Anthony Swarzak's One-Hitter

via Fangraphs

Jered Weaver vs. Anthony Swarzak:  if you told me one of these guys would be taking a no-hitter into the eighth inning, I would have assumed it would be Weaver.  After all, Weaver has emerged as one of the best pitchers in the American League, while Swarzak didn't even make the team out of spring training.  Swarzak wasn't even scheduled to start last night, but was slotted in when Liriano's shoulder started acting up.  Weaver is third in the league in strikeouts, with 77,  third in ERA (2.10), and in the top five in, well, pretty much everything else.  Swarzak, on the other hand, is the definition of replacement-level: he has good enough control and misses just enough bats to be useful, but he isn't going to blow anyone away with his stuff, and he'll probably always find himself buried behind several other fringe starters on the depth chart.  Weaver certainly pitched well, giving up just two hits while striking out seven and walking two over nine shutout innings, but it was Swarzak who nearly pitched a no-no.   Let's look at the pitch f/x data to see how he did it.

via Texasleaguers.com

Swarzak did a decent job peppering the strike zone.  He threw his fastball a lot, 71.4%, but it had some movement and he located it well enough to prevent the Angels from making solid contact.  Overall, Swarzak wasn't great, and he got away with some bad pitches toward the end of his outing (the hanging curveball to Peter Bourjos probably would've been a home run to anyone else), but he did just enough to keep the Angels off balance for most of the night.  He kept his team in the game, and for once, the offense and the bullpen rewarded a starting pitcher for his efforts.  Matt Capps and Alex Burnett pitched two scoreless innings, and Danny Valencia came through with a bases-loaded hit in the bottom of the tenth. 

On a completely unrelated note: Carlos Gomez hit an inside-the-park home run yesterday.  I miss that guy.  Not that the Twins really need another light-hitting backup outfielder, but they could use a goofball like Go-Go to make a depressing season much more fun to watch. 

The Suckiest Bunch of Sucks that Ever Sucked?

Your 2011 Minnesota Twins are bad; this is not news.  They are currently the only team in major-league baseball more than 14 games out of first place, and they are on pace to lose more than 100 games for the first time since 1982.  I thought it might be fun to compare this team with some of the worst in franchise history, to see how it stacks up.  To help separate the suckiest sucks from those who have sucked, I made this handy chart of team OPS+, ERA+, and wins above replacement since 1961.  These stats are far from perfect (ERA+ tends to favor relievers, while OPS+ is simply league-adjusted OPS), but they do give us a quick-and-dirty way to compare overall team performance across different eras.  Why did I make it pink? I am an artist; I don't have to explain my work.

This team is scoring an average of 3.45 runs per game.  Only two Twins teams in history have averaged fewer than four runs per game over an entire season:  the 1968 squad (3.47), and the 1972 team (3.49).  Of course, scoring was down all across the league during that period, and both of those teams were within a rounding error of the league average (the '72 Twins were actually a little above average, which was 3.47).  The same cannot be said for the 2011 Twins, who are well below the AL average of 4.24 R/G. 

One doesn't have to look far to see what the problem is:  the team OPS+ is a pitiful 77.  Jason Kubel (128), Jim Thome (123), and Denard Span (109) have been carrying the offense thus far, while Michael Cuddyer (102) and Trevor Plouffe (104) have been about average.  Players who were expected to be big contributors this year have gotten off to a very slow start:  Justin Morneau is batting a Tyneresque 74, Danny Valencia is at 80, and Delmon Young has seen his OPS+ drop from 121 last year to a miserable 41.  Alexi Casilla has batted .314/.375/.490/.865 over the past 17 games, raising his OPS+ to 75. 

Drew Butera is by far the worst hitter in, well, probably the history of everything, with a -13 OPS+.  Butera has a reputation as a good defensive catcher, but it isn't enough to compensate for that level of suck at the plate.  I used to think that offensive production wasn't as important for a backup catcher as his defensive prowess.  I still think that; after all, backup catchers don't usually rack up more than 300 plate appearances in a season.  The problem is that the Twins have traded away every decent-hitting caddy on the roster, so they are stuck with Butters full-time until Mauer gets back.  Which wouldn't be so bad if they were getting at least replacement-level production out of 2/3 of the lineup.

Despite the poor production to date, this probably isn't the worst lineup in franchise history.  This lineup is capable of scoring more than four runs per game (they have averaged 4.8 over the past 9), and it will get a huge boost once Mauer comes back. Michael Cuddyer got off to a slow start, but that may have been partly due to the gigantic hole in his foot.  He's batting .324/.387/.441/.828 in May. Danny Valencia is either a victim of bad luck or good scouting reports; he's got a .238 batting average on balls in play, even though his line drive % is up to 19.9.  He's drawing more walks and striking out less though, so maybe he will figure it out as the season progresses.

