Yzukerman via Compfight

Bottom of the 33rd is a book about Baseball's Longest Game. The full title of the book is Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption and Baseball's Longest Game. It is obviously a book about baseball but it's so much more than that.

Bottom of the 33rd is a book about life, life in baseball, life around baseball and how life is for everyone involved in the game of baseball from the owners, general managers and players of the teams to the employees who make the games happen all the way down to the fans that come to the games and cheer their teams on. All of these people have lives outside the game and reasons for being around the game.

I was told about the book by a fellow Twins fan at a game so I read the book not knowing the teams involved or even the year the game was held. All of that would be revealed as I read the book and that may be the best way to read it anyways. You find out who the teams are, who the players are and what got them to this point in their careers and what will become of them in the rest of their careers as you read the book.

Do they become Hall of Famers or do they only get a cup-of-coffee in the major leagues? Do they play for your favorite team? What do they do after their careers are finished? You may see a name that reminds you of another player and wonder if they are related or if they were teammates with one of your favorite players. You will be reminded of why you love the game of baseball.

We all love reminiscing about the past especially when it comes to sports. We love to remember stories of when we were kids and baseball was fun no matter what the outcome of the game. We were able to go and experience a professional game in person and I always thought I might see something special whenever I went to a game. It could be a no-hitter, someone could hit for the cycle or hit three home runs or make the greatest defensive play you've ever seen OR it could be the longest game in professional baseball and you were there and you stayed for the whole game.

I highly recommend Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption and Baseball's Longest Game.* It's like being there and might be even better because of the history revealed about the lives surrounding that game.

*This is an affiliate link. That means I make money off of any sale that comes from that link. That's not why I'm reviewing this book though. I put this review on my site because I want everyone who comes to my blog to get something good out of it and if you buy this book, I think you will thank me for turning you on to it.

That's my take, what's yours?

Robb

Keith Allison via Compfight

Danny Valencia was the victim of change due to losing games! or was he? It's hard to call Danny a victim when he has a .190 batting average (AVG), a .204 on-base percentage (OBP) and a slugging percentage of .290 (SLG), even if Drew Butera thinks those numbers are pretty good.* Those are numbers that are screaming THIS ISN'T WORKING so the Minnesota Twins optioned Danny Valencia down to Triple-A Rochester on Thursday, May 10th. He needs to go down there, get to work and get some confidence back into his game.

*Haha, sorry Drew! My first thought was to go with Junior Ortiz for that, then Tim Laudner but I decided to go with a current Twin so everyone would know who it was. How 'bout Brendan Harris or Matt Tolbert or maybe Alexi Casilla so I can match up the ValenSeeYa with the CaSeeYa? ValenSeeYa is supposed to be a good thing like when Danny hits a home run or gets a clutch hit not when he's sent down to the minors!

Danny has gone through some struggles on his way to the Major Leagues but I doubt he's gone through anything like this where he's struggled for so long. He had a tremendous 2010 season for the Minnesota Twins to the point where it's hard to find an area he didn't do well in, at least with the bat. He only had half a season in the majors but he seemed to adapt to the major leagues quickly. Did his success make him relax in the off-seasons or was it teams learning how to pitch him?

In 2011, Danny Valencia was hitting basically the same way he was in 2010 but getting different results and less hits. He started to struggle against right-handed pitchers. That will tend to happen after teams get some film on young players. That's probably not close to the whole reason Danny struggled in 2011. I'm far from an expert in analyzing swings. I'll leave that to the scouting types.*

*I do find it fascinating how a batter's swing can be divided into so many parts and then adjusted or fixed to speed up or slow down a swing for various situations. Think of what that takes to do and do it in a timely manner to fix your swing from day to day or even week to week. The discipline to first admit there's something wrong, even if you can see it on video, then know what to do (or try) to fix it and, most of all, to change a part of your swing and get to the point where it becomes natural to you again. I'm not sure most fans realize how much this happens. Another thing that's amazing is that these players obviously had success before they changed a part of their swing so it was working and it just shows that baseball is a game with adjustments going on all the time and that's why I love the game!

So Danny's hitting struggles go back to 2011 and have not really ended and have actually gotten worse. At least in 2011 he was still getting some walks where as in 2012, he has 2 walks and 23 strikeouts in 27 games and 100 at-bats. That tells me that he's trying to swing his way out of his slump which usually means swinging at more bad pitches. The opposing teams and pitchers know he's struggling so they'll try to take advantage of that by not giving him much to hit and seeing if he'll bite on the breaking balls and off-speed stuff and throwing more outside pitches as well.

