Friday

Good Friday morning everyone! Thanks again for stopping by the site. Hopefully it is worth your time! If you scroll down, you can see our NFL "Expert" Picks. We got responses from most of the participants and hope to get a few more today, so be sure to check that.

It took 11 innings, but the Beloit Snappers topped the Swing of Quad Cities 5-4. Steve Singleton hit a one out double to score Danny Berg from second base with the winning run. The Snappers got off to an early lead. The "did the little things right' in the first inning to take a 1-0 lead. Joe Benson led off with a single. He stole second and advanced to third on a ground out by Singleton. Rene Tosoni scored him with a sacrifice fly. After Greg Yersich, Danny Santiesteban and Garrett Olson singled in the second inning, Yersich scored when the Swing's 3B committed an error. Then, with one out in the 5th inning, Joe Benson knocked a solo home run to add to the lead. With two outs in the inning, Tosoni walked, and Chris Parmelee doubled to score Tosoni and give the Snappers a 4-0 lead. And then the offense stalled.

Tyler Robertson started and in 5.2 innings, he did not allow a run. He gave up five hits, walked three and struck out 11. What a great performance by the young lefty. Unfortunately the walks and strikeouts meant a lot of pitches, so he was replaced by Danny Vais who got out of the 6th inning .Vais would give up a solo homer in the 7th that cut the Snappers lead to 4-1. Jose Lugo came in and gave up two runs, getting just one out, in 1/3 of an inning. Anthony Slama came in and gave up a two run homer right away that tied up the game at four a piece. Then Slama threw a scoreless ninth. Aaron Craig came in and threw two shutout innings.

Joe Benson was the offensive catalyst. He went 3-5 with a walk and the home run. Danny Santiesteban and Garrett Olson each had two hits.

Next Up - The Snappers will now advance to play the West Michigan Whitecaps who beat Lancaster in two games as well.

TWINS THOUGHTS

The Twins (whether it is Terry Ryan making the decision, or Ron Gardenhire insisting) finally made the decision to call up Jose Morales. He will be with the team tonight in Chicago. When the Rochester season ended earlier this week, the team knew that Joe Mauer was still unable to play. They knew that Mike Redmond was well less than 100% and needed time off. They also knew that Chris Heintz is hardly a catcher. He is a capable catcher who, when in Rochester, rarely catches instead playing 3B, 1B or DHing. It took two days from the time that Mike Redmond's finger felt like falling off until they promoted Morales so that reigning AL MVP Justin Morneau would not have to be the backup catcher. This is yet another head-scratching decision that you really have to asked yourself what Terry Ryan was thinking. There have been a lot of those in the last twelve months. It was just last Friday that I did a Get to Know 'Em of Morales saying that he should have been called up already.
"for the most part young players with strong minor-league track records eventually develop into good major-league players" - that is the motto of a two part Aaron Gleeman posting that I think is absolutely tremendous. Part 1 is in regard to Scott Baker while Part 2 discusses Jason Bartlett and Jason Kubel. This is a concept or theory that I have had for a long time, but Aaron does a much better job of putting it into words and paragraphs.
Just How Inconsistent is the Twins Offense? Ubelman answers the question in a very, very, very... very, very details manner, but it is excellent information.
How many pressing issues do the Twins have to deal with in the coming offseason?
Joe Christensen takes a look back at the Trade Season (July deadline) and shows how some of the players that the Twins may or may not have shown interest in acquiring, as well as how the players the Twins lost are doing.

Hey ya'll, I haven't been able to get access to the Twins individual statistics for August, but I was able to go into the Twins August box scores and figure out the reliever's efficiency numbers. If you go back to our previous monthly Grades, you can find the definition. Here are the Reliever Efficiencies for August:

Great month for Joe Nathan, but he should pitch in another two to six games in a month. Pat Neshek and Matt Guerrier continued to get the most usage, although neither was as good in August as previously. Red Wings call ups Carmen Cali and Julio DePaula did a nice job while veterans Dennys Reyes and Juan Rincon were again just horrible. Any other thoughts?