With the hometown team having fallen on hard times (again) of late, we need something else to look at and today I'm here to provide that. There's been some talk around the Twins blogosphere lately about J.J. Hardy and how he's having a monster season for the Orioles...basically revisiting what a mistake it was for the Twins to trade him away for practically nothing. I am, of course, in wholehearted agreement with these sentiments, but I want to look at things from a slightly different angle. It's been no secret that for the majority of the season the Twins starting rotation (and bullpen) have struggled and though the rotation is pretty much composed of the exact same pieces, the results have been vastly different. I want to try and see what role infield defense has played in that difference and see if we can draw any conclusions.
First, some numbers.
Here are the ERAs, FIPs and xFIPs for the starting 5 from last year. I've also included their groundball-to-flyball ratio and their HR/FB%. For those not familiar with these metrics, FIP and xFIP attempt to remove variables from the equation that the pitcher cannot control with the goal of giving you an ERA-type number than more accurately states how a given pitcher performed. For example, though Francisco Liriano had a 3.62 ERA last year, his FIP was 2.66 and his xFIP was 2.95, good for 3rd and 2nd in all of baseball respectively. In other words, Liriano's pitching performance as a whole last year was much better than his ERA suggested. For more on FIP and xFIP, click the links.
2010 Pitching Numbers for Twins Starters: (ERA/FIP/xFIP), GB/FB ratio, HR/FB%, BABIP
Francisco Liriano (3.62/2.66/2.95), 1.96 GB/FB, 6.3%, .331
Carl Pavano (3.75/4.02/3.86), 1.66 GB/FB, 10.6%, .281
Scott Baker (4.49/3.96/3.82), 0.85 GB/FB,10.2%, .323
Kevin Slowey (4.45/3.98/4.24), 0.56 GB/FB, 8.2%, .307
Nick Blackburn (5.42/5.07/4.46), 1.57 GB/FB, 13.5%, .305
Numbers for the Twins starting staff in 2010: (4.17/3.91/3.84), 1.28 GB/FB, 9.9%, .299, 3.91 SIERA
2011 Pitching Numbers for Twins Starters: (ERA/FIP/xFIP), GB/FB ratio, HR/FB%, BABIP
Francisco Liriano (5.00/4.53/4.41), 1.45 GB/FB, 10.2%, .286
Carl Pavano (4.71/4.08/4.30), 1.48 GB/FB, 7.8%, .302
Scott Baker (3.21/3.49/3.55) 0.77 GB/FB, 8.9%, .299
Brian Duensing (4.56/4.05/4.00), 1.16 GB/FB, 9.6%, .317
Nick Blackburn (4.36/4.76/4.17), 1.98 GB/FB, 14.3%, .310
Numbers for the Twins starting staff in 2011: (4.30/4.18/4.10), 1.30 GB/FB, 9.7%, .296, 4.14 SIERA
Quick Discussion:
The first thing that jumps out at me with these numbers is just how poorly the starting rotation has pitched in 2011 when compared to the 2010 numbers. Even though the HR/FB% is down this year and the GB/FB ratio is up slightly, all three pitching metrics (ERA, FIP, xFIP) are worse for the staff this year. The second thing that pops out to me is that the staff BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is actually better this year than last. This is probably due to the fact that 4 of the Twins starters this year are ground-ball-heavy pitchers compared to only 3 of the 5 in 2010. More ground-balls equals more outs. The main culprits for these year's poor pitching results are Liriano and Pavano, that much is fairly obvious. Both are having terrible seasons compared to 2010 while the bottom 3/5ths of the rotation is actually performing a little better than last year's 3, 4 and 5 starters.
Now, the fielding numbers.
Quick caveat here, I obviously don't have a complete season's worth of number for this year. As a work around to that I calculated how much of this season has been played so far (72.2%) and for the counting stats, I just made the statistical assumption that the Twins will continue at the pace they've been on.
