Tuesday,
August 10, 2010
Twins/Sox: Here We Go
The Twins are 63-49 on the season. The White Sox are 63-49 on the season.
112 games down. 50 games to go. In actuality, the
Twins and White Sox are going to play a 50 game season, and the winner of more
games over that span will win the AL Central (Barring a crazy re-emergence by
the Tigers!). Of those 50 remaining games, nine of them are against each other,
and tonight is the first. But how much do these three games in Chicago mean? I
mean, in my opinion, the Twins should be thrilled if they are able to win two
out of three on the road in Chicago. A sweep feels like it might be asking too
much. Winning one out of three is probably fine. Getting swept doesn’t mean the
end of the world, but certainly not idea. Check out my
Star Tribune.com TwinsCentric blog today for
another reason that winning against the White Sox is a good thing.
·
Check out last
night’s SethSpeaks.net Weekly Minnesota Twins podcast. Guest co-host
for the show was Cody Christie from North Dakota Twins Fan Blog. We
talked about a lot of Twins topics. JJ Stankevitz
of Examiner.com’s White Sox site joined the
conversation to discuss the upcoming Twins/White Sox series, the pitching matchups,
injury updates and more.
·
Tonight, I will be hosting Twins
Minor League Weekly at 10:00 central time. Bruce Pugh of the Ft.
Myers Miracle will be one guest, and I’m hoping to add a few more to the
lineup, so be sure to check it out.
·
Evan
Bigley was promoted to New Britain. Erik Lis was promoted back to Rochester. Yangervis
Solarte has completed his rehab and will now
spend some time with the Miracle.
Here is a quick glance at what happened
on Monday in the Twins minor league system:
Red Wings Report
Rochester and Gwinnett were
postponed on Monday night by rain. The two teams will play a double header on
Tuesday.
New Britain Notes
The Rockcats
did not have a game scheduled. Instead, they traveled to Erie, a nine-hour
drive, where they will play on Tuesday.
·
Ben Badler of Baseball America
posted some “Statistical
Meanderings from Around the Minors.” In this
week’s article, he mentions a very impressive statistic about one of the Twins
minor leaguers:
“Speaking
of strikeouts, one quick-and-dirty measure of an elite hitter is to compare his
extra-base hits to his strikeouts. It's rare to find a player with more
extra-base hits than strikeouts, a sign that a hitter is squaring up the ball
with regularity and driving it for power. Among all players in the minors with
at least 40 extra-base hits, there are just six players with more extra-baggers
than strikeouts. Three of them—John Lindsey, Russ Mitchell and Jay Gibbons—are Dodgers minor leaguers just
taking advantage of the hospitable Triple-A Albuquerque ballpark. Two are
Royals farmhands: Mike Moustakas (57
extra-base hits, 56 strikeouts) and Eric Hosmer (55
extra-base hits, 51 strikeouts), while the third is Twins Double-A second
baseman Steve Singleton (44 extra-base hits, 41
strikeouts).”
Miracle Matters
Ft. Myers topped Jupiter 8-3. Bruce
Pugh was terrific and improved to 6-8. The right-hander went seven innings
and gave up two runs on three hits. He walked one and struck out six. Jhon Garcia pitched a scoreless eighth, and
Blake Martin gave up one run in the ninth inning. Jonathan Goncalves went 4-5 with a stolen
base. Brian Dozier went 2-4 with a
walk and two stolen bases. Nick Romero
hit his 16th and 17th doubles.
Snappers Snippets
On Monday afternoon, the Snappers played a game in Cedar
Rapids. The Snappers fell 5-2. Tom Stuifbergen started and gave up four runs on seven hits
and two walks in 4.2 innings. He left the game with concerns of a leg injury,
but he said that it was just a cramp due to the hot, humid weather. Miguel Munoz has been working out of
the bullpen the past week to help limit his innings. He came in and struck out
three in 2.1 scoreless innings. Nelvin Fuentes
gave up a run on two hits and a walk in his inning. The Snappers managed just
three hits in the game and they came from the bottom two spots of the lineup. 8th
hitter Yorby Martinez was 2-3 with his third
double. 9th hitter Wang-Wei
Lin hit his third double as well.
E-Twins Talkers
Elizabethton had a nice 13-2 win over Greeneville on this
night. Pat Dean made his first
professional start and got the win. He gave up two runs on three hits in five
innings. He walked none and struck out six. Michael Tonkin recorded the save by throwing four shutout innings
in relief. He gave up just two hits and one walk. Oswaldo Arcia returned to the lineup after a
couple of games with a hand injury. He went 3-3 with his 18th
double, but when he was hit by a pitch in the knee later in the game, he was
replaced in the lineup. Gunner Glad
went 3-5 with his seventh double. Brandon
Henderson was 3-4 with two doubles.
Nate Roberts went 2-5 with a walk and his seventh double. Brian Burke went 2-6 with his 11th
double.
GCL Twins Topics
The GCL Twins lost 6-3 to the Rays. Ricardo Arevalo gave up three runs on four
hits in five innings. Brett Carroll
gave up two unearned runs on two hits in two innings. Derek Christensen gave up a run in his inning. Eddie Rosario went 2-4 with his second triple. Miguel Sano went 1-2 with a walk. In Kyun Kang was 2-4.
Any thoughts on the Twins or the
minor league system? Feel free to leave
your questions and comments here.