2009: What A Season It Was

The postseason isn't technically over with yet, but meh. I'll start caring about baseball again when the pitchers and catchers report, or if the Twins actually do something interesting in the offseason. In the meantime, I'd like to reflect on some of the good things that happened this year. Plenty of bad stuff happened too, but this is my blog and I'm in no mood to go over all that again. In no particular order:

• Game 163

Yeah, some of the excitement over that game has been tempered after getting swept out of the ALDS (Especially after that one particularly painful loss. Now let us never speak of it again). But it was, without question, one of the greatest games I have ever witnessed in my entire life. I mean, look at this graph:

Almost every single at-bat after the sixth inning is a high-leverage situation! This game might even better than games six and seven of the 1991 World Series, if only because I was only nine years old at the time and don't remember those games quite as clearly.

• The offense done 'sploded
  

After dropping a season-high six games in a row, the Twins took out all of their frustration on the Pale Hose, torching Bartolo Colon and the bullpen for 20 runs on 22 hits. Four of those hits left the yard, including Joe Mauer's second career grand slam. Heck, even Matt Tolbert joined the party with his first major-league home run. All that and some Blackbeard pwnage made for one of the most lopsided victories in franchise history (Interestingly enough, this is the second time in three seasons that the Twins have pasted the White Sox for 20 runs. This was the first). The Twins were 2-6 (Oops, I meant 1-5. I can't count, I tells ya) against the Fightin' Ozzies prior to that game. They pretty much dominated the Pale Hosers after that (um, except that one time), going 10-2 against them the rest of the way. Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly the start of a long win streak that would propel the Twins to the division title. They would later lose 3/5 of the starting rotation to injuries and struggle to stay afloat until September, when they won 17 of their last 21 games.

• Scott Baker two-hits the Indians

(via Fangraphs)

With a game score of 88, this was by far the best performance by a Twins' starter this season, including the postseason (and one of the best by someone not named Zack Greinke or Felix Hernandez all year). Of course, the post-fire sale Indians were hardly an offensive powerhouse, but Baker's performance was still masterful. He pitched a complete game, striking out five without walking anyone, and allowed only one extra base hit (a double to Asdrubal Cabrera). Scotty was coming off of one of his worst outings of the season, when he gave up six runs in only 4.1 innings against the Tigers in Comerica Park. And at first he looked pretty shaky, hitting leadoff batter Grady Sizemore with the second pitch of the inning. Scotty quickly recovered, however, retiring the next nine Indians in order.

Honorable mentions: Nick Blackburn came up big in two of the most important starts of his career (and he wasn't half-bad in the ALDS, either). In his best start of the season (and probably the second-best of anyone in the rotation), Francisco Liriano dominated the Royals, striking out eight and only walking one. Kevin Slowey struck out a season-high 10 batters in a game against the Cubs, whiffing nine, though he also gave up three runs in six innings

• Jason Kubel hits for the cycle

(again, via Fangraphs)

If it weren't for that tiebreaking game against the Tigers, this would probably stand out as the most dramatic game of the season. It was only April, but the Twins had already dug themselves a giant hole, losing seven of their first eleven games. Joe Mauer was still recovering from an inflamed sacroiliac joint, and the offense without him was, with a few notable exceptions, pretty weak. The pitching staff, both the starters and the bullpen, were getting shelled. And at first this game looked to be more of the same. The Twins pissed away an early 2-0 lead, allowing the Angels to score three runs in the fifth and five in the seventh, and were trailing 9-4 in the bottom of the eighth. They tagged Jose Arredondo and Scott Shields for three runs on three hits, but were still trailing 9-7. With runners on second and third and two out, manager Mike Scioscia opted to walk Justin Morneau and pitch to Jason Kubel. Reliever Jason Bulger hung an 0-1 curveball and Kubel Khan launched it into the seats, capping off his cycle (only the seventh such cycle in MLB history) and putting the Twins ahead for good.

Michael Cuddyer hit for the cycle this year, too, but in less dramatic fashion. It was during a pretty routine trouncing of the Brew Crew.

This game is a perfect illustration of why the intentional walk is seldom a smart move. I don't want to be too critical of Scioscia here: it was a relatively meaningless game in April, and he was essentially following conventional wisdom. Justin Morneau had gotten off to a hot start, batting .341/.348/.568 in his first eleven games. Jason Kubel was also swinging a pretty hot bat, but he had always been considerably less dangerous than the Mountie. Conventional wisdom dictates that in a high-leverage situation such as this, the right move is to pitch around the better hitter and take your chances with the weaker one. However, Kubel had already collected three hits in the game, two of which were for extra bases. Morneau, on the other hand, hadn't done squat. And even though Morneau is a better hitter in general, Kubel absolutely punishes right-handed pitching. And that's precisely what he did to Jason Bulger. It is rarely ever a good idea to put an extra batter on base if one can possibly avoid it, especially if doing so loads the bases, and especially if the next batter is a pretty darn good one. Obviously, if Bulger were lifted in favor of a lefty or if Nick Punto were batting behind Morneau, the move would have made more sense.

This is hardly a definitive list of anything, so if you think I missed something, feel free to add it in the comments section.