Twins Notes and Links
The
Twins won for the 13th time in their last 15 games last night thanks
to scoring eight first inning runs against Madison Bumgarner
and the World Champion San Francisco Giants. Frankly, the rest of the game was
fairly uneventful, and after watching so many one-run games,
a blowout was kind of nice. Carl Pavano said
that he didn’t have good stuff, and yet he was able to work through eight
innings and gave up just two runs. Alexi Casilla hit
a late home run to give the Twins their final 9-2 score.
With
the late game, I was able to read through a lot of other Twins blogs and here
are some links. There are also a few more of my thoughts for your
consideration.
·
First,
be sure to listen
to last night’s SethSpeaks.net Weekly Minnesota Twins Podcast. I made
myself take a night off and thankfully, Cody Christie (North Dakota Twins Fan)
was willing and able to host the show for me. Be sure to check that out.
·
I
really am a big Ben Revere fan and I
believe that he can be a big part of the future of the Minnesota Twins.
However, I do think that the credit being given to him right now is a bit much.
After going 2-4 (with two first inning hits) on Tuesday night, he is now
hitting .269/.303/.298. That equates to a .601 OPS. I get it. He’s really fast.
He has game-changing speed. We have seen how much range he has defensively. He
is 6-8 in stolen base attempts. Remember a year ago when many thought that Denard Span had a bad year as a leadoff hitter? He got
on-base 33% of the time. He is a career .366 OBP guy. So to think that Revere
is a better leadoff hitter (and we have heard that a lot from many Twins fans)
is kind of silly. Delmon Young has been hitting very
well in June (.323/.343/.431). Michael Cuddyer is
playing great. Jason Kubel was the team’s best hitter
when he was healthy. Denard Span needs to play. When
those outfielders and Jim Thome are healthy, how can
a .600 OPS justify playing time? Jason Repko has posted a .601 OPS in his two years with the Twins. He plays
good defense and has a rocket for an arm. I have no problem with Repko playing once a week or once every ten days. I have a problem
with a 23 year old with a good future being a role player in the middle of the
season. I’m not negating the intangibles, but I think a realistic look at the
situation tells us that we really need to calm our thoughts and expectations on
Revere.
·
Andrew
from Off the Mark blogs
about Ben Revere, and he uses a Joey Gathright
comparison and says that Revere has been “awful” offensively. Maybe a little
strong.
·
K-Bro
wrote a Primer
on DL Moves that is very educational and interesting.
·
Nick
Nelson wrote about the Denard Span situation and compared it to a similar
situation that happened to the Twins a year ago.
·
Travis
Aune posts his choices for Twins
Player and Pitcher of the Week.
·
Giles
makes the case
for Scott Baker to make the All Star team.
·
Twin
Nation posted a Q&A
with AJ Petterson, the Gophers SS who the Twins
drafted with their 25th round pick.
·
Stadium
Journey gives their assessment
of Hammond Stadium, the home of the Ft. Myers Miracle and the Twins spring
training stadium.
·
The
Rochester
Baseball Observer asks if we should have a campaign for Trevor Plouffe, who has been on fire again since returning to
the Red Wings lineup.
·
Aaron
Gleeman also posted several Twins
Notes.
·
For
much more frequent notes and updates, be sure to follow me on Twitter.
Any other thoughts or questions? Feel free to comment
here.
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