Friday, August
6, 2010
Friday Links and Thinks
Today is going to be a relatively quick blog. I’ll post a few links, but
first, the question of the day:
What is more impressive: that the Twins
won eight straight games against Baltimore, Kansas City and Seattle OR that
they split a series on the road in Tampa Bay?
Those on Twitter have seen me post this question already. Unfortunately I
tweeted it when the Twins had a 6-0 lead in the 7th inning. I
immediately got messages that I had jinxed the team, and believe me, I heard it
loudly when Jason Bartlett launched the grand slam into the seats to tie
that game at six a piece. Fortunately the Twins and Jason Kubel were able to use the catwalk to their advantage
and win the game in the 9th.
But winning eight in a row is a big accomplishment, no matter who the
opponents. You have to win daily against other teams that are comprised of big
league players who, on any day, can beat you. But winning two out of four on
the road against the best in baseball, in my mind, is also pretty impressive.
This Twins team is playing very, very well right now. Unfortunately, the White
Sox aren’t falling down at all and continue to play quite well.
The Twins need to win two out of three in Cleveland. That team has traded
Jhonny Peralta, Kerry Wood, Austin
Kearns and Jake Westbrook. Carlos Santana (their best
player!) is out for the year after a gruesome collision at the plate earlier
this week. Travis Hafner is also out. But this
is still a scary team. What do we (or the Twins hitters) know about Jeanmar Gomez? On any given night Fausto Carmona could shut an offense down.
The Twins have to continue playing well and can’t overlook these games!
Here is a look around the Twins blogosphere. I’ve only included blogs
that have been updated in the last few days (let me know if I’m missing any
sites that I should add):
·
Battle Your Tail Off remains under
construction, but the
forums are up and running.
·
Aaron Gleeman is at the SABR
convention in Atlanta, so expect some updates from him after the weekend.
·
Twinkie Town has a ton going on. As
you know, Roger updates his weekly minor league report every Saturday
morning. RandBall’s Stu wrote about Three
Other Twins Games with Odd Endings. Jesse shows us just how
Unlucky Jesse Crain’s performance yesterday was… or, how poor the home
plate ump was in that plate appearance.
·
Nick’s
Twins Blog says to give credit where credit is due, mentioning names like Jason Repko, Drew Butera and
more.
·
Twinkie Talk displays the
Win Probability throughout yesterday’s crazy game. As you would expect, there
were some pretty abrupt spikes.
·
Coffeyville Whirlwind is clearly the
top historical Twins blog/site on the internet. He’s been looking back to the
1961 season while at the same time finding other very interesting events and
reviewing them through the eyes around the scene (newspaper writers) at the
time.
·
The Baseball Outsider writes that the
Rays are following the Twins template. He also discusses the Twins ironman.
·
K-Bro listened to a
podcast on quantum theory and parallel universes yesterday and then wrote about
the Twins/Rays series.. Very interesting. And, she
pays homage to the Catwalk!
·
For the Love of the Game asks “Is
Winning Ever Enough?” It’s a great question and very interesting, but also be
sure to check out the pictures. Incredible!
·
Call to the ‘Pen wrote a
tremendous blog on The Coming Outfield Jam and predicts who the Twins Outfield
will be out to 2013.
·
Knuckleballs posted their
Boyfriend of the Month for July. I don’t think you’ll be surprised, but you
will certainly be entertained. If you like, join their game chats as well. The
great Jim Crikket also asked When
is a Trade Deadline Not a Trade Deadline which helps explain the July 31
deadline and the August 31 deadline as well.
·
The Oh,
It’s Those Girls baseball blog had a guest poster who wrote “Standing
Room Only Doesn’t Mean What You Think.”
·
Peanuts from Heaven appears to be
as creative a Twins blog as there is. Check out the definitions, random
thoughts and poems!
·
I had the opportunity to meet Cody, who
writes the North Dakota Twins
Blog, on the Twins Train
trip to Detroit in July. It’s a good thing because he puts out some of the best
content among Twins bloggers, so be sure to bookmark his site. He’s got really
good blog postings in the last couple of days on Delmon
Young and Scott Baker.
·
Twin Nation is back, and
this week has had articles on whether Francisco Liriano
from 2006 is back, and about the emergence of Danny Valencia.