This may end up being the worst pitching staff in franchise history, though it's a little too close to call at this point.  Their 82 ERA+ is the worst of any non-strike-shortened season, and their combined -0.3 rWAR is the worst of any season.  The 1982 Twins were the only pitching staff to finish the season with a negative rWAR, at -0.1, and fourteen teams have finished below 10, though not since 1997. 

The 2011 Twins are allowing an average of 5.27 runs per game, which is bad, but they will have to work awfully hard to surpass the franchise-worst 5.43 mark set in 2000.  In all, the Twins have averaged more than 5 runs allowed per game nine times, and twice they have averaged more than six:  during the strike-shortened 1994 and 1995 seasons, when they averaged 6.09 and 6.17, respectively.  Of course, four of those nine seasons came during the '90s, when offense was inflated around the league.  The 1996 Twins, for example, allowed an average of 5.28 runs per game, which sounds bad,  but was actually slightly below the league average of 5.39.

The starting rotation currently boasts two above-average pitchers:  Nick Blackburn, 123 ERA+ (I know, I was surprised too), and Scott Baker, 103 ERA+. Nobody else is even approaching 100, though Brian Duensing is the closest, at 82.  Francisco Liriano and Carl Pavano, who were one of the best 1-2 punches in baseball last season, have struggled out of the gate, with respective ERA+s of 69 and 75. Of course, FIP and fWAR paint a slightly different story, with Baker (3.94, 0.7) and Duensing (3.91, 0.6) being the best pitchers in the rotation and Pavano (4.31, 0.5), Blackburn (4.41, 0.4), and Liriano (5.21, -0.1) bringing up the rear.  Other than Liriano, whose struggles may be rooted in shoulder problems, this rotation is at least mediocre and likely won't rank among the worst in Twins history. 

The bullpen is an entirely different story.  This didn't look like a strong group coming in to spring training, with four key contributors in the 2010 'pen having departed as free agents and no significant moves made to replace them.  Injuries have further decimated an already-thin 'pen, with Glen Perkins, Jose Mijares, and now maybe Joe Nathan winding up on the DL, while Kevin Slowey has been both hurt and unable to transition to relief work.  According to ERA+, Perkins (251) and Dumatrait (206) have been the only halfway-decent relievers in the 'pen;  FIP mostly agrees, though it thinks more of Slowey (3.93) and Matt Capps (4.34) than Dumatrait (4.98).  The relievers as a whole have compiled a -1.91 rWAR, which is on pace to become the worst mark in franchise history, though fWAR is a bit more optimistic, pegging them at -1.0.


So there you have it: the 2011 Twins may be the worst team in the American League, they might be the worst team in baseball, and, depending on how things shape up with the offense and the bullpen, they might actually be the worst team in franchise history.

16-33: We're Gettin' Nowhere Quick as We Know How

via Fangraphs

We got a 'pen full of them so-called friends: 

Alex Burnett, -.037 WPA:  Burnett relieved Scott Baker in the eighth inning.  He gave up a single to Peter Bourjos, then he walked Maicer Izturis.  He was yanked without retiring a single batter.

Dusty Hughes, -.146 WPA:  Hughes came in to relieve Burnett and promptly gave up a 3-run home run to Erick Aybar.  He was lifted after giving up a single to Bobby Abreu.  Keep in mind that there was still nobody out at this point.

Jim Hoey, -.555 WPA:  Hoey was then brought in to try to stop the bleeding, because if anyone can be trusted in high-leverage situations, it is Jim Hoey.  And stop the bleeding he did, but not before allowing two more runs on a single and a sac fly.  He also surrendered the winning run in the ninth, on a Peter Bourjos triple and a Maicer Izturis single. 

You know who should be demanding a trade right now?  Scott Baker.  Kid's allowed three runs or less in six of his ten starts, hasn't given up more than five runs in any start, and yet the Twins have managed to lose all but two of those games.  It has to be extremely demoralizing to do everything within your power to help your team win, only to see your efforts go up in smoke once the arsonists come in from the bullpen.

I am working on a post about the worst teams in franchise history.  Try to act surprised when I reveal who is on pace to be numero uno. 