The Whole Team 2010:
78 errors
.987 Fielding%
+54 DRS (Defensive Runs Saved)
30.7 UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating)
3.2 URZ/150
Middle Infield 2010:
34 errors
.979 Fielding%
+27 DRS
11.1/9.9 UZR/UZR150 for 2B
14.0/13.2 UZR/UZR150 for SS
The Whole Team 2011:
116 errors
.981 Fielding%
-19 DRS
3.1 UZR
-0.4 UZR/150
Middle Infield 2011:
40 errors
.975 Fielding%
-18 DRS
-0.8/-0.5 UZR/UZR150 for 2B so far in 2011
-9.4/-12.0 UZR/UZR150 for SS so far in 2011
The numbers really do speak for themselves. Of particular note is the "Defensive Runs Saved" stat. This stat is like WAR (Wins Above Replacement) for defenders. 0 is "average", anything above is good and a getting better, anything below is bad and getting worse. Last year's middle infield for the Twins had a +27 DRS mark which was Top 5 in MLB, this year's team is pretty much the complete opposite story, not only playing to a negative DRS number, but also playing to negative UZR numbers as well. For a team with so many ground-ball-heavy starting pitchers (4 of 5 starters have a GB/FB ratio north of 1.00)...a strong defensive middle-infield is a must and sadly, we've gotten to see first hand how much of a difference it can make.
To my original premise, as I've gone through this I've come to realize how difficult it would be to isolate the effect of poor middle-infield defense on pitching results. It's easy to see that this year's middle infield has been much worse than last year's, but how that ends up affecting the pitching?...well, that's hard to say. I feel confident in saying the two are correlated, of that I have no doubt, especially when the starting staff is as adept at inducing the ground-ball as this one has been. This is my plea to Bill Smith and the Twins...PLEASE get some middle-infield help this off-season...if you're going to keep the same pitchers, improving the middle-infield defense on this team should be, far and away, priority #1 this off-season.
Showing posts with label Brian Duensing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brian Duensing. Show all posts
Friday, August 12, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
Verlander'd
22 days into the month and this is only the 5th post of July here at TBS...our apologies. My excuse is that I was on vacation for awhile and while that one is pretty weak, Matt's excuse is that he has been busy spreading HUGE news...our very own Matt Larson will be a brand-new dad soon! Congratulations to him and to his wife Ali! That's very exciting stuff, can't wait to meet his new daughter, due sometime in mid-January.
After a nice 5-day break from humanity up in the North Woods of Wisconsin, I returned yesterday to a pleasant surprise...the Twins hadn't dropped in the standings! Yay. I didn't get to catch last night's game, but in reading the box score this morning, one thing was clear...the Twins got Verlander'd. 8 innings, 5 hits, 1 run, 9 strikeouts, 0 walks...looks like a Verlander line to me. With the loss last night, the Twins have now lost 10 straight games against the Tigers dating back to last year. If the Twins want to be in the AL Central race come Monday morning, they had better reverse this luck quickly, starting tonight against Max Scherzer. The Twins throw Brian Duensing out there tonight and Duensing has pitched well in July so far with 2 wins and a 2.01 ERA in 22.1 innings. Scherzer hasn't had very good luck against the Twins in his career with a 9.13 ERA in 4 career starts against our hometown team.
The Twins get Jason Kubel back tonight after an extended stint on the DL. Kubel was pretty much the Twins lone bright spot during the first two months of the season, hitting .310/.355/.465 with 30 RBIs in the first 52 games of the season. He hasn't played in a Major League game since May 30th when he went down with a foot injury. During his most recent 5-game rehab stint with Triple-A Rochester, Kubel 6 hits in 18 at-bats with a HR, 2 RBIs, 3 walks and 4 Ks. Hopefully he can provide a spark to an offense that has struggled lately, scoring 5 of more runs only twice in 9 games since the All-Star break. Kubel's activation means that Scott Baker, Denard Span and Justin Morneau (and Kevin Slowey) are the only Twins' players that remain on the disabled list. Baker is expected to be activated for a start tomorrow against the Tigers.
During the "critical 12-game stretch" to start the 2nd half, the Twins are 5-4 so far which isn't great, but it means they haven't lost any ground either. They are currently 6 games out of 1st with 64 games left to play. In order to get to 85 wins, which is how many I believe it will take to win the division this year, they need to go 39-25 (.609, 99-win pace)...not an impossible task, but getting more difficult with each loss. To put it in perspective, the Tigers only need to go 33-31 (.515, 84-win pace) in their final 64 games to get to 85 wins. If Bill Smith decides to add a piece or two within the next 9 days, I'd like to see what we can get in the way of serviceable relievers. That said, my confidence in Smith to make a savvy trade or two is not very high. Hope is still alive though, Go Twins!
