Small sample size theater

"Small sample size theater." That's a phrase I heard Monday afternoon on MLB Network in discussing Shohei Ohtani. I like it, amd I'm stealing it.

Scene I

A regular reader of these posts dislikes the Twins decision to play Eduardo Escobar at shortstop during the suspension of Jorge Polanco. Shortstop, he opines, should prioritze defense, and Escobar is not as good with the the glove as Ehire Adrianza.

I agree with the second point, but think the first is something of a sliding scale. You can sacrifice some defense at any position to get more offense. (See the second half career of Jeter, Derek.)

And then there's this:

Which defenses are doing the best job of turning ground balls & bunts into outs?

1. Indians 84%
2. Twins 78%
3. Mets 78%
4. Giants 77%
5. Rockies 77%

Worst
30. Rangers 69%
29. Yankees 70%
28 Pirates 70%
27. Marlins 70%
26 Tigers 70%

— Sports Info Solutions (@SportsInfo_SIS) April 16, 2018

Small sample size theater, yes. But so far, Escobar isn't killing the Twins infield defense.

Scene II

I watched Justin Verlander and Bartolo Colon duel on "Sunday Night Baseball" the other night. Wow. Verlander allowed one hit -- a homer -- in seven innings, and Colon threw seven PERFECT innings before cracking in the eighth. 

The game went 10 innings, and the Texas Rangers eventually won, 3-1 in 10, so neither starter got a decision. (I thought this during the recent Astros-Twins series and tweeted it Sunday night: If the Astros have a weakness, it's their bullpen.)

Colon, who finished 2017 filling out the Twins rotation, has started twice and relieved twice for the Rangers this year. He has a 1.45 ERA in 18.2 innings. Still throwing almost nothing but fastballs, still surviving on location.

Scene III

The Twins have played 11 games so far this season, the fewest in the majors, and will have another off day Thursday after the Puerto Rico series. They're going to pay, eventually, for such sporadic play.

Notes, quotes and comment

Gonna interrupt the stream of "Handbook" posts for a few days and catch up on the news.

Awards season

Nothing on the National League side to comment on: Everything is as it should be. Kris Bryant won the MVP as expected; Max Scherzer was certainly deserving of the Cy Young;  Corey Seager merited designation as the Rookie of the Year; and Dave Roberts works as Manager of the Year.

On the AL side, the voters acknowledged the obvious in ROY (Michael Fulmer) and Manager (Terry Francona). But the other two awards deserve some comment, in one case because of old-school voting and in the other for new-school voting.

Mike Trout -- clearly the best player in baseball the past five years --  won his second MVP. I expected it to go to Mookie Betts, who obviously had a superb season and played on a team that won. The writers, this time, gave it to the best player even though it wasn't anything resembling a career year for him and even though his team was far from contention. And even though a wide range of September game broadcasts, when discussing the MVP possibilities, excluded Trout from the possibilities.

Trout in the past five seasons has finished second, second, first, second and first in MVP voting. He could easily have won all five seasons; the competing metrics that attempt to merge fielding and hitting into one figure often disagree, but they all agree each year that Trout is the best player in the American League.

The Cy Young voting was interesting, not least because of the Tweet storm it provoked from model Kate Upton, who is romantically involved with runner-up Justin Verlander. Rick Porcello won, even though Verlander had more first-place votes (14 to 8).

Had I a vote, I probably would have put Verlander at the top, but I also would have researched the question more thoroughly. A quick glance at Porcello's numbers suggest a stronger statistical case than I realized when the award was announced Wednesday. He's not an embarrassment as the winner.

But the biggest piece for Porcello was probably the gaudy won-lost record (22-4). Verlander was "only" 16-9. Perhaps most telling were the voters who ranked J.A. Happ (20-4) ahead of Verlander -- or, in the case of the two Tampa Bay-chapter voters who provoked Upton's ire, left Verlander off their ballots completely but found room for Happ. The only thing Happ had going for him was the won-lost record.

Old-school voting prevailed in the Cy Young contest, new age in the MVP.

Gardy in a dugout

Arizona hired Ron Gardenhire, not as manager but as bench coach. So he will presumably be advising new skipper Torey Lovello -- supposedly the runner-up to Paul Molitor when the Twins were replacing Gardy -- on when to bunt or change pitchers.

I've been skeptical that Gardenhire would get another managerial post. Taking a bench job at least puts him back in the game.

Korn Ferry fired

The search firm the Twins used to find Derek Falvey as director of baseball ops got axed by MLB this week because it was basically going to the same well (the Cleveland organization) over and over again to find candidates.

There does seem to have been a lack of diversity, not only racially but in background, of the people Korn Ferry promoted to teams for important front office positions. But I also suspect that owners wanted the kind of people Korn Ferry provided -- young, analytic, educated. That's certainly what I expected the Twins to demand, because it's what was lacking in the previous leadership model.

