Twins win, Baker fails.

Twins swept the Sox on a walk-off walk by Torii Hunter. That is good to see. I like to see the Twins win by being patient. Now I hope they can be patient with Baker.

I think Scott Baker is a decent pitcher who has had some bad luck. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think he will ever be a great pitcher but he could be a quality innings eater if given a chance.

Last season Scott had some bad luck, his actual performance was not as bad as his ERA showed. In only 83 innings he had an ERA of 6.37 but his DIPS was a much more manageable 4.71. Hardballtimes gives him a FIP of 5.07 and an xFIP of 4.95. This shows that he had some bad luck to have such a high ERA. If he was allowed to play the entire season random chance would have equaled out, most likely, and his ERA would have been more manageable.

Because of this Baseball Prospectus projected Scott to have an ERA of 4.93, again, not great, but manageable.

This year so far he has had 1 good start 1 bad start and 1 mediocre start. And his numbers bear out again that he is pitching a little better than his ERA shows. His ERA is 5.94 and his DIPS and FIP are both slightly lower but it is his xFIP that is very good showing a decent 4.07 ERA.

His big problem has always been the homerun. This season he is still having that problem but given a chance the homerun rate against him should start to move toward the mean. Right now his HR per Flyball is almost 30% which nearly 3 times the league average. This number should and will drop and he will then appear to be a more effective pitcher.

On the other side of the issue Silva’s HR/F rate is a miniscule 6.9%. This probably won’t stay at this rate and his ERA will probably rise.

The one thing that has plagued Baker his whole career is the home run ball. It should continue to improve this season not just because of his high home run per flyball rate but also because it looks like he is throwing more groundballs. It is early but his groundball to flyball rate is a career high 1.75. And his overall groundball percentage is 50%. This includes outs and non-outs.

Scott Baker should improve if given the chance this season. I hope Gardy gives him the same chance that he has given veterans in the past.

Pick of the Day: Yesterday’s 2 best bets worked well. The longshot was a loser but that happens. Overall the System had another winning day after having its worse day on Tuesday after its best ever on Monday.

Best Favorite: SD -135, Tor is also a decent favorite at -160.

Best Underdog: TEX +127 is a very good bet and SF +130 is too.

Longshot: Bal +175.

Castro/Batista Part Deux

The Twins have cut Ponson and demoted Ortiz to the bullpen after the failed experiment of trying out 2 bad, over-the-hill players. The Twins are turning to youth again, just like last year. They learned a bit from last year, though they did make the original mistake again by signing them, this time they are cutting bait sooner than they did last year.

And they are winning.

If they keep this up they will not sign any crappy veterans by the 2010 season.

Baker is already pitching well and Slowey will be making the start Friday against Oakland. They may not be the best pitchers in the league but they only cost about $700,000 while Ponson and Ortiz cost over $4 million. And they project top be much better pitchers than the other 2 slugs.

I am looking forward to the slugs that Ryan will be signing this off season.

Pick of the Day: The System had a great week but faltered yesterday. Today there are not many good picks. Starting with $500 the system is now up to $425 after less than 2 months.

Best Favorite: SD -143

Best Underdog: SF +130

Best Longshot: Tex +180, they have only a 36% chance of winning but the money line makes it a good bet.

Weekend Series

The Twins are facing the Blue Jays this weekend. The Jays aren’t playing very well and Baker is facing rookie Jesse Litsch, I have the Twins as 56% favorites.

Litsch looks like he will have a 2:1 K to BB ratio with very good control with a about a 52% GB percentage.

Gardy is still pitching Ortiz this weekend even though the Twins had an off day, so all of the pitchers will get an extra days rest. 3 days rest was enough in the past, and now 4 days rest is not enough?

He has to learn to pitch his best starters more often. There is no reason that the Santana shouldn't have many more starts than Ortiz by the end of the season. But it doesn’t look that way. A strategy of utilizing your worst player as much as your best player is not an efficient way of garnering more wins. So fa rthis season Santana has 10 starts and Ortiz 9. Ortiz will be tied with Santana after tomorrow's game.

Reusse said that he was told that 'Ortiz had a good bullpen session". That is why he is not being skipped in the rotation. That makes as much sense as me saying they should start Crain because he is a starter in MLB 2k7 on my XBox and he had a good season. Both are not real life situations.

Pick of the Day: by the Baseball System

Its always tough to pick favorites but there are a couple good favorite bets tonight.

NYN over Fla -125

Bos over Tex -190 this game has tough odds but I have Boston as a 70% favorite.

There are 2 good underdog games.

TB over CHA +115

Hou over Ariz +107

I have both of these teams as slight favorites.

So far this season the System is doing great. It has soom good days and bad days but is doing very well in the long run.

Twins Win

The Twins were patient again against Robinson Tejeda. They scored 5 runs off of him and knocked him out after 3 innings. He threw 86 pitches and averaged 4.5 pitches per plate appearance!!!

This is another good sign from the Twins. Patience at the plate equals more runs.

Boof gets the win and Nathan gets the save after facing Sammy Sosa as the go ahead run in the bottom of the 9th.

Twins Pitchers

Ponson has finally been jettisoned, about 2 months too late. Ortiz and Silva have been getting knocked around as of late after very good starts. But that was to be expected. The both were getting a little bit of luck to keep their ERAs around 3.

Thier DIPS ERA's were much higher and they finally have ERAs closer to how they have been pitching. In the future I would expect Ortiz and Silva to keep their ERAs around 4.7 to 5.2 That wouldn't be too bad but it was not a very cost effective way of building a pitching staff.