After a nice 5-day break from humanity up in the North Woods of Wisconsin, I returned yesterday to a pleasant surprise...the Twins hadn't dropped in the standings! Yay. I didn't get to catch last night's game, but in reading the box score this morning, one thing was clear...the Twins got Verlander'd. 8 innings, 5 hits, 1 run, 9 strikeouts, 0 walks...looks like a Verlander line to me. With the loss last night, the Twins have now lost 10 straight games against the Tigers dating back to last year. If the Twins want to be in the AL Central race come Monday morning, they had better reverse this luck quickly, starting tonight against Max Scherzer. The Twins throw Brian Duensing out there tonight and Duensing has pitched well in July so far with 2 wins and a 2.01 ERA in 22.1 innings. Scherzer hasn't had very good luck against the Twins in his career with a 9.13 ERA in 4 career starts against our hometown team.
The Twins get Jason Kubel back tonight after an extended stint on the DL. Kubel was pretty much the Twins lone bright spot during the first two months of the season, hitting .310/.355/.465 with 30 RBIs in the first 52 games of the season. He hasn't played in a Major League game since May 30th when he went down with a foot injury. During his most recent 5-game rehab stint with Triple-A Rochester, Kubel 6 hits in 18 at-bats with a HR, 2 RBIs, 3 walks and 4 Ks. Hopefully he can provide a spark to an offense that has struggled lately, scoring 5 of more runs only twice in 9 games since the All-Star break. Kubel's activation means that Scott Baker, Denard Span and Justin Morneau (and Kevin Slowey) are the only Twins' players that remain on the disabled list. Baker is expected to be activated for a start tomorrow against the Tigers.
During the "critical 12-game stretch" to start the 2nd half, the Twins are 5-4 so far which isn't great, but it means they haven't lost any ground either. They are currently 6 games out of 1st with 64 games left to play. In order to get to 85 wins, which is how many I believe it will take to win the division this year, they need to go 39-25 (.609, 99-win pace)...not an impossible task, but getting more difficult with each loss. To put it in perspective, the Tigers only need to go 33-31 (.515, 84-win pace) in their final 64 games to get to 85 wins. If Bill Smith decides to add a piece or two within the next 9 days, I'd like to see what we can get in the way of serviceable relievers. That said, my confidence in Smith to make a savvy trade or two is not very high. Hope is still alive though, Go Twins!
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Ready for the Ride to Continue
Last night I actually watched the All-Star game. More precisely, I glanced up at the TV every once in awhile while playing games on my phone. It was boring...except the Timberlake interview which was decidedly awkward and amusing. I thought it was fitting that the respective leaders in the MVP-race for each league hit homeruns. The NL pitching dominated, though to be fair the AL was sans Sabathia, Price, Hernandez, Lester, etc. It's a shame that this game actually decides something. Oh well.
Now that the All-Star game is mercifully over, I'm looking forward to two things: a) Chris Berman being used strictly for Monday Night Football purposes and b) the 'second-half'. I think the Twins have a legitimate shot to make up for their horrible start and I'm excited to see how they play in these first few games post-All-Star-break. I'm excited for a 12-game homestand. I'm excited to see if Delmon Young can find his sea-legs again and help carry the load a little. I'm excited to see what happens if the Twins pull even closer to the Tigers and Indians by the end of the month. Yes, our beloved Twins are 6.5 games out of first, but the gap doesn't seem that large.
To quickly update the Twins injuries:
Scott Baker is in line to make his next start on Monday, July 18th against the Indians. His MRI last week showed only a minor flexor strain so hopefully he will be able to pick up right where he left off.
Delmon Young was activated and will start tomorrow against the Royals. He had a nice 9-game rehab stint at Triple-A, seeing 5 of his 9 hits (31 at-bats) go for extra bases including 2HRs.
Kevin Slowey threw 4.2 innings of scoreless baseball at Triple-A last Sunday with 3Ks and 1BB. He will pitch in one more rehab start coming up this week. According to Ron Gardenhire the Twins have no plans to call him up once he's ready, which really makes absolutely ZERO sense to me. At the very least he could be used in the bullpen and in my opinion, he deserves strong consideration for a rotation spot which would give the Twins the option of putting Brian Duensing in the bullpen as a left-handed specialist or long-reliever. Wasting Kevin Slowey's talent in Triple-A is just plain stupid.
Jason Kubel continues to rehab his injured foot and is probably still another 10-15 days away...and that's if things go well. He's expected to start in some rehab games at Fort Meyers here over the next few days, but there is no concrete rehab schedule at this point.
