The rotation

The Twins have to keep it up. They need to keep winning each series. If they can keep it up they will win the wild card and possibly the division. With that being said it will be difficult with a horrible bottom of the rotation.

Silva needs to be removed. He has no ability to strike a batter out. I still believe a 4 man rotation is the answer, if done carefully. Silva should not be pitching.

Baker is a much better pitcher than Silva. He seems to be pitching horribly but his peripherals are not nearly as bad as his pitching shows. His ERA is over 6 but his DIPS is 4.52. If he was allowed to keep pitching his ERA would most likely lower. I worry that he won’t be allowed to keep pitching.

He is striking out a high number of batters, 7.6/9 innings and he is walking few, 1.4/9. His biggest problem is the number of homeruns he is allowing. Also, he is having some bad luck and his defense is letting him too. His BAPIP is .350. So a high number of balls that are hit in play are not being turned into outs.

That is because he is giving up too many line drives you say. Not true his Line Drive % is 19.5%, lower than Liriano’s and Santana’s.

The main problem is his Groundball %, it is 29%. When a pitcher has a high Flyball % like Baker it usually means two things. One, he usually has a lower BAPIP. He doesn’t so this should eventually lower. Two, he will give up more homeruns. He does at a rate of 1.8/9.

But it is good to know that if he can somehow increase his Groundball % that his homeruns allowed will decrease greatly. He is only allowing a homerun on 13.7% of his flyballs, which isn’t too far off average.

So his biggest problem is the high flyball %. I don’t know how to lower this. It may come naturally. He may have to keep the ball down. He does seem to pitch high in the strikezone. Even if none of this happens his ERA should improve because his other peripherals are still pretty good.