Friday September 19, 2003

TWINS THOUGHTS

NFL EXPERT PICKS

SWEEP COMPLETE!!! à Game 3 (Twins 5, White Sox  3)

I would like to welcome all of you who arrived at this site via the Minneapolis Star-Tribune today!  I’d also like to thank whichever writer at the paper included me in the segment titled: Twins Fans Online with the likes of The Twins Geek and Aaron’s Baseball Blog! I hope what you read below encourages you to come back daily. I’d love to hear where you are from and your thoughts on the Twins and their sweep of the White Sox and this site, so if you’d like to Click Here and send me an e-mail and let me know. Thanks!

Although the site mentions that the writers are from the Twin Cities, I should point out that I grew up in Perham, MN, which is in west-central MN, and now reside and work in Warroad, MN, which is way up north, near the Canadian border. But, I have always read the Star-Tribune. I maybe don’t read Sid Hartman’s full column any more, but I don’t miss a word that Jim Souhan and Lavelle E. Neal write! I’ve got it bookmarked and read their stuff first thing every day (just before I read the above baseball blogs and the Dickie Thon Twins Fan Forum).

This site has been up and operational since June 1, 2003. I write up an article and it is posted each morning Monday through Friday. Primarily it will be a baseball related (Twins-specific) site, but I’m a sports fan, so I will talk about the Vikings, the Timberwolves and other MLB, NFL and NBA stories.

So, that’s enough about me. If you would like to know more about me, send me an e-mail, or click on the About Me link on the left side of this page.

TWINS THOUGHTS

What two things have I been saying were the keys to this series against the White Sox? 1.) Starting Pitching, and 2.) Getting Ahead and staying there. Well, both proved important in this 3 game sweep of the Chicago White Sox! It’s always important to get solid starting pitching, but coming into the series, it was unknown which staff’s starters were better set up. I mean, the Twins best starter, Johan Santana, pitched Monday night at Cleveland, so he wouldn’t even pitch in this series! How was the Starting Pitching Matchup in these three games?  Check this out:

I think there is a pretty large disparity in these numbers, ALL of these numbers. Sure, the Twins gave up 5 more hits than the Sox did, but they did so in 7 more innings! The big number though is the number of walks. Brad Radke, Kenny Rogers and Kyle Lohse walked ZERO White Sox batters in their 20 innings. Esteban Loaiza, Jon Garland and Bartolo Colon walked 13 Twins batters in just 13 innings. And, why was getting ahead early so important for the Twins also?  Well, let’s compare the numbers the bullpens put up in the three games:

The Twins relievers, which were just JC Romero, LaTroy Hawkins and Eddie Guardado, were lights out! Hawkins was great again last night, even though he has now pitched in 4 straight games. Despite throwing 4 innings in the 3 games, Hawkins threw just 38 pitches, of which 29 were strikes! Guardado added 2 more saves! That said, the White Sox relief corp was incredible too!! Pressed to pitch 11 innings in the 3 games due to short starts, the Sox bullpen gave up just 1 run. They also struck out 1.5 batters per inning.

So, clearly, getting ahead was vital to the Twins because of the White Sox impressive bullpen. The Twins seemed to have a game plan each game. They took pitches, and took walks. Even Jacque Jones walked a couple of times in the series.

That said, was anyone surprised by what Jacque did his first two at bats last night against Bartolo Colon? I’ve been as frustrated with Jacque Jones lately as anyone, but I really wasn’t surprised to see Jacque hit Bartolo Colon! We know Colon is going to throw fastballs and strikes, and Jacque Jones is as good as anyone in baseball at hitting right-handers who throw hard and throw strikes! His first inning 2-run home run tied the game at 2! His 3^rd inning 2-run homer gave the Twins the lead they would never relinquish! But, did you all see the swing he took on the 2-1 pitch in that at bat, when he almost literally swung out of his shoes? I was amazed when Jones came up in the 6^th inning, that Colon did drill Jones in the ribs for showing him up like that!

Now, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not for hitting batters anywhere near the head, but a shot to the ribs can work wonders. Maybe we learned a little about Colon in that sequence. Jacque Jones not only was very comfortable at the plate, but was showing Colon and the White Sox up. If that didn’t upset Colon, I don’t know what would. Maybe he’s not competitive enough for that situation. And, if that’s the case, is he the guy you want on the mound in a game as big as last nights?  I can’t answer that, I can only ask the question!

Kyle Lohse, who gave up 5 runs in the first inning then shut out the White Sox the next five innings at Chicago just over a week ago, struggled again in the first inning.  He gave up back-to-back singles to Roberto Alomar and Carlos Lee before freezing on a liner back to him by Frank Thomas. Lohse had all day to pick up the ball and throw to 3B for a force out, but instead just took the out at 1B. He then got Magglio Ordonez to ground out to Corey Koskie. One out from getting out of the inning unscathed. But then, Carl Everett, who hit well the whole series, blooped a 2-run single into centerfield. But again, after that first inning, Kyle Lohse was great, almost dominant. I think he has cemented his place in the post-season pitching rotation.