Denard Span will be meeting with doctors (perhaps today) in hopes of receiving clearance to start a rehab assignment. He ran the bases and worked out hard this past weekend and reported no symptoms. If cleared, he will probably need about 7-10 rehab games before he comes off the DL.
Update 12:03pm CDT: According to D-Span's twitter feed, he was cleared to begin a rehab assignment today, great news!
Justin Morneau is still on doctor-ordered post-surgery rest, but could resume light baseball activity here in the next week or so. His target for a return is mid-August, which may be slightly optimistic but, if true, could prove quite valuable to the Twins if they can stay in contention until then. Positive word from him is that his wrist has been feeling much better lately and continued rest will hopefully allow it to fully heal.
Whew, I think that's it in terms of injuries. Jim Thome has been dealing with a sprained toe, but it doesn't seem like anything a few days rest won't take care of. Injuries have been the main storyline for the Twins this season, but it looks like (fingers crossed) the Twins may finally be getting closer to "healthy" here in the next 2-3 weeks.
Some Interesting Reading Around the Twins Blogosphere (and elsewhere):
Nate Gilmore over at Puckett's Pond gave the Twins a first-half report card of sorts. I can't say I disagree with any of his marks.
Corey Ettinger put together an AL Central All-Star team with a little bit of justification for each selection. There aren't many Twins players in the bunch but then again, they haven't had that many stand-out players yet this season.
Nick Nelson wrote a good piece comparing this year's team to the 2003 Twins team that was in a similar situation at the All-Star break and went on to win the division. Hope seems to be running high again in Twins Territory and damn it, it feels good.
TT over at Granny Baseball is going through a series of posts explaining statistics. So far they've done BABIP, K/9 and IP. Nothing super in-depth here, but it's a nice primer for people looking to better their understanding of baseball statistics. What's odd about these posts is that Granny Baseball has been a very anti-sabermetrics blog...
The Common Man and Bill over at The Platoon Advantage had an interesting read about the number of players selected to the All-Star game.
And finally, Deadspin had a good read today about the 100 Worst Baseball Players of All-Time. It's interesting to see a lot of pretty good managers high on that list including Tommy Lasorda, Billy Martin and Ozzie Guillen. This is the first installment of the list.
Now that the All-Star game is mercifully over, I'm looking forward to two things: a) Chris Berman being used strictly for Monday Night Football purposes and b) the 'second-half'. I think the Twins have a legitimate shot to make up for their horrible start and I'm excited to see how they play in these first few games post-All-Star-break. I'm excited for a 12-game homestand. I'm excited to see if Delmon Young can find his sea-legs again and help carry the load a little. I'm excited to see what happens if the Twins pull even closer to the Tigers and Indians by the end of the month. Yes, our beloved Twins are 6.5 games out of first, but the gap doesn't seem that large.
To quickly update the Twins injuries:
Scott Baker is in line to make his next start on Monday, July 18th against the Indians. His MRI last week showed only a minor flexor strain so hopefully he will be able to pick up right where he left off.
Delmon Young was activated and will start tomorrow against the Royals. He had a nice 9-game rehab stint at Triple-A, seeing 5 of his 9 hits (31 at-bats) go for extra bases including 2HRs.
Kevin Slowey threw 4.2 innings of scoreless baseball at Triple-A last Sunday with 3Ks and 1BB. He will pitch in one more rehab start coming up this week. According to Ron Gardenhire the Twins have no plans to call him up once he's ready, which really makes absolutely ZERO sense to me. At the very least he could be used in the bullpen and in my opinion, he deserves strong consideration for a rotation spot which would give the Twins the option of putting Brian Duensing in the bullpen as a left-handed specialist or long-reliever. Wasting Kevin Slowey's talent in Triple-A is just plain stupid.
Jason Kubel continues to rehab his injured foot and is probably still another 10-15 days away...and that's if things go well. He's expected to start in some rehab games at Fort Meyers here over the next few days, but there is no concrete rehab schedule at this point.
Denard Span will be meeting with doctors (perhaps today) in hopes of receiving clearance to start a rehab assignment. He ran the bases and worked out hard this past weekend and reported no symptoms. If cleared, he will probably need about 7-10 rehab games before he comes off the DL.
Update 12:03pm CDT: According to D-Span's twitter feed, he was cleared to begin a rehab assignment today, great news!