The trouble with being in a slump is most players try to swing their way out of it, swinging at more pitches and at more pitches out of the strike zone but contacting on less of those pitches. Look at Danny's plate discipline stats and it's easy to see what I'm talking about. His swing percentage on pitches out of the strike zone has gone from 24.9 % in 2010 to 30.9% in 2011 and a whopping 40.1% so far this season while his swing percentage on pitches in the strike zone has gone down (60.3 to 57.8 to 50.5.) Not surprisingly, his contact percentage has gone down as well (82.9 to 79.8 to 74.6.) He's getting down in the count early which is getting him into pitcher's counts and he's swinging at the junk they are throwing out of the zone which, of course, is harder to hit. Danny is 0-for-May and he's struggling big time. The Minnesota Twins could've tried sitting him down for a couple games but they obviously didn't want to go in that direction. Hopefully Danny is able to correct this in the minors because we've seen that he's capable of being a pretty good hitter.

Defensively, Danny has kind of been on the questionable side so when he performed so well in his initial call-up, it took most people by surprise. His defense went from above average to really bad. Was it playing more games and the small sample size fooling us? Ron Gardenhire started to show frustration with Danny's approach at the hot corner and hinted that the team's future at 3rd base might be in question. Danny worked on his defense in the off-season and has looked a lot better but he still has his deficiencies.

The bad thing about sending Danny Valencia to the minors is the Minnesota Twins don't really have another 3rd baseman on the roster. They have some guys they can put over there, like Jamey Carroll, Trevor Plouffe, or Alexi Casilla, but they have never really played 3rd base full-time. This should allow the Twins to get Trevor Plouffe more playing time to see if he is worth keeping or if they eventually have to make a move with him as well.* This points to the problems of the Twins depth in the minors at 3rd base and infielders as a whole.

*Plouffe is hitting a whopping .145/.280/.585 although in the last two games he is 2-9 with 2 home runs, 3 RBIs and 4 strikeouts so we may have witnessed a slump...BUSTED! Trevor is out of options so he would have to clear waivers to be sent to triple-A. I would prefer they keep Plouffe in the outfield as he's shown that he might not have the skills to play infield in the Majors. He seems to be on a Michael Cuddyer path where the Twins are trying to find a place for him and it might end up being right field because his glove isn't good enough in the infield. He could probably fill in at 1st base here and there but that's about it.

The bottom line is if players aren't performing and they still have options left to be sent down to the minors, at some point they need to play better or someone else needs to be given a chance in The Show! That's what has to happen when you have a losing team.

Other Minnesota Twinsactions
5/7 - 1B Justin Morneau placed on 15-Day disabled list (retroactive to May 1, 2012) with sore right wrist
5/7 - SS Brian Dozier recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings
5/7 - RHP Liam Hendricks optioned to AAA Rochester Red Wings
5/7 - LHP Scott Diamond recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings
5/9 - signed free agent DH Shawn Roof
5/10 - LHP Matt Maloney designated for assignment
5/10 - RHP P.J. Walters recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings
5/10 - 3B Danny Valencia optioned to AAA Rochester Red Wings
5/10 - LF Darin Mastroianni recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings

• SS Brian Dozier is the big name on this list. He’s moved through the organization quickly and made a bid to make the team out of spring training. Don’t expect him to be the savior or anything like that but it’s always exciting to see how a prospect does in his debut. It’s fun to see the firsts of a player’s major league career (hit, rbi, home run, etc...). He should be pretty good defensively and alright with the bat.
• LHP Scott Diamond was up with the Twins at the end of last season for 7 starts (a spot start in July and a regular rotation spot in late August) going 1-5 (W-L). He got his 1st Major League win in a 7-6 win in Chicago against the White Sox. He ended up with a 5.08 ERA & 1.744 WHIP (Walks + Hits per Innings Pitched) with 17 walks and 19 strikeouts in 39 innings. Not great but he got a taste of what it’s like in The Show and had a couple good starts.
  
  • He’s been great so far this season no matter where he’s pitched. In triple-A Rochester, he was 4-1 with a 2.60 ERA, 1.212 WHIP with only 7 walks and 26 strikeouts in 34.2 innings. He’s been spectacular with the Twins. In his 2 starts, he’s 2-0, has yet to give up a run (0.00 ERA), has a WHIP of 0.714 and has only 1 walk and 10 strikeouts in 14 innings. Can he keep this going?
  
