Late night: Twins 4, Angels 3

Ryan Doumit breaks up a double play that would have
ended the second inning without a run. The Twins
wound up scoring twice in the frame.

Box score here

Game story here

On his pregame radio show Monday, Ron Gardenhire twice described Angels starter Joe Blanton as "a contact guy." This was in explaining why minor-league veteran Doug Bernier was in the lineup instead of Jamey Carroll.

Joe Blanton is having a lousy year, and it didn't get any better Monday; the Twins knocked him out in the fourth inning and drove his ERA up to 5.66.

But Blanton entered the game with 93 strikeouts in 112.1 innings, a K/9 rate of 7.5, just 0.1 off the league average. (None of the nine men who have started games for the Twins this season  is above 5.1 K/9.)

I have to admit, I'm baffled by how horrible Blanton's season has been. He has a league average strikeout rate; he has a very low walk rate. On Monday, he walked two in 3.6 innings, but one of those was intentional, and he struck out four. He has 3.35 strikeouts for each walk on the season, and it's almost impossible to have that good a ratio and still have bad results.

But Blanton is doing just that. One problem, obviously, is the long ball -- Blanton served up his 24th gopher ball Monday night. Another, if Monday night is any indication, is the sloppy defense behind him. The play shown in the photo above, for example; if the Angels had turned that double play, Blanton gets out of the inning unscathed. Instead, the inning was extended, and the Twins scored twice.

Winter meetings, Day 3

Joe Blanton finished 2012 with the Dodgers, for whom
he made 10 starts and pitched 57 innings.

The Twins lost out on one of their reputed free-agent targets Wednesday. As that target was Joe Blanton, that was winning by losing; Blanton hasn't had an ERA below 4.00 or topped 200 innings since 2007. His ERA the last three years were 4.71, 5.01 and 4.82.

He's not close to the Diamond Standard.

Brandon McCarthy missed
much of September after
suffering a fractured skull when
hit by a line drive. His recovery
is said to have gone well.

And Anaheim signed him for two years, $15 million.

Blanton does have a track record of making 30 starts a year, and his strikeout rates have improved with age, but on the whole I'm not impressed. He's a back of the rotation guy, and the Twins have plenty of cheaper options there. I'm glad the Twins missed out on him.

I might as well put this on the record: Of the free agent pitchers linked to the Twins, the three who interest me most are, in order, Brandon McCarthy, John Lannan and Shawn Marcum.

All three are flawed, of course; if they weren't flawed, they probably wouldn't be available. McCarthy and Marcum, both right-handed, are health risks; the left-handed Lannan has poor strikeout and walk numbers. But McCarthy and Marcum, if they can take the mound, pitch well, and Lannan is a true ground ball machine. I have no issue with slotting the two righties ahead of Diamond, and Lannon isn't far off Diamond.

---

Coming this morning is the Rule V draft. The Twins have the fourth pick, and they have four open roster spaces still, so we can expect some activity from them.

I anticipate that they'll select a pitcher. If they instead pick an outfielder, that will suggest that a trade of either Justin Morneau or Ben Revere is in the works; whispers out of Nashville this week had the Twins gauging the market for both.