What a Mess

I don't know what happened between Kevin Slowey and Ron Gardenhire.  I hadn't heard of any problems between the two, at least up until spring training, though there may have been all kinds of behind-the-scenes stuff going on that we aren't privy to.  Frankly, Slowey is the last person I would think the organization would ever have a problem with.  He's been hurt a lot but, at least as far as I know, he's a good guy who is well-liked in the clubhouse.  Maybe there is some sort of personality clash between the two, maybe Slowey feels disrespected about being relegated to the bullpen, maybe Gardy just hates smart people, maybe it's just frustration boiling over from a season gone horribly wrong, I don't know.  We only ever get one side of the story from the media, and call me crazy, but I don't think Gardy and the front office are the most objective sources of information in this case.  We do know what happens to players who rub Gardy the wrong way, though.  They go away:

Jason Bartlett and Matt Garza: traded to Tampa Bay for Delmon Young.  Garza didn't see eye-to-eye with the coaching staff, while Bartlett was apparently a little too error-prone for Gardy's liking, so the Twins and Rays decided to swap problems.  It is ironic that the Twins would dump Garza for the notoriously difficult-to-work-with Young, so this move probably had as much to do with Bill Smith's tendency to overvalue RsBI and undervalue up-the-middle-talent as Garza's clashes with the coaching staff.  Delmon and Gardy didn't exactly get a long at first either, but things seem to have cooled off as Del has matured and begun racking up ribbies. 

Kyle Lohse:  Things got so heated between Lohse and his manager that he took a baseball bat to the door of Gardy's office.  He was dealt to Cincinnatti for Zach Ward a year later. Lohse has been a decent third starter, but the Twins are loaded with third starters, so I don't think anyone really misses him.

Luis Ayala/Orlando Hudson:  Luis Ayala was released after complaining about his role as a middle reliever, while Hudson was allowed to walk because some unnamed members of the organization found his personality grating.  I can't say I blame the Twins in either case; Ayala couldn't be trusted in mop-up duty, let alone high-leverage situations, while Hudson is on the wrong side of 30 and his on-base skills have been declining for years. 

And so it goes with Slowey.  It makes me sad that things have turned out this way.  Slowey has long been one of my favorite pitchers, and it kills me to see his character being dragged through the mud while he's being run out of town.  Still, it's hard for me to defend him because, well, as a pitcher, he isn't really that good.  Injuries have kept him from pitching more than 160 innings since his debut in 2007; that isn't his fault, but even at his best, he isn't anything more than a mid-rotation starter. Compared to the rest of the rotation over the past five seasons, it's pretty hard to argue that he really deserves a starting spot over any of these guys:

The most successful managers in baseball are not successful because they have been given a boatload of future HOFers to work with, they are successful because they can get the most out of the talent they are given.  They have a sense of each player's strengths and weaknesses, and can find roles for each one to excel in.  Slowey, for whatever reason, clearly isn't a fit for the bullpen, but there just isn't room for him in the rotation right now, either.  I suspect this is probably why the front office hasn't exactly rushed to his defense; Slowey can't perform in the role where they need him the most, and so he is expendable.

Having said that, I think the front office really could have handled the situation a lot better.  It baffles me that an organization that is widely regarded as one of the classiest and most well-run in baseball would publicly criticize one if its better young pitchers.  Implying through the press that he is a malcontent who is faking injuries simply because he doesn't want to pitch out of the bullpen anymore isn't just horrible PR, but it can't be helping his trade value either.  And now that it turns out he is, in fact, hurt, that makes the front office look even worse.  Things have gotten so contentious that the Twins may have little choice but to trade Slowey; they won't get anything of value at this point, and they have nobody to blame for that but themselves.

15-30: Watch Out for Snakes!

image credit: graph- fangraphs, snake pic- flickr user Charles & Clint

At least the bullpen gave up fewer than six runs this time, so there's that.  Francisco Liriano wasn't exactly dominant, walking as many batters as he struck out, but he allowed just two runs on six hits over six innings.  He also collected a hit and helped his own case by driving in a run on a groundout to second, making him the second-most productive hitter in the lineup today.  Delmon Young finally hit a home run, briefly tying the game at two apiece, but, alas, his efforts were wasted.  The Dbacks eventually untied the game in the seventh, when Ben Revere played a Willie "effing" Bloomquist single into a triple and Ryan Roberts drove him in on a sac fly.  Of course he did.  I wish the Twins could commit five errors and still manage to win the game anyway, but, as we are aware, a one-run deficit is simply too great for this lineup to overcome.

And, because the Twins don't have enough players on the DL, Kevin Slowey is scheduled to have an MRI on a muscle strain above his stomach on Monday. There's no word yet on how much time Slowey is expected to miss, but a strained abdominal muscle does not sound good.  Of course an already-thin relief corps suffers yet another injury, of course it does.  Michael Cuddyer wasn't in the lineup today either, due to a strained neck.  Of course Cuddles gets hurt when he finally starts to heat up at the plate, of course he does.  The good news is that his ailment doesn't sound that serious, and, at least as of this writing, he isn't expected to miss more than a few days. 