Garza, Baker, Slowey or Perkins could have filled those roster spots and would have pitched just as well if not better and done it for about 1/10th the price.

With all of that being said I think Silva has pitched much better than I expected.

Now we just need to start scoring more runs.

Twins win....through patience!!!

The Twins showed some patience and actually scored some runs. Torii hit the big Grand Slam but it was the at bats by Cuddyer and Morneau that were the key.

Cuddyer worked out a walk and Morneau then had a very patient at bat. He fouled off some tough pitches and did not swing and balls. He walked to load the bases then Torii got his big hit. It was on the 2nd pitch but it was a hitters pitch and he crushed it.

Quarter of the season:1987

20 years ago after ¼ of the season the Twins also lost to Cleveland to fall to 20-20. They fell to 5th place and 3.5 games back.

Today they lost to Cleveland to fall to 18-22. Thay are still in 4th place, 7games back.

In 1987 Greg Swindell beat Bert Blyleven 6-3 before a raucous crowd of 7,401.

Corey Snyder went 3 for 3, hitting 3 homeruns. Snyder hit 2 off of Bert and 1 off of Mark Portugal. Mel Hall also hit a homerun as did someone named Tony Bernazard.

Swindell pitched a complete game, giving up a homerun to Laudner and walking none with 7 strikeouts.

The starting shortstop for the Tribe was a young Julio Franco.

The Indians “improved” to 13-27. This was a Cleveland team that was on the cover of Sports Illustrated before the season started with the heading: “INDIAN UPRISING" and the sub-headline, "Believe it! Cleveland is the best team in the American League!"

Cleveland lost 101 games in 1987.

Joe Morgan is still an idiot

The Twins won. And they should have won. They were facing a pitcher called up just for 1 start and the Twins hit him and the Tiger relievers hard.

But according to Joe it was because the "ball was always up". He went on and on about how the Tigers pitchers kept the ball up. And instead of just saying the Tigers were leaving the ball up, because that can happen, he became a detective and figured out the real reason.

According to Joe, the real reason the pitches were up was because the mound level had changed. He had no evidence to back the this up. And if he did he did not tell us the evidence. So he was blaming the Tigers bad pitching on the Twins' ground crew.

But wouldn't the Tigers pitchers been affected by this the previous 2 games? Not according to Joe. The change took place after Saturday's game, again no evidence presented.

But wouldn't the Twins' pitchers be affected by this? Not according to Emmy winner Joe Morgan. This is the Twins home park so they would be use to the difference. But Joe, how could they be use to the difference if it had just happened?

So given no evidence he, in effect, blames the grounds crew for the Tigers poor pitching. Yes Joe, 2+2 =9.

Could you imagine him as a doctor.

"Doctor Morgan, my toe hurts."
"You broke it."

"Really, it just feels like I stubbed it."

"Its broken. Someone attacked you and broke your toe."

"I don't remember that."

"Its broken."

Best Headline ever!!

"Royals To Get A Taste Of Angels' Colon"

New Poll

There is a new poll to the right. The results of the last poll showed that most people wanted Tyner either in AAA, out of the lineup or batting last. But a couple of idiots actually wanted Tyner leading off.

I didn't know Gardy read my site.

20 Years ago

20 years ago the Twins were also 17-17 and coming off of a loss. They were also in 4th place but only 2 games out in 1987 as opposed to 4.5 out today. Yet they still won the World Series and are still doing better than at this time last year.

But, this year the competition is much better so the oulook isn't as good, especially if the Twins continue to fail to score runs.

The Twins have no power and rarely walk. That is a combination for a 4th place finish.


The System has had a good week so far and a good season. The last picks I posted were good. There are a few decent ones today.

Best Favorite: Cleveland -130
Best Dog: Kansas City +163
Good Dog: Baltimore +145
Twins: Take the Twins -200. Johan is a heavy favorite but the System has the Twins with a 70% chance of winning.

Patience Pays off

The Twins finally score some runs and win. I have been harping on patience at the plate and it looks like it finally paid off.

They were very patient with Vazquez. He threw over a 100 pitches in 7 innings and the Twins saw 4.5 pitches per plate appearance. Though they never really "got" to Vasquez he did come out after the 7th which allowed the Twins to tee off against the Sox' Bullpen, scoring 6 runs in less than 3 innings.

The fact that the Twins worked the count vs Vasquez led to the Twins seeing inferior pitchers like Macdougal. Patience works.

Pick Of the Day:

Best Favorite: Yankees, Mussina -200
Good Favorite: Boston, Daisuke -173

Best Longshot: Washington, Bergmann +190

Twins: Min is a decent bet if you get good odds at -128

Game 28, 1987

The 1987 Twins played their 28th game on May 8th. They lost to the Yankess after Jeff Reardon gave up 6 runs in the 9th inning. He faced 9 batters, and retired 3 of them. He allowed 2 hits, both homeruns and walked 4, 1 intentional. The outing raised his ERA to 9.24.

It wasn't the best outing of his career.

Mark Portugal started the game and pitched into the 7th before giving up back to back homeruns to former Twin , Gary Ward and future Twin Mike Pagliarulo. Portugal gave way to Keith Atherton Who pitched 1.2 innings but was pulled for Reardon after loading the bases in the 8th.

Reardon got out of the jam but eventually gave up the lead in the 9th and gave up a walk-off grand slam to Pags with 2 outs in the 9th.

The loss dropped the Twins to 15-13. Good for 3rd place in the West and only a 1.2 game behind California and Kansas City.