Justin Morneau is still on doctor-ordered post-surgery rest, but could resume light baseball activity here in the next week or so. His target for a return is mid-August, which may be slightly optimistic but, if true, could prove quite valuable to the Twins if they can stay in contention until then. Positive word from him is that his wrist has been feeling much better lately and continued rest will hopefully allow it to fully heal.
Whew, I think that's it in terms of injuries. Jim Thome has been dealing with a sprained toe, but it doesn't seem like anything a few days rest won't take care of. Injuries have been the main storyline for the Twins this season, but it looks like (fingers crossed) the Twins may finally be getting closer to "healthy" here in the next 2-3 weeks.
Some Interesting Reading Around the Twins Blogosphere (and elsewhere):
Nate Gilmore over at Puckett's Pond gave the Twins a first-half report card of sorts. I can't say I disagree with any of his marks.
Corey Ettinger put together an AL Central All-Star team with a little bit of justification for each selection. There aren't many Twins players in the bunch but then again, they haven't had that many stand-out players yet this season.
Nick Nelson wrote a good piece comparing this year's team to the 2003 Twins team that was in a similar situation at the All-Star break and went on to win the division. Hope seems to be running high again in Twins Territory and damn it, it feels good.
TT over at Granny Baseball is going through a series of posts explaining statistics. So far they've done BABIP, K/9 and IP. Nothing super in-depth here, but it's a nice primer for people looking to better their understanding of baseball statistics. What's odd about these posts is that Granny Baseball has been a very anti-sabermetrics blog...
The Common Man and Bill over at The Platoon Advantage had an interesting read about the number of players selected to the All-Star game.
And finally, Deadspin had a good read today about the 100 Worst Baseball Players of All-Time. It's interesting to see a lot of pretty good managers high on that list including Tommy Lasorda, Billy Martin and Ozzie Guillen. This is the first installment of the list.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Random Twins Notes and a Word on Rivalries
It's tough to see the hometown team lose on a night in which the Indians and Tigers both won, but hey, there are gonna be bumps in the road and the Twins ran into a pitcher, in Vogelsong, who's been on a roll lately. The Twins didn't really help themselves out, committing three errors in the game and staying mostly silent at the plate, but Delmon Young and Michael Cuddyer continued their hot streaks with 2-hits each in the game. The Twins will have a tall task in the rubber match of the series this afternoon as they face two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum. Lincecum has struggled of late so perhaps the Twins aren't getting the best version of him. The Twins will throw out left-hander Brian Duensing who has been pretty effective in June allowing only 5 earned runs over his last 16 innings of work. Duensing will need to continue to be on top of his game if the Twins are going to have a shot at winning this one.
Joe Nathan and Jim Thome are expected to be activated from the DL before the start of Friday's game against the Milwaukee Brewers. Nathan will likely be used as a set-up man right away, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if he is the team's closer by season's end. Reports have been positive on Nathan especially concerning his velocity and control, both of which were concerns before he was placed on the DL. If he can prove effective, his presence could go a long way in improving the back-end of the Twins bullpen. As for Thome, it's hard to be that optimistic about the remainder of the season for him. Last year the Twins caught lightening in a bottle with Thome as he was healthy most of the season AND hit 25 dingers. This year has been the complete opposite as Thome has already seen the DL twice. I wouldn't be surprised if this is Thome's last season, and if he hits 7 or more homeruns to surpass the 600 mark, I can almost assure you this will be his last season. I'm rooting for the guy to stay healthy, but it's hard to know what to expect.
Justin Morneau and Denard Span both remain on the DL, but things are looking better for Morneau than they are for Span. Nick Nelson had a good piece yesterday on Span's situation and it doesn't sound good. In fact, it sounds a lot like Morneau's situation last season and at this point, Span and the Twins have no idea how long he is going to be out of the lineup. Morneau is supposed to have his soft cast removed tomorrow or Saturday and the thinking is that he might be able to resume baseball activities at some point shortly thereafter. I would guess that if Morneau's wrist is feeling better, he'll be put on some sort of rehab program that would last a week or so. Wrist injuries are notorious for sapping power hitters of their power, so there's no use in rushing Morneau back if his wrist isn't close to 100%.
Late last week I wrote a piece about realignment in baseball and how ridiculous the idea is. Today I was scanning my Facebook news feed when I came across the following exchange. It reminded me how great the rivalries in baseball are, especially among cross-town rivals, enjoy.