You know what cheers me up when I am down?  Booze and lots of it They Might Be Giants.  So here you go, I leave you with one of the goofiest songs (and music videos) ever:

Some Say the End is Near

(it's Tool, so, language)


No, not for us. Judgment Day came and went with nary a whimper.  Apparently Armageddon has been postponed until next year, as it has been for, oh as long as people have been misinterpreting the Bible.  I am not a theologian; my knowledge of the Bible and the Christian tradition is limited to stuff I vaguely remember from Sunday school, so I am in no place to judge others' interpretation of scripture or understanding of what, if anything, God has in store for humankind.  I'm not a social scientist either, so I'm not qualified to speculate on why people keep believing the world is going to end on a specific date, even though it never does.

Well, okay, that isn't quite accurate: the world is going to end someday, though not necessarily the way the Bible says it will.  Someday the sun's core is going to collapse, causing a massive supernova that will take the Earth and everything within a few hundred million miles or so with it.  That probably isn't going to happen for another billion years, give or take a few million, so it's unlikely any of us will be around to see it. 

For the Twins, though, it is safe to say that the end is nigh.  Not only are they fourteen games below .500 and 13.5 out of first place, but they've lost one of their best relievers to the 15-day DL.  Glen Perkins left the game yesterday with a right oblique strain, an injury that tends to be of the nagging variety, so he won't be coming back anytime soon.  Perk has been a revelation out of the bullpen, with a 1.59 ERA, 2.16 FIP, and 22/9 K/BB ratio, and has provided some much-needed stability to a bullpen that is very much a work in progress.  Losing Perk is a huge blow, as the events of the past few games have shown, with the bullpen surrendering seventeen runs over 11 innings.  His replacement, Dusty Hughes, is nothing to write 1,000 words about, with a 10.13 ERA in 10.2 innings with the Twins, and 5.06 in 5.1 innings pitched with the Red Wings this year.

One has to wonder why the Twins haven't recalled Chuck James, who has a 1.90 ERA, 2.52 FIP, and 4.13 K/BB ratio over innings in AAA, especially now that two of the team's established LOOGYs are on the DL.  I think it's for a couple of reasons; first of all, James isn't on the 40-man roster, so the Twins would have to DFA someone else in order to clear space.  They aren't likely to do that during interleague play, especially with the bench being as short as it is.  Also, James has pitched well in the minors, but he's also 29 years old and hasn't made a major-league appearance since 2008, when he posted an ERA over 9.00 with the Braves.  He has certainly earned a shot to prove himself in the bigs, but I wouldn't be too optimistic about his chances of sticking once he gets there. 

It's a shame, too, because things were starting to look up for the hometown nine.  The offense is starting to come around, scoring 35 runs over the past seven games, and is no longer the worst-hitting starting lineup in the majors.  The starting pitching was starting to settle in to a groove as well, Brian Duensing excepted.  There is some help on the way, with Jim Thome, Joe Mauer, and Tsuyoshi Nishioka getting closer to re-joining the team, but they won't do much to bolster the leaky bullpen.  I hate to write off a team before June, but with so many injuries and without much help available in Rochester, it's unlikely they will be gaining any ground in the division anytime soon.  Here's hoping they can get something of value for Jason Kubel or Jim Thome or, God forbid, Scott Baker, at the trade deadline. 

These Are the Times That Try Twins Fans' Souls

via Fangraphs

 Jose Bautista - 11, Twins - 3

The summer soldier Vikings fan looking for something to do during the off-season and the sunshine fan will, in this crisis, shrink from the overall suckage of this baseball team; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman when Kyle Gibson and Miguel Sano lead the Twins to the 2014 World Series.   "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly" -- you know, we've been awfully spoiled here in Twins territory the past ten years or so.  The Twins haven't won many playoff games, but at least they've made it six of the past ten years, and they've finished with a losing record just once, in 2007.  That team, with Johan Santana and Torii Hunter, underperformed according to its talent level and still wasn't half-bad, missing the .500 mark by just three games.  We haven't seen what a truly awful team looks like since 2000, when the Twins finished with the worst record in baseball and snagged the top pick in the 2001 draft.  Which is why I found it so irritating when people would harp on last year's 94-win team whenever they would lose a game, howling that this was the worst. team. ever.  These people had obviously never seen a Twins game before 2001. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  given how bare the upper levels of the farm system are in terms of elite prospects, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for the Twins to finish with the worst record in baseball this year.  And this probably will be the worst season for the Twins in a long time.  They've been hurt by injuries to key players and a lack of depth, but they've got a lot of money coming off the books after this year, so there's no reason why they can't add an infielder and a bullpen arm or two in the offseason.  The Twins are better set for the future in terms of young talent than both the Tigers and the White Sox, and they've got a distinct advantage in payroll over the Indians and the Royals.  I don't see a mid-90s-esque string of 90+ loss seasons in the near future; heck, once Mauer and Nishioka come off the DL, I'm not even sure this team will lose 90 games.