Here are the links to the StarTribune.com TwinsCentric blog postings for this week:
·
Monday – John Bonnes – Trade
Deadline Notes
·
Tuesday – Seth Stohs – Rochester
Red Wing Report
·
Wednesday – Nick Nelson – Morneau’s Head
·
Thursday – Seth Stohs – Looking
Ahead: 40 Man Roster Options
·
Friday – Parker Hageman – Opponents
Trying to Cool Off Valencia’s Hot Bat
·
And I’m assuming you’re probably already reading Sooze’s
STrib blog, as well as her great work on Babes Love Baseball.
·
And then you’re also probably reading the other Twins
blogs at StarTribune.com: LaVelle
E. Neal’s Twins
Insider, Joe Christensen’s Around
the Majors, and Howard Sinker’s A
Fan’s View.
John Bonnes is on The
Power Trip Morning Show on KFAN Tuesdays and Thursday’s during the 7:00
hour. Podcasts available here. I
am on KFAN with Paul Allen each Thursday morning at about 9:20. If
you would like to listen, the podcast
is available here.
This week’s
podcasts:
·
On Monday night, I was joined on the SethSpeaks.net
Weekly Minnesota Twins Podcast by voice of the New Britain Rockcats Jeff Dooley, the White Sox writer for
Examiner.com JJ Stankevitz, and Jason Collette
of Dock of the Rays, Fanball, and
several more sites.
·
On Tuesday
night’s Twins Minor League Weekly, I was joined by voice of the Ft.
Myers Miracle, Alex Margulies and discussed what is going on throughout
the Twins minor league system including going in-depth on Oswaldo Arcia.
Here is a quick glance at what
happened on Thursday in the Twins minor league system:
Red Wings Report
The Red Wings played a Thursday
afternoon game, and it didn’t go well. They lost 8-2 to Wilson Ramos and Syracuse. Another frustrating
start from Anthony Swarzak.
The right-hander went four innings and gave up eight runs (7 earned) on nine
hits. Matt Fox came in and allowed
two inherited runners to score, but gave up no more runs in two innings. Jose Lugo threw two scoreless innings
before Pat Neshek
struck out one in a perfect ninth. Jacque
Jones went 2-4 with his 22nd and 23rd doubles. Brian Dinkelman
went 2-3 with his 26th double. Matt
Macri knocked his 7th home run.
New Britain Notes
The Rockcats
lost 7-4 to Erie. Steve Singleton
was 2-3 with a walk. Erik Lis hit his eight AA home run.
Tyler Robertson fell to 2-11. The
lefty gave up six runs (3 earned) on eight hits. He walked three and struck out
five. Steve Hirschfeld
came in and struck out four in two scoreless innings. Tony Davis threw two more scoreless, and then Billy Bullock gave up a run on two hits in his two strikeout
inning.
Miracle Matters
The Miracle watched the Twins play the Rays in the afternoon and then
headed up to Clearwater to take on the Thrashers. They lost 14-13. Matt Williams started and gave up four
runs on five hits and a walk in six innings. Blake Martin came in and got just one out. He gave up five runs (1
earned) on three hits and a walk. Michael
Allen got three outs and gave up four runs. Dakota Watts got two outs and was charged with one run. Brian Dozier went 3-5 with a walk. Angel Morales was 2-6 with his fifth
double. Evan Bigley
went 2-4 with two walks. Deibinson Romero
was 1-3 with two walks. Drew Thompson
was 1-3 with two walks and a stolen base.
Snappers Snippets
Beloit got some great pitching and topped Burlington 5-0.
Clinton Dempster
started and threw 6.1 scoreless innings. He gave up three hits, walked three and
struck out seven. Nelvin Fuentes struck out three in two
scoreless innings. Matt Tone pitched
a scoreless ninth frame. James Beresford
was 2-4. Michael Gonzales hit his 13th
home run. Danny Rams hit his 24th
double.
E-Twins Talkers
Elizabethton got a second consecutive day off thanks to
rain.
GCL Twins Topics
The Twins topped the Orioles 6-3 in GCL play. David Deminsky
gave up three runs on seven hits in 6.2 innings. He struck out eight. Tyler Herr recorded his first
professional save by striking out four in the final 2.1 innings. Rory Rhodes went 2-4 with his third
double. Wander Guillen
was 2-4 with his first double. Matej Hejma was 2-3 with a walk and a stolen base.
Any thoughts on the Twins or the
minor league system? Feel free to leave
your questions and comments here.