Joe Nathan and Jim Thome are expected to be activated from the DL before the start of Friday's game against the Milwaukee Brewers. Nathan will likely be used as a set-up man right away, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if he is the team's closer by season's end. Reports have been positive on Nathan especially concerning his velocity and control, both of which were concerns before he was placed on the DL. If he can prove effective, his presence could go a long way in improving the back-end of the Twins bullpen. As for Thome, it's hard to be that optimistic about the remainder of the season for him. Last year the Twins caught lightening in a bottle with Thome as he was healthy most of the season AND hit 25 dingers. This year has been the complete opposite as Thome has already seen the DL twice. I wouldn't be surprised if this is Thome's last season, and if he hits 7 or more homeruns to surpass the 600 mark, I can almost assure you this will be his last season. I'm rooting for the guy to stay healthy, but it's hard to know what to expect.
Justin Morneau and Denard Span both remain on the DL, but things are looking better for Morneau than they are for Span. Nick Nelson had a good piece yesterday on Span's situation and it doesn't sound good. In fact, it sounds a lot like Morneau's situation last season and at this point, Span and the Twins have no idea how long he is going to be out of the lineup. Morneau is supposed to have his soft cast removed tomorrow or Saturday and the thinking is that he might be able to resume baseball activities at some point shortly thereafter. I would guess that if Morneau's wrist is feeling better, he'll be put on some sort of rehab program that would last a week or so. Wrist injuries are notorious for sapping power hitters of their power, so there's no use in rushing Morneau back if his wrist isn't close to 100%.
Late last week I wrote a piece about realignment in baseball and how ridiculous the idea is. Today I was scanning my Facebook news feed when I came across the following exchange. It reminded me how great the rivalries in baseball are, especially among cross-town rivals, enjoy.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Owning the Royals
This picture is worth 1,000 words
So far this season, the Royals and Twins have hooked up 15 times and the Twins have absolutely dominated the Royals going 12-3 and outscoring them 117-63. To put that in perspective:
*On a per game basis, that's an average score of 7.8 to 4.2
*The Twins have scored 685 runs this season, 17% of those runs have come against the Royals despite the fact that games against the Royals have only accounted for 10% of the Twins schedule.
*Dating back to 2007, the Twins are 45-24 (.652) against the Royals which is the most wins they've had against any other opponent during the stretch. In other words, if the Twins played the Royals every game of a 162-game season and won at that pace, they would win 105 games. Interestingly enough, the team that the Twins have beaten the 2nd most times since 2007 is the Chicago White Sox; the Twins own a 41-29 (.586) record over that stretch.
*Dating back to the 2000 season, the Twins are 122-73 against the Royals. Going even further back (if you're curious), since 1995, the Twins are 154-104 against the Royals.
I was trying to do some research on whether the Twins recent domination of the Royals was in any way 'historic' but I was unable to find any "streak-finders" on baseball-reference.com that tabulated such things between teams. Needless to say, the Royals have been a punching bag in the AL Central for many years and the Twins have taken advantage of that fact. The Twins have currently won 6 straight against KC and have one last 3-game set with them 9/27-9/29. Hopefully those games will be meaningless by then, but in the event they aren't, it sure is nice to have them on the schedule late in the year.
Other Random Notes:
+ Twins starters have won 5 straight games
+ Over his last 4 appearances, Matt Capps has a 6.75 ERA, 2.75 WHIP, 1K and 2BB...but he has 4 saves.
+ J.J. Hardy is 8 for his last 20 with 9RBIs, 7 runs, 1 HR and a 0/3 K/BB
+ Matt Tolbert raised his batting average by 22 point during the homestand filling in admirably for Danny Valencia
+ Brian Duensing has been excellent since rejoining the rotation and for a 2nd straight year has provided a shot-in-the-arm down the stretch for the Twins. His ERA stands at 2.02 but his FIP suggest there may be some regression in store. Jack Morris over at FanGraphs had an excellent article about his value to the Twins rotation. From ESPN Stats, opponents have a .116 average against Duensing's offspeed offerings and last night, the Royals were 0-18 on swings against his offspeed pitches.
+ Joe Mauer (9 for 22), Michael Cuddyer (10 for 31) and Jason Kubel (12 for 31) have all had a great deal of success against Friday's starter Fausto Carmona. In Carmona's last start against the Twins, he surrendered 10 hits and 5 runs in 7.1 innings.
+ The Twins have a 5.5 game lead in the AL Central which is the biggest lead they've had this season.
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