A Game of Inches

Graph:  fangraphs, implosion pic:  flickr user fdecomite

Just think, if Justin Morneau's double off of Jon Rauch in the bottom of the ninth were just a few inches higher, if Denard Span could've ranged a few more steps to the right, we would be talking about a thoroughly satisfying Twins' win instead of their seventh straight loss.  The 2011 Twins have been bad for sure, they rank dead last in the American League in almost every offensive and pitching stat, but they haven't gotten many breaks, either. 

I know I am in the minority, but I don't blame the bullpen for this loss.  Oh sure, they certainly didn't pitch well, giving up six runs in 2/3 of an inning, but this game wouldn't have gone into extras if the offense hadn't left a billion men on base.   Nick Blackburn was brilliant, striking out eight batters, scattering five hits and allowing three runs over 7.2 innings.  The offense, on the other hand, was not,  collecting 13 hits off of the Jays, but scoring just three runs.  Justin Morneau hit a one out double in the ninth and was lifted for pinch runner Alexi Casilla; it would have taken just a bloop single to score the winning run.  Instead, Delmon Young struck out on four pitches, and Michael Cuddyer flew out on one pitch (it's tough to pick on Cuddles too much, though, since he hit a solo home run in the sixth that put the Twins ahead, and he did collect three hits).  I think we all knew how this story was going to end. 

Jim Hoey and Jose Mijares have to be among the most hated men in Minnesota, and I think that's a little  unfair.  Mijares, in particular, has been a solid lefty for the Twins, with a career 2.79 ERA, 3.91 FIP, and 2.21 K/BB ratio.  He hasn't been great this season, with a career-worst 5.40 K/9 and an 8.49 BB/9, but he may have been trying to pitch through an injury.  Hoey has struggled to throw strikes, walking 4.32 batters per nine innings and throwing just 45.5% first-pitch strikes, but he's also got a 10.2% whiff rate.  That hasn't translated into a ton of strikeouts thus far, just six in 8.1 innings pitched, but he has a career 10.3 K/9 rate in the minors, so I think the strikeouts will come eventually.  Like the 2011 Twins in general, Hoey hasn't been great, but he's also been a little unlucky:  his 17.6% HR/FB rate isn't sustainable and should regress toward his 9.8% career average, and his inflated .386 batting average on balls in play and 18.2% infield hit rate suggest that he's been bit by an atrocious defense behind him.  I do think Hoey could make a serviceable power arm if he could learn to throw strikes; then again, if he hasn't learned to throw strikes by now, at 28 years old and with four minor league seasons under his belt, he probably isn't going to. 

What a Crappy Day

I'm not talking about the game last night, either.  I am not superstitious, so I don't believe in this Friday-the-13th mumbo jumbo, but what an ugly set of coincidences. The Minnesota sports scene was hit hard with some terrible news about two of its favorite players, and the nicest people to ever walk the planet:  Harmon Killebrew and Derek Boogaard.  Killebrew, as you know, has been battling esophogeal cancer.  Sadly, that battle is about to come to an end.  The 74 year-old Twins legend announced that his "illness has progressed beyond my doctors' expectation of cure", and he will be entering a hospice to live out the rest of his days.  Cancer is a rat bastard, and losing a loved one is never easy, so my heart goes out to the Killebrew family.

And the Boogaard family, as well. According to Michael Russo of the Star Tribune, Boogaard was found dead in his Minneapolis apartment yesterday.  He was only 28.  Boogaard was a long-time Wild enforcer and fan favorite, and whatever you think of him as a player, he had a reputation as being one of the nicest people alive off of the ice. There have been plenty of tributes to the Boogey Man already, but I think Russo, who covered the enforcer during his entire five-year stint with the Wild, perfectly captured why everybody, family, friends, fans, and teammates, loved the big guy so much.

My favorite Boogey moment?  Gosh it's so hard to decide.  Maybe it was when he turned Todd Fedoruk's face into pulp:



Or maybe it was the time he flattened Rene Borque:



Or maybe it was the ever scored in his career, I meant the third goal he ever scored in his career, it was his second in five seasons:



Yeah, I think that's it. 

The medical examiner is supposed to conduct an autopsy later today, so no details about the cause of death have been released yet.  This is not Bleacher Report, so I'm not going to speculate about it, either.  Obviously, this post will be updated when we know more.

