Sunday, September 9, 2007
Saturday Night Notes
DeVries Dominates
Good day! Thought I would jot down a few more thoughts from Saturday as well as some other links.
Cole DeVries was one out from a complete game shutout, but a Chad Tracy solo home run meant that he had to settle for a complete game Win in Game 1 of the Midwest League semi-finals. DeVries gave up just the one run on four hits. He didn't walk a batter and struck out five. The Snappers won 4-1. Danny Santiesteban continued his hot hitting. He went 2-4 with a homer and three RBI. Joe Benson remained a catalyst. He was 2-4 with a triple. Rene Tosoni was 2-4 with an RBI double.
Today, Matt Fox will take the mound for the Snappers against Clinton's Kasey Kiker. If the team wins today, they would head into the Midwest League championship series with their starting rotation intact.
The Twins found a new way to lose yesterday, an 8-7 loss to the White Sox. Matt Garza wasn't good, except when he struck out the side in the second inning. He went just four innings and gave up five runs (3 earned) on nine hits and three walks. Kevin Slowey came in and was excellent. He went 2.2 innings and gave up three hits. He walked none and struck out three. In the 7th inning, he allowed a double to Juan Uribe, but then got the next two outs. Unfortunately, he was replaced by Carmen Cali who gave up a two-run homer to AJ Pierzynski and the game was tied. So Slowey was charged with one run.
The Carmen Cali performance... Uggh! First pitch, two run homer by Pierzynski. He got ahead of Jerry Owens 0-2 before walking him. Then back-to-back singles by Scott Podsednik and Jim Thome. Four lefties, zero outs. That's not what you want from a LOOGY. I actually agreed with the decision to go to Cali in that situation, and in reality, it is likely that 80% of the time it is the right choice. Just not in this case. (and, for the record, I would prefer a lefty where I had more than 80% confidence!)
This is the second game of the week when Kevin Slowey left the game with a chance to be the Winning Pitcher and didn't get the win because of a blown save. I mainly know this because I picked him up in one of my fantasy baseball leagues and really could have used those 20 points! That's ok, assuming things go even half-way decent today, I should advance to the 2nd round of the playoffs.
Jose Morales made his big league debut for the Twins on Saturday. In his first at bat, he singled to left on a 2-0 pitch. In his next at bat, he hit a rocket down the right field line for a double. He singled down the 3B line in his third at bat. Unfortunately, when Jason Tyner bunted for a single, Morales was running toward 2B and saw a fake throw to second, he awkwardly went into 2B and completely rolled his left ankle. He rolled on the ground in pain. Concern about his ankle and knee was evident. He was helped off the field. Fortunately, we were later informed that it was just a bad ankle sprain and he would likely be out for 2-3 weeks. My first thought was that it would be a knee ligament (and maybe ankle ligaments) and he would miss the entire 2008 season. Defensively, he looked very natural behind the plate. He did a nice job with balls in the dirt. His throwing motion looked like you would expect from a catcher. The way he caught the ball. We didn't see him throw to 2nd against would-be base stealers.
Brian Buscher went 2-4 with two RBI and a home run that took all of 1.3 seconds to exit the ball park. However, I am now seeing that he is not a very good defensive 3B. It was very reminiscent of watching Corey Koskie at 3B his first year with the Twins. Not a pretty sight! Hopefully he can improve over there, but if not, maybe he has enough bat to be a DH.
Torii Hunter hit his 40th double and his 28th home run in the game. And, his discussions about how much he would enjoy playing in Chicago continued.
Speaking of fantasy baseball, mini_tb and I share a team. We have four about the last five years. After making the playoffs in three of the past four years, we were the regular season champions this year, and with wins on both Friday and Saturday, we were fortunate to win the tournament championship as well. I would like to take a moment to thank Jarrod Saltallamachia, Brian McCann, Travis Hafner, Garrett Atkins, Jim Thome, Alex Gordon, Hanley Ramirez, BJ Upton, Rafael Furcal, Kelly Johnson, Carlos Beltran, Grady Sizemore, Curtis Granderson, Nick Markakis, Mark Teahen, Justin Upton, CC Sabathia, Cole Hamels, Jake Westbrook, Paul Byrd, Justin Verlander, Tom Glavine, Roy Oswalt, Ted Lilly, Francisco Cordero and Billy Wagner.
Unlike Jim Souhan's article last week that said that Joe Mauer should move to 3B because Mike Sweeney and others did, Joe Christensen wrote a great argument by using Victor Martinez as the example. The key argument that I appreciate and can agree with is that it would not mean completely moving away from the catcher position.
Finally, be sure to check out Roger's Minor League Weekly report.
That is it for now. The Vikings first game of the year is Sunday at noon. I picked the Falcons, but they certainly aren't a certainty either.
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