  
• RHP P.J. Walters was signed as a free agent in December. He was part of the Colby Rasmus trade from St. Louis to Toronto for Edwin Jackson. He’s been up and down between AAA and the majors since 2009 getting some starts and some time in the bullpen.
• LF Darin Mastroianni was claimed off waivers from Toronto in the off-season. He’s got a lot of speed, good plate discipline, a decent bat although very little power and he’s good defensively in the outfield. He can play 2B as well although I doubt he’d be put there much for Twins but nice to have that option if you need it.

Alright, those are my TwinsTakes. What are your TwinsTakes? Are the Minnesota Twins doing the right things with their roster? When will we see Danny Valencia back up with the Twins?

Tell us what you think in the comments!

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GO TWINS!!!

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Nice Picture, huh? Kinda Gross!


Did the offense give the pitching a break for a week?

No Hits in L.A.
Well, there's nothing like having a pitcher throw a no-hitter against you to get the focus off the pitching, huh? On Wednesday, the 2nd of May, Los Angeles Angels starting pitcher, Jered Weaver, pitched a no-hitter against our Minnesota Twins. That also made it two games in a row the Twins were kept off the scoreboard having been shut out the previous game by Jerome Williams. They ended up scoring only 3 runs in the 3-game series after scoring 13 runs in 2 games at home against the Kansas City Royals.

A no-hitter is a tremendous accomplishment for any pitcher and the team around him! There are other players on the field though. Pretty much every no-hitter has a few great defensive plays that keep it a no-hitter, even if those plays aren't really remembered much, if at all. The pitcher is remembered for the no-hitter so it seems like the pitcher was solely responsible for the whole game.* Every ball hit the web of the glove that was put in play unless, of course, there was an error. The pitcher knows this and I would imagine they all do something to make it known how thankful he is for all the plays his defense made for him.


*Maybe it should also be known as an all-webber? or a Web-fest? I'll come up with something! Ooh, how 'bout All-Leather Performance? No?


Most fans seemed to react as if this was rock bottom for the Minnesota Twins. They have the worst record in baseball, were shut out by a 5th starter and now they've been no-hit by a pitcher who is the ace of the Angels staff. I obviously don't want it to get worse for the Twins but I'm not sure that's rock bottom! How different would people have reacted if they got one hit? Would that have changed their reaction?


In the end, it is just one game and they have to be ready to play the next game. The Twins had a day off so they had time to think about, hopefully work on and go over the struggles they are going through. They need to forget about not getting a hit and just go play baseball in Seattle.


Worst team in baseball?
Have the Twins been as bad as their record shows? Maybe, but they have played some decent baseball at times. The offense has been performing alright but the pitching has been horrible. They aren't getting the big hit when they need it, especially with the bases loaded, where they are hitting .200 (5-25) with 1 double, 14 runs batted in (RBIs), 1 walk and 6 strikeouts. Usually when they have gotten a big hit, the pitching has given up the lead and the game more often than not.


They've been in games with chances to win. 11 of their 25 games have been one run games and they are 5-6 in those games. Only 2 of their games have been 2-run games and they lost both of those in Baltimore, 4-2 & 3-1. In 1-run games, they have been outscored 60 to 59. In the other 14 games, they've been outscored 76 to 31! It's no wonder pitching was my take in week 2 and week 3. OUCH!


Have the Twins been as bad as they were last season when they were committing errors on defense and just playing bad baseball? I don’t think so or at least I think it’s too early to say with just 25 games played. A lot can happen in 137 games! It will be interesting either way, good or bad.


25 Scoreless Innings? Who Cares?
The Twins broke their scoreless innings streak last night when they scored in the 7th inning last night in Seattle. A lot of people made a big deal of that since they were shut out two straight games. Sometimes fans make too big a deal of those things. After shutting out the Twins for two straight games, the Angels have been shut out twice at home by the Toronto Blue Jays and have been shut out a whopping 6 times in 27 games and they have Albert Pujols on their team!*


*How often does a team with Albert Pujols get shut out 6 times in a season? It can’t be many, right? WRONG! Since 2001, Pujols 1st season, the St. Louis Cardinals were shut out 89 times! Only 3 of those seasons did they get shutout less than 6 times.


Sometimes stats don’t mean anything and they almost always don’t mean anything to the players playing the game. Do you think any of the players knew their scoreless innings streak was at 25 innings in the 7th inning last night? At most, they knew they hadn’t scored in two straight games but don’t care about the one inning they didn’t score in the 1st game of the Angels series and the 6 innings to start the 1st game in Seattle.