12-20: Obviously the Twins Hate Mothers

via Fangraphs

My mom is OK with that; she doesn't like them either.  She hates baseball, and all sports in general for that matter, so I had to spend the day doing something other than watching the Twins lose. We took my Grandma* out to brunch, then we spent the rest of the afternoon over at her house, drinking wine** and shooting the bull.  It was nice, which is more than can be said about this game.

*Grandma also hates baseball, though she likes football and worries that she will die before her beloved Vikings ever win a Super Bowl.  She might be right; I will probably die before the Vikings ever win a Super Bowl.


**Not to worry, my dad was the designated driver

I don't know what to say about Carl Pavano, other than the obvious:  he has not been very good this year.  This is the fourth time in seven starts that he's failed to pitch more than six innings, and the fourth in which he's allowed more than five runs.  Sure, he's been a little unlucky, with a 4.39 FIP, 4,72 xFIP, and 3.93 tERA, compared to his 5.84 ERA.  He's also had some trouble with stranding baserunners, leaving just 53.9% on base compared to the league average of 72.5%, and ordinarily I would expect that rate to normalize as the season progresses. However, there are some reasons to be legitimately concerned about Pavsmash.  He isn't missing many bats, and he's seen a stark decline in his GB/FB rate, to 1.04 from his career 1.36.  Pavano's 4.16 K/9 rate is low even by his standards, and his overall whiff rate is just 6.8% (the league average is 8.4%).  Hitters aren't chasing pitches outside the strike zone, and coupled with an awful infield defense behind him, Pavano has been getting hit pretty hard.  I'm tempted to say that he's just been unlucky and that he will experience some regression eventually, but unless he starts inducing more empty swings, I'm not so sure about that.

12-19: It Can't Rain All the Time

via Fangraphs

Clay Buchholz had an ERA of 4.81 coming in to today's game, and though he may be one of the more overrated pitchers in the American League, he is certainly better than that, and at least for today he certainly looked like it.  The Twins' AAA lineup was simply no match for the other Buchholz, who was filthy.  A two-hour rain delay after the second inning proved a minor inconvenience for the young righty, who allowed a pair of hits and a walk, while racking up six strikeouts over five innings.  Brian Duensing didn't fare quite so well, surrendering one run on three hits, though his night was done once the tarp went on the field. 

Kevin Slowey wasn't exactly sharp in his first appearance since coming off the DL, but he did a pretty OK job, allowing one run on six hits, with a walk and a strikeout over 4.1 innings.  Jason Kubel struck out four times.  Sometimes it just isn't your day.  Michael Cuddyer was the only Twin to collect more than one hit in the game, with two, while Justin Morneau was the only other Twin to even get one hit.  Alex Burnett gave up a couple more runs in the eighth, but it didn't really matter, as the offense had already decided to forfeit the game at that point. 

Oh yeah, I guess Justin Verlander pitched a pretty good game or something, too.

12-18: Streaking Towards Respectability

via Fangraphs

What's almost as good as no-hitting the White Sox at the Cell, sweeping the White Sox in Sheee-cago, beating the White Sox in general, and one of those once-a-decade wins against the Yankees? Thumping the Red Sox in Boston, of course.  Yes, that's right; the same Twins team that got pounded by the Royals not two weeks ago outscored the Crimson Hosers 9-2 at Fenway Park.  Of course, the Red Sox, who are currently in last place in the AL East by half a game, have had problems of their own this season, but whatever.  A win is a win, whether it comes against a team that is underachieving or overachieving relative to its true talent level, and wins have been kind of scarce for the Twins lately. They have now won three games in a row for the second time this season.  This is also the second time they've scored more than five runs in a game.  Huh.  Well, with Clay Buchholz and Daisuke Matsuzaka starting the next two games in this series, the Twins may be able to extend their winning streak to a season-high five games. Or, they could lose tomorrow and start a new winning streak on Sunday.  Or they could win tomorrow, and then drop the next two games.  Or they could win tomorrow, lose Sunday, then somehow beat Jon Lester on Monday.  Those are all possible outcomes.

• The umpiring was, as you would expect of a crew featuring Joe West and Angel Hernandez, horrible.  I do kind of feel bad for Red Sox fans, because the balk call against Tim Wakefield was one of the worst I've ever seen.  And then Country Joe West was, well,  I don't know why he was touching Terry Francona, and I'm not going to speculate.  I imagine Red Sox fans are furious, and they should be.  The bad calls weren't what cost the Sawx the game, though; that would be the sudden case of the fumbly-bumblies that appears to have infected the infield.