The search that produced Falvey was one of the last Korn Ferry did, and it may be that it was the last straw. But Falvey seems to be what the Twins bosses wanted.

The aces are falling

Adam Wainwright shut down the Pirates to clinch the
Division series for St. Louis, but he couldn't beat the
Dodgers in Game Three of the NLCS.

Aces ruled in the four Division Series. In the two League Championship Series, not so much.

There have been nine games played so far (five in the NLCS, four in the ALCS), which means there have been 18 starts. Six of those starts have been made by pitchers who have won Cy Young Awards (Zach Greinke, Clayton Kershaw, Jake Peavy, Justin Verlander) or who are about to (Max Scherzer). Peavy, whose Cy dates to 2007, isn't what he once was, but even if we leave him out there's Adam Wainwright, who hasn't won the award but has had three seasons in which he could have. None of those starts have been against each other.

Greinke, Kershaw, Scherzer, Verlander, Wainwright. An impressive set of pitchers there. And their teams have gone 1-5 in their starts. The Dodgers got a win out of Greinke's start Wednesday. If you want to include Peavy, the teams are 1-6 with the big gun arms. If you want to include Jon Lester, the best of the Red Sox rotation — a fine pitcher but not quite on the level of the five names who led this paragraph — the teams are 1-7.

It isn't that the aces have pitched poorly. Verlander and Scherzer allowed just one run each, but the Tigers got shut out in Verlander's start and their bullpen imploded in Scherzer's. Kershaw (one run allowed) and Wainwright (two runs) were shut out in their starts, as was Lester (one run).

It's just been two series dominated not by the established aces but by the lesser names. Greinke got the win in his second time around; we'll see if that holds for the other stars as they begin to repeat the rotation cycle.

The kids and the aces

Justin Verlander won't get any Cy Young votes
this year (teammate Max Scherzer will win),
but he's still the better pitcher.

TBS' announcing crews said several profoundly inane things over the course of the 21 games since the end of the regular season schedule, but I doubt any were as silly as Buck Martinez' assertion Thursday night that the "Moneyball" A's — Tim Hudson, Barry Zito and Mark Mulder — lacked a starting pitcher as good as Sonny Gray.

Gray is impressive, yes. But with 64 major league innings under his belt entering the playoffs, he has hardly established himself on a par with the A's Big Three of a decade ago. Zito went 102-63, 3.55 with a Cy Young in seven seasons with the A's and he was probably the least talented of the trio. (Mulder was 81-41, 3.92 in five seasons; Hudson 92-39, 3.30 in six seasons.)

The A's were not alone in this year's division series in placing an elimination game in the hands of a rookie with less than 70 innings in the majors. The Pirates, as did the A's, moved their Game Two rookie up ahead of their Game One veteran for Game Five; for Pittsburgh, it was Garrett Cole over A.J. Burnett, for Oakland it was Gray over Bartolo Colon. St. Louis deployed Michael Wacha in a must-have Game Four.

Wacha won his start; Cole and Gray lost theirs, but hardly embarrassed themselves in the process. They pitched well, but ran into legitimate, top-of-the-line aces in Adam Wainwright and Justin Verlander on the other side.

Earlier in the week, as I contemplated the notion of the Twins making a bid this offseason for Tampa Bay's top gun, David Price (this is likely to be the subject of Monday's print column), I spitballed a "top four-man rotation." Pick any four major league starters, money no concern, for your team. Who do you want?

My four — more or less off the top of my head — was (alphabetically): Felix Hernandez, Clayton Kershaw, Verlander and Wainwright. My four (and yours can be quite different without being provably wrong) have both an established multi-year level of top-grade performance and the likelihood of something left in the tank.

I don't think it's a coincidence that three of the surviving teams pitched one of those guys to clinch their division series: Kershaw, Wainwright, Verlander all got the call, and they surrendered a total of one earned run in 23 innings in their three games.

That's trump ace pitching.

Notes from a frigid opener

It was a mighty cold day to pitch
in short sleeves, but that's what
Vance Worley did Monday.

One incentive for me to go ahead with my plans to attend Monday's Twins opener despite the weather was the opportunity to add Justin Verlander to the list of great pitchers I've seen in person.

Verlander is great, but this was not one of his great days. Maybe it was the cold, maybe it was just one of those days, but he didn't have his usual velocity (the highest reading I saw on the stadium signs was 93), and a man known for working deep into games and running up some of the highest pitch counts in baseball was pulled after five innings and 91 pitches.

Five shutout innings with seven strikeouts -- that's pretty impressive for someone who wasn't on his game. Verlander will have better ones.

For his part, Twins starter Vance Worley was pretty impressive for someone who gave up three runs in the first two innings.

