Minor Leagues

The minor league season is about to wrap up. A couple teams -- E-Town and Beloit -- are headed to the playoffs, which is great for fans of the minor league system. Let's take a look at the action down on the farm.

ELIZABETHTON 4, DANVILLE 0
The 2012 Appalachian League Playoffs, Series 1 (the semi-finals), pits familiar post-season foes the Twins and the Braves. The E-Town Twins got the first victory in this best-of-3 series, so they hold a major advantage now. E-Town won on the road, so they will play tomorrow night at home, hoping to wrap up this series with consecutive wins. Here's the rundown of tonight's action: ...

Even though they are a last place team like the Twins, the pesky Seattle Mariners have seemed to have the Twins number in 2012. For the second night in a row, the Twins couldn't get much offense going and it's tough to win games without scoring runs. The good news is that the Twins are getting closer to getting the second pick in next year's draft. Only the Cubs and the Astros have a worse record than the Twins so this recent stretch of poor play has pushed Minnesota ahead of Colorado.

I spent the evening taking in some Independent League Baseball as the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks returned to Newman Outdoor Field. There was a Bobblelection held as fans had to pick between getting an Obama bobblehead or a Romney bobblehead. The first candidate to run out of bobbleheads would be declared the winner. ...

No one expected a slugfest when the Mariners and Twins got together to play in Target Field. Felix Hernandez was on the mound for the Mariners, but Liam Hendriks was on the mound for the Twins. It looked like a mismatch, but it turned into one of the best pitcher’s duals of the year! Liam Hendriks remains winless in the big leagues despite throwing a tremendous, tough-loss, complete game. The one mistake he made was giving up an 8^th inning, opposite field home run by Eric Thames. The length of that home run was less than that of a fly ball by Trevor Plouffe caught at the wall by Franklin Gutierrez or a triple off the right-center field wall by Justin Morneau. Location! Location! Location!
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When coming to form one's beliefs or making evaluations about things, the rather vast ocean between blind faith and evidence sets up a stark contrast in reasoned (or un-reasoned) judgment. This post is not about evolution or theism, but about something much less important in the grand scheme of things.

This post is about the Twins' evaluation of Anthony Slama.
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The Twins/Rangers game in Arlington was over pretty quickly. Samuel Deduno gave up one run in the first inning and five runs in the second. Somehow, he got through five innings and gave up seven runs on 11 hits. He walked the first batter he faced and that was the lone walk of the night. Kyle Waldrop came in and gave up just one run over three innings.

But this game was about the Rangers. The Twins had just three hits. Adrian Beltre alone had four hits, a single, double, triple and home run. It was the 6^th cycle against the Twins. Matt Harrison, the talented left-hander improved to 15-7 with a strong performance. ...

I was at the Rock Cats game this evening. It wasn't a great game for New Britain -- not nearly enough offense, and our pitchers had some trouble keeping the ball down. Terry Ryan was in attendance. I spoke to him for a few minutes, and it sounds like he plans to follow the team through its upcoming weekend series in New Hampshire, as we get closer to the date when a few players on this team might get a call-up to Minnesota (or, if the Rock Cats make the playoffs, after their playoff stint ends). Ryan was scoring the game and taking furious notes, but he was very nice in person and willing to chat between innings. Here's a rundown of tonight's minor league action:
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