• Many things have gone wrong for the Twins so far this season; Scott Baker is not one of those things, and tonight was certainly no exception.  He scattered seven hits over eight innings, striking out eight, walking one, and allowing a pair of solo homers.  On the season, he's got a very good 3.16 ERA, 4.01 FIP, and 2.89 K/BB ratio over 31.1 innings pitched.  And to think this guy was battling Kevin Slowey for the fifth spot in the starting rotation during spring training!  Timothy Scott has given up a few home runs, but he does that, and as long as his HR/FB ratio remains close to his 9.4% career norm, it isn't something to lose sleep over. 

• Trevor Plouffe was recalled from Rochester to replace the slumping Alexi Casilla, and he homered off of Tim Wakefield in his very first at-bat.  With a .255/.317/.396/.713 line in eight minor league seasons, it's unlikely Plouffe will figure into the team's long-term plans.  For right now, though, he just needs to be better than Casilla, who makes me pine for the replacement-levelness of Luis Rivas. 
  

.GIF-tastic Goodness: Liriano's no-no

I have never made a .gif before, but a no-hitter seemed like a good reason to waste an afternoon learning how to make one.  Here's Adam Dunn making the final out:

created using the animated gifs maker at MakeAGif

I am also planning to make a longer one that includes F-bomb's teammates mobbing him on the mound afterwards, and perhaps the blown call that preserved the no-no, just for the schadenfreudey fun of it.

UPDATE:   MLB.com now lets you embed video. I thought that would be better than making any more .gifs. Here are the highlights from that game, including the final out and the Beckham call:

Now That is How You Snap a Six Game Losing Streak

via Fangraphs

This has to be the unlikeliest no-hitter I have ever seen.  Francisco Liriano wasn't sharp at all, walking six batters while striking out just two.  He struggled with his command all night, throwing about half of his 123 pitches for strikes.  And yet the Sox couldn't manage to make solid contact on anything, grounding into three double plays and hitting seven balls out of the infield. 

Frankie's feat seems even more impressive when you consider that the Twins have been simply awful on defense up to this point.  The outfield has actually been pretty good, but the infield stinks according to most advanced metrics, though the numbers should probably be taken with a grain of salt given the teeny tiny sample sizes involved.  Of course, you don't have to be a fan of advanced metrics to be annoyed at all of the soft grounders bleeding into the outfield for hits, the botched rundowns and pickoff attempts, and the general poor positioning around the infield.  It is a miracle that none of the Sox's fly balls fell in for a hit, and none of their grounders managed to skip past an infielder. 

Francisco Liriano threw a no-hitter in Chicago tonight, and it may not even be enough to save his job.  According to Joe Christensen of the Star Tribune, Kevin Slowey is scheduled to come off the disabled list this weekend, and he's been pretty impressive pitching out of the bullpen thus far: a 2.45 ERA, 1.33 FIP, and 3.00 K/BB ratio in three appearances.   Liriano may have bought himself a little more time to figure things out, but unless he can cut down his walks and start missing more bats, it's unlikely he'll still be in the rotation by Memorial Day.

The Twins have recorded  five official no-hitters since moving to Minnesota*, and here's how F-bomb's performance stacks up in terms of game score (if you don't know what game score is, you can read about it here). 

Eric Milton, 09/11/1999:  98
Jack Kralick, 08/26/1962:  89
Scott Erickson, 04/27/1994: 88
Dean Chance, 08/25/1967:  86  This is the only no-no on the list that wasn't a shut out.  Chance walked the first two batters he faced, then gave up an earned run on a wild pitch. 
Francisco Liriano, 05/03/2011: 83

*This is the Twins' third no-hitter in my lifetime; now they need to get to work on that third World Series title. 

Frankly, I don't care if this is one of the least impressive no-hitters in franchise history.  I don't care if it's the worst no-hitter in baseball history.  The Twins lost six games in a row coming into this series against the Pale Hosers, and they had the worst record in all of baseball.  This team had been nothing short of unwatchable, up until this point.  It wasn't pretty, but tonight they gave us something very much worth cheering for.  We may not have many of these moments the rest of the season. 

9-18: A Sweep of the Bad Kind

WPA graph courtesy Fangraphs.  Click to embiggen.

Congratulations, Minnesota Twins.  You are now the proud owners of the worst record in baseball.  Is it bad that I am kind of hoping you continue to suck all season long so that you can get the number one pick in the draft next year?  I have no idea who will be available, or how deep the draft will be, or anything like that, but I noticed that you guys could really use an infielder.

