
Nick Swisher – Push – Both are pretty good, maybe a bit underrated. If I had to
pick an advantage, I’d give the slight nod to the Twins.
i.
DH – Kubel/Thome or Marcus Thames – Advantage Twins, even with Kubel’s slow start. The Yankees actually use the DH spot to
give guys days off from the field a lot.
j.
Game 1 – Francisco Liriano
vs AJ Burnett – Burnett is actually pitching pretty
well this year, and Liriano was the AL Pitcher of the
Month in April. Hopefully this will be a good matchup.
k.
Game 2 – Scott Baker vs
Andy Pettitte – Advantage Twins, but Pettitte is a crafty veteran, capable of still having some
decent games.
l.
Game 3 – Nick Blackburn vs
Javier Vazquez – Advantage Twins. Vazquez can be so good, but the Yankees fans
hate him already. He’s been bad. Blackburn has been great his last two outings.
m.
Closers – Jon Rauch vs
Mariano Rivera – see 3B reasoning.
n.
Bullpens – I’ll take the Twins bullpen any day of
the week.
o.
Bench – I don’t think it can get much worse than the
Twins bench with Butera, Casilla
and Tolbert on it. The odd man out in the Kubel,
Young, Thomas saga is the other. The Yankees have Francisco Cervelli,
Ramiro Pena, Kevin Russo and Greg Golson. I might
even take the Twins bench!
In other words, this should be a very good series
between two very evenly matched teams. The Twins are 22-12. The Yankees are
22-11.
MINOR LEAGUE NOTES
1.)
Rochester lost 5-2 to Indianapolis. Matt Fox started
and gave up three runs (on a Pedro Alvarez home run) on four hits and two walks
in 3.1 innings. Cole DeVries made his first AAA
appearance and gave up two runs on two hits and a walk in 3.2 innings. Tim Lahey also pitched a scoreless inning. Dustin Martin went
2-4 with his sixth double. He had two of the team’s five hits in the game.
Danny Valencia collected a single to give him a 16 game hitting streak.
2.)
Ft. Myers beat Tampa 2-1. Drew Thompson and Ramon
Santana each went 2-4. Liam Hendriks He gave up just
one run on three hits in seven innings in an impressive Florida State League
debut. He walked none and struck out eight. Billy Bullock struck out three (And
walked two) in two scoreless innings for his seventh save.
3.)
New Britain’s game with Trenton was postponed by
rain. The same happened to the Beloit-Kane County game as well.
4.)
On Thursday, Deolis Guerra
will make his AAA debut for the Red Wings in a morning game (11:00 eastern,
10:00 central).
Alright, I must sleep. I hope you all have a great
day! Leave
any comments here.