Jared Burton
How many of you know that Jared Burton has gone 8.1 innings without giving up a hit? That’s right! He gave up 2 runs (both home runs) in his Twins debut on April 7th and 1 run in his appearance on April 12th but since then he hasn’t even given up a hit. In those 8.1 innings, he’s struck out 8 and walked 2 with 11 groundball outs and 5 fly ball outs. He’s been pitching great and is or should be the right-handed setup guy. I hope I didn’t just jinx him but if I did, I’ll take credit for it! Hey, any publicity is good publicity, people! Tell EVERYBODY! Haha!


Is the Fire Gardy Bandwagon Fueling Up?
With the Twins record at 7-18, a lot of fans have taken to the Fire Gardy bandwagon! A lot of fans have been on that bandwagon for a long time and have never been fans of Ron Gardenhire.


I don’t really know what Gardy is supposed to do with this team. He lost one of his best pitchers in Scott Baker before the season began and Francisco Liriano, his supposed best pitcher, apparently forgot how to pitch. The rest of the staff is either young or old! How much should we really expect from Liam Hendriks, Carl Pavano and Jason Marquis? So the two guys he was depending on are nowhere to be seen or shouldn’t be seen.


It is almost impossible to win without good pitching. You can have the greatest offense in the world but if you can’t keep the other team from scoring, you’re probably not going to be winning a lot of games. The Texas Rangers finally figured that out and look where they are now.


Gardy won't be in Seattle as he went back to Minnesota for his daughter's graduation. Or is it Garduation?

Maybe the Twins needed more than three extra days in Spring Training? Gardy?

Twinsactions of the Week - Ups & Downs
4/28 - OF Ben Revere optioned to AAA Rochester Red Wings
4/28 - LF Josh Willingham activated from Paternity leave
5/1 - C Drew Butera recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings
5/1 - 3B Sean Burroughs designated for assignment
5/4 - RF Erik Komatsu claimed off waivers from St. Louis Cardinals
5/4 - RF Clete Thomas designated for assignment
5/4 - 3B Sean Burroughs outrighted to AAA Rochester Red Wings

• Sean Burroughs accepted his assignment to Rochester so we’ll see how he does there. That could be good for the Twins.
• Erik Komatsu might be a better option for the Twins than Clete Thomas. Komatsu looks to have a better feel for the strike zone with a .389 career minor league on base percentage (OBP)
• Clete Thomas had a minor league OBP of .348 and as you saw, he struck out a tad - in his last 7 games, he was 1-18 with 14 strikeouts and no walks

Those are my TwinsTakes! What are your TwinsTakes? Will the Twins get better as the season goes on? Will it be a repeat of last season?

We want to know what you think! Tell us in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook!


Twins Take on Seattle tonight at 8pm CST - RHP Jason Marquis vs RHP Felix Hernandez! Maybe the Twins can start a winning streak!


As always....GO TWINS!

Photo Credit:Michael Donovan viaCompfight

Giving up a ton of hits, home runs and an ERA of 5.77 = LOSING!

It also equals a Redundant take! I know last week the take of the week was on the starting pitching and it would be great to have a different take this week but the pitching is the obvious reason why the Twins are losing 3 out of every 4 games in the first 20 games of the season.

If your team is giving up the 3rd most hits, the most earned runs and the 2nd most home runs, your not going to be celebrating too much!

For the longest time the Twins were winning with Pitching and Defense. That's been the "Twins Way" and would always give the Twins a chance to win games and the division. Carl Pavano leads the staff with a 4.91 Earned Run Average (ERA), not counting bullpen pitchers where Alex Burnett has an 0.77 ERA! I'll say that again. Alex Burnett has a 0.77 ERA to lead the bullpen! He's been pitching great so far this season!

Obviously with 142 games to play, there's plenty of time for the pitching to get better. Every pitcher in the starting rotation should pitch better as the season goes along. Francisco Liriano won't have an ERA over 11 all season long and Liam Hendriks looks like he has the "stuff" to post a decent ERA by the end of the season, down from the 6.89 ERA he has now. Jason Marquis and Nick Blackburn, with ERAs above 7, will get closer to their career ERAs of 4.5 or so. The starters will start getting more quality starts and we'll see what that leads to, hopefully more wins!

It's sad because the offense has stepped up and given the team a chance to win but it's hard to ask them to score 6-7 runs a game in order to win. Yes, the offense could have, or maybe should have, come through in some situations, mainly the bases-loaded situations, but they've done enough to win some games where the pitching wasn't getting the job done.

We're in for a rough season if the pitching doesn't get better quickly. Sadly, with a 6-16 record, the Twins are only 6 games back of division leader Cleveland. That being said and with where the Twins are, nobody should be looking or worrying about the division right now. Get your team playing good baseball, pitching good baseball and start winning some games. The theory goes that you get back to .500 before you start thinking about catching the division leader.