On a side note, I am going to start a Facebook page for this blog sometime in the next few weeks.  The semester will be over pretty soon, so I'll have a lot more free time to do stuff like that.  I loved Twitter, and I miss it a lot, but it got to be too much for me to keep up with during a tough semester.   Now that I am hopelessly bogged down with both work and school, I don't think that is going to change anytime soon.  A Facebook page, however, should be much easier to manage.  I have long opposed having a personal Facebook page; besides the obvious security concerns, I am a deeply private person who has little interest in broadcasting my personal bidness all over teh interwebz, but a page for the site is a different animal entirely.  The Twins have, without question, the greatest community of bloggers on the planet, and I miss being part of that.  Especially since this season has been kind of rough. 

Fun With Google Search

Every so often, I like to check Google's search queries just to see what brings people to my little corner of the internets.  Frankly, I'm surprised I get any hits at all anymore, given how badly I've neglected this poor blog over the past year, but nevertheless, people looking for stuff on David Ortiz, Chuck Knoblauch, Rick Aguilera, Scott Stahoviak, A. J. Pierzynski, plunking, or some combination of these things, occasionally come here. Until now, I haven't bothered to write a post about my findings, since I haven't come up with anything unusual.  Even the more, um, interesting queries at least make some sense.  I've written quite a bit about Eric Milton and Cristian Guzman over the years, so it's not surprising that "milton twins", "milton twins kissing", and "guzman twins" would come up, though I am sure the few people who actually clicked through were horribly disappointed.  Sorry folks, this is a boring baseball blog, not a sexy funtime blog, unless you think WAR graphs are hot.  Also, queries involving The Simpsons come up fairly frequently, which isn't terribly shocking considering how much I steal from use references (and, before Google started to crack down on the use of copyrighted material, images) from 20-year-old episodes in a sad attempt at being funny. 

There were, however, some real doozies this time:

• "Vancouver sucks":  Okay, this one isn't a great mystery, given my very public disdain for all things Canucks.  It just warms my heart that this is in the top ten.   On a related note, how 'bout that Pekka Rinne, eh?

• "I hate the Red Sox":   I don't know who these people are, or why hating the Red Sox would bring them to this blog, but I like them.  I like them a lot.  You too, "I hate the Packers" people.  Oddly enough, I get a few hits for "Yankees" and "imagenes de Yankees", but none for "I hate the Yankees".  I think I've made my feelings pretty clear on that subject.

• бастер симкус:  Google translate sez this is Russian for "Baster Simkus".  It turns out that Buster Simcus, the 610 lb. man, was a regular feature in the Weekly World News, a supermarket über-tabloid back in the day.  Why this would link to my posts on Corey Koskie's attempt at a comeback; whether Koskie was the greatest Twin of the decade; the 2002 Twins; and the 2010 AL Cy Young candidates; I will never know.   

• "Anme sex":  I, uh, I think this is supposed to be "Anime sex".  I have no idea why this blog would come up in a search for Japanese cartoon porn, or any kind of porn, for that matter; maybe it's because every other post has been about "Twins" and "sucking" lately.   

9-17: Hey, Look, Playoff Hockey is On

Brian Duensing should kick the following people square in the balls:

Joe Nathan:  -0.009 WPA.   Twitchy was awful.  A leadoff double to Billy Butler, an intentional walk and a hit batter later, Nathan's night was done.  He left the game with runners on the corners and two outs. 

Jose Mijares: -0.057 WPA.  Mijares faced just one batter, Chris Getz, and gave up an RBI single.  

Jim Hoey: -0.068 WPA.  Hoey came in with the bases loaded and two outs in the eighth, and walked the first batter he faced.  The Royals scored another run on a fielding error by Justin Morneau.  Hoey then gave up a three-run homer to Alex Gordon.  Then Jarrod Dyson singled.  Then he scored when Jeff ".317 career wOBA" Francoeur hit a double.  And this was all with two outs. 

Rene Tosoni: -0.083 WPA.  Not only did Tosoni go 0-for-4 with a strikeout, but he played a single off the bat of Chris Getz into a triple.  Getz later scored on a sacrifice fly, giving the Royals a 3-2 lead in the seventh inning. 

The entire lineup:  -a billion WPA.  Sean O'Sullivan issued walks in six innings, but the Twins managed to scratch across just two runs on a couple of hits.  Ugh. 

The Dunce scattered eight hits over seven innings, allowing three runs while striking out six and walking two.  And yet he's the loser in this game. 

There isn't much else to say about this team.  They are playing like crap right now, and there are no easy answers to the multitude of problems plaguing them.  I've got a corporate tax return to do for my tax accounting class, and I've got another project for my finance class that involves calculating the weighted average cost of capital for a publicly traded company.  Both of those things are way more exciting, and way less murderous-rage inducing, than watching the Twins right now. 

On the bright side:  perhaps all of this losing will drive the fair-weather fans away in droves.  Maybe, just maybe,  1) there will finally be tickets available at Target Field and 2) I can actually afford to purchase them.