Yes, the Post-Season Pitching Rotation. As I said Yesterday, the AL Central Division Race is over! No matter what happened last night, it was done, but by winning last night, the magic number is down to 7, and I don’t see the White Sox or Royals coming close to competing again! So here it is, the American League Central standings heading into the weekend. I figured I’d include Cleveland and Detroit into this, since those are the two teams the Twins play the final nine games of the season.

What’s Next??

The Twins start a 3-game home series tonight against the lowly Detroit Tigers. It is an opportunity for the Twins to maintain (and hopefully extend) their lead in the division while cutting the magic number. But, the team does have to remember to continue to take ‘one game at a time’! The Tigers (allegedly) are still a professional team, and the old “on any given day” comments can continue to be made!  But really, Dmitri Young is the only really good hitter on the Tigers team. And the team’s best starting pitcher, Mike Maroth, lost his 21^st game of the season last night and will miss this series.

Here are the pitching matchups for this series:

Friday night - Eric Milton (0-0,3.60)  vs. Jeremy Bonderman (6-18, 5.49)

Milton’s making start #2. I’m sure the Twins would love to keep his pitch count down and try to get 6 strong innings out of him. Bonderman was taken out of the starting rotation a couple of weeks ago after recording his 18^th loss. I’m not sure why Tigers manager Alan Trammell made this decision to put him back in the rotation at this particular time. In three previous starts against the Twins this season, the 20-year old Bonderman is 0-3 with and ERA of 11.68. In 12 1/3 innings, he’s given up 16 earned runs and the Twins have a .468 batting average against him, including 3 home runs.

Saturday morning (11 a.m. again due to Gophers football) - (Johan Santana (11-3, 3.11) vs. Gary Knotts (3-7, 5.65)

Knotts has not pitched against the Twins yet. However, he has pitched 20 innings this year against the White Sox and has a 1.35 ERA against them! So, he must have something, right?  Santana is the Twins best pitcher. He was certainly not great his last time out, Saturday against the Indians, but 1.) he got the win, and 2.) the last time he was coming off a poor start, Santana shut down the White Sox in the biggest game of the Twins season to that point! Since the All-Star break, Santana is 7-1 with a 3.21 ERA.

Sunday afternoon - Brad Radke (13-10, 4.67) vs. Nate Cornejo (6-16, 4.55)

Earlier in the year, Cornejo lost his only start against the Twins. But, he pitched 9 innings and gave up just 4 runs (good by Tigers standards). In 182 innings, he has just 53 walks, but he also has just 43 strikeouts. No wonder opponents are hitting .302/.347/.448 against him! Since the All-Star break, Radke is 8-1 with a 3.50 ERA, including 3-0 with an ERA of 1.96 in September!

So there you have it! The Twins swept the Chicago White Sox at the Dome the last three nights. Now, they host the Detroit Tigers hoping to get a little closer to officially clinching the division title. The Tigers come into town trying to do one of two things. Either they are going to be playing hard in an attempt to not have the worst record in major league history, OR they are just playing to finish out the schedule!

 

NFL “EXPERT” FOOTBALL PICKS

For those who are new to this site, I asked 8 other people (friends and other baseball bloggers) to join me in picking all of the NFL games for the week.  So far, I haven’t been doing all that bad. This week, I’m not quite so sure what will happen. But, check out the “Experts” Football Page and be sure to check out the bios of those involved in this competition and check out their work. Don’t worry, it’s just a fun contest, no money, just pride is involved.

So here we are at Week 3.  This week, I notice a few of us had many similar picks. Maybe we’re all catching on as to who should win games. I had thought about changing some of my picks after seeing that a couple of the other’s picks are exactly the same as mine. But, each of the 9 people involved made their picks before seeing any of the others, so whatever picks I made, I’m just going to stick with!

Without further ado, here are our picks:

Here are the results of our choices:

Tampa Bay @ Atlanta - Buccaneers 8-1

Pittsburgh @ Cincinnati - Steelers 9-0

Minnesota @ Detroit - Vikings 9-0

New Orleans @ Tennessee - Titans 9-0

Jacksonville @ Indianapolis - Colts 9-0

NY Jets @ New England - Patriots 9-0

Kansas City @ Houston - Chiefs 9-0

St. Louis @ Seattle - Seahawks 8-1

NY Giants @ Washington - Redskins 7-2

Green Bay @ Arizona - Packers 9-0

Baltimore @ San Diego - Chargers 6-3

Cleveland @ San Francisco - 49ers 9-0

Buffalo @ Miami - Dolphins 8-1

Oakland @ Denver - Broncos 8-1

AL Central - Twins (7)

AL Wild Card - Red Sox (9)

NL Central - Cubs (5), Astros (4)

NL Wild Card - Marlins (4.5), Phillies (3)

So there you have it. That’s it for this week! Go Twins! Go Vikings! Go Gophers!

Again, I would love to hear where people are who read this site. If you don’t mind send me a quick e-mail and tell me where you’re from. If you have any thoughts or suggestions on this site, please feel free to tell me. If you have any ideas for future articles, I’d love to hear them!

Have a great weekend, and I will be back on Monday with updates on the Twins/Lions series and the Vikings/Lions game (it’s a Minnesota vs. Detroit weekend!), and probably much more!

       Back to Archives           Home