The first 20 games were filled with opponents that were either in the playoffs or in contention for the playoffs last season except for the season opening series in Baltimore (and one against Kansas City.) Did the Twins need some time to get it going this season?

The Twins have already dealt with some injuries and other incidents that have caused pitchers to miss starts or delay their season so let's see where they are after the next 20 games where they get some division opponents and maybe some "average" opponents. There are no easy teams but there are definitely some teams that should be easier to pitch and hit against, right?

That's my take! What's your take on the Twins last week? Will the losing continue? Will they right the ship and start winning some games?

Tell us what you think in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook!

As always....GO TWINS!

Photo Credit: Michael Donovan via Compfight

Welcome to the 2012 Minnesota Twins Take of the Week!

Even though this is the 2nd week of the 2012 Minnesota Twins season, this is my 1st Twins Take of the Week! That's because I just had a thought to post my thoughts on a weekly basis literally minutes ago.
Here's my Twins Takes of the Week for the 2nd week of the season.

The starting pitching needs to get a lot better!

This is obvious but it still needs to be said. Losing Scott Baker for the season is quite a blow to the starting rotation although the bigger blow might be Francisco Liriano's horrible start to the season. Pavano and Blackburn have basically been their normal selves. Swarzak pitched well in his first two starts but got lit up last night in the series finale in New York. Jason Marquis didn't pitch great but got out of some tough jams and never gave up the lead in his first start while getting his first win as a Twin. Liam Hendriks pitched about as well as you could ask from a young pitcher but still lost 4-3 in his only start against Texas. He allowed 1 run on 7 hits in 6 innings. Glen Perkins ended up taking the loss in that game.

Other thoughts on Week 2:
The Minnesota Twins bats finally woke up from the offseason and have given the team a chance to win some games after an 0-4 start. After scoring only 6 runs in the first 4 games (1.5 runs per game), the Twins have scored 42 runs in their last 9 games (4.66 runs per game) and have won 4 of those 9 games. That record won't get it done but at least they are in most of those games with a chance to win. They do need to get better at capitalizing on chances to score though. Way too many runners left on base already and too many bases loaded opportunities with nothing to show for it.

It was very nice to see Justin Morneau have a break out series in New York. He went 5 for 11 in the 3 games he was in the lineup with 3 home runs, 4 RBIs, 6 runs scored with 3 walks and 3 strikeouts and is now hitting .267 with a .353 on-base percentage while slugging .578 for an OPS (On-base Plus Slugging percentage) .931 for the season.

Josh Willingham will take a 13-game hitting streak to Tampa Bay as he has a hit in every game this season and is now hitting .340, getting on-base at a .411 clip and slugging .700 for a 1.111 OPS with 5 home runs, 9 RBIs, 9 runs scored with 4 walks and 13 strikeouts. He even has a stolen base.

Interesting fact so far this season for the Twins. Before the season started if you were asked who would be the last pitcher to be scored on, how many people would've guessed.....Alex Burnett? Huh? How many? NONE OF YOU! I wouldn't have either but Alex has pitched very well to begin the season and maybe he's showed the coaching staff that he's finally turned a page in his career. He has pitched in 6 games, going 8.1 innings, giving up 8 hits while walking one and striking out 4 for a 1.08 WHIP (Walks + Hits per Inning Pitched).

Gardy has even put Alex in some high stress situations. Tonight in New York, Alex was brought into the game in the bottom of the 6th with the Twins trailing 7-6, a man on first and no outs and he was able to get out that inning and the next inning with a couple inning ending double plays from Robinson Cano & Russell Martin. I'm happy for Alex and hopefully he can keep pitching well as the season goes on.

The Twins head to Tampa Bay to face the Rays for a 3-game series that starts on Friday night then they start a 6-game homestand on Monday starting against the Boston Red Sox & the Kansas City Royals:

Friday, April 20th - 6:10pm CST

• @ Tampa Bay - Liam Hendriks (0-0, 1.50 ERA) vs Matt Moore (0-1, 5.54 ERA)

Saturday, April 21st - 6:10pm CST

• @ Tampa Bay - Carl Pavano (1-1, 5.23 ERA) vs James Shields (2-0, 3.38 ERA)

Sunday, April 22nd - 12:40pm CST

• @ Tampa Bay - Francisco Liriano (0-2, 11.91 ERA) vs Jeff Niemann (0-2, 4.50 ERA)

What's your take on my Twins Take, your take on the Twins so far this season and how do you think the Twins will do next week?

Let us know in the comments or on Facebook or Twitter!