Worley worked deeper into the game than Verlander (six innings, 101 pitches) and he threw a higher percentage of strikes (59.3 percent strikes for Verlander, 68.3 percent for Worley).

But the Twins left more plays unmade behind their starter than the Tigers did for Verlander.

In the first inning, for example, Worley got Miguel Cabrera to hit a slow grounder to shortstop with men on the corners, but the Twins couldn't turn the double play. That left Cabrera on to score later in the inning.

In the fourth inning, Worley himself was unable to handle the relay on what should have been an inning-ending 3-6-1 double play. That, plus a clear error by shortstop Pedro Florimon, turned what should have been a quick, 15-pitch inning into a 28-pitch one.

Then there was the blunder made by Trevor Plouffe in the third. Torii Hunter had led off with a double to right (a single that Chris Parmelee turned into a double by not fielding it cleanly). Cabrera followed with a grounder to the hole that Plouffe dove for but had no chance of reaching. Florimon made the play, getting Cabrera at first, but Hunter, seeing Plouffe on the ground, took third without a play. That didn't cost the Twins a run — Worley got Prince Fielder and Victor Martinez to ground out harmlessly — but it could have.

The Tigers didn't play perfectly for Verlander. Cabrera bobbled a Joe Mauer grounder for an error in the first inning. But that was really the only play the Tigers didn't make that they should have, and the Twins didn't play nearly as clean a game.

Verlander and Posey: Two really big deals

Friday was a big day for Justin Verlander — he got a new
mega contract, and he got to play with a real tiger.

Opening Day serves as an unofficial deadline for contract negotiations, with players generally opining that once the season starts they don't want to be "distracted" by such issues. (My bosses are permitted to distract me all they want with multi-million dollar offers, but they apparently don't want to be distracted by such nonsense.)

Friday saw the completion of two significant contract extensions: Justin Verlander for five years, $180 million — a deal that, tacked onto his current contract, ties him to the Detroit Tigers through at least 2019 —and Buster Posey for eight years, $167 million, the second richest contract ever for a catcher (behind, of course, Joe Mauer's deal with the Twins).

The Verlander contract comes a day after the news about Johan Santana's possibly career-ending injury, and the parallels are fairly obvious. Santana signed his big contract with the Mets just before turning 29; it came after four seasons in which he never failed to pitch at least 219 innings, led the league three times in strikeouts and had staked a claim to the title of "best pitcher in baseball." Verlander is 30, and he is coming off four seasons of at least 224 innings with three strikeout crowns and his own claim to the title of "best pitcher in baseball."

Santana was only able to give the Mets one year near the level of productivity and durability he had displayed with the Twins before he started breaking down. That doesn't mean Verlander's about to decline in the same manner; Verlander is bigger than Santana, he's racked up many games with higher pitch counts than the Twins ever let Santana throw,  and he's already at the age at which Santana's stuff began to deteriorate.

Buster Posey has qualified
for a batting title just
once in his career.

The Mets probably wish they hadn't granted Santana his contract. It may be that the Tigers will eventually regret Verlander's contract. Or maybe he is truly the rare arm that can sustain that kind of workload over such a lengthy period.

Posey, like Mauer when he got his contract, is coming off an MVP season that included a batting title — a rare achievement for a catcher. Also like Mauer, there is chatter about the Giants shifting Posey to a less injury-prone position.  (As with Mauer, Posey has missed most of a season because of an injury sustained while catching.)

Posey's contract will tie him to the Giants through his age 35 season. That's an advanced age for a high-offense catcher — a danger that, of course, applies to the Mauer contract as well.

Part of what makes Posey and Mauer worthy of their pay is that they produce as well as they do while playing catcher. They wouldn't be as valuable if they were outfielders or first basemen. It's a dilemma, because heavy playing time at catcher generally shortens careers.

The Giants were willing — indeed, given that Posey was three years away from free agency, we could say the Giants were eager — to take that risk.

Outrages I'm having trouble being overly outraged about

Jose Reyes is one-and-done in
Miami.

Outrage 1: The Miami Marlins turned themselves into fish sticks with a major salary-dump trade with Toronto (it's still not official, pending physicals and probably some salary review by the commissioner's office). Mark Buehrle, Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, John Buck ... they signed last winter for big coin with the the Fish, and now they're gone.

In a pure baseball sense, it's probably a good trade for Miami. It's not like they broke up a good team. The Marlins finished last with those high-priced guys. They can finish last without them.

The real reason this deal draws universal derision when the Red Sox got a pass for doing the same thing in midsummer is that Jeffrey Loria and his co-conspirators in the Miami organization have poisoned the well. They don't get the benefit of the doubt, because they burned that long ago.

I believe that Loria and Co. are slimeballs and represent the worst of big-time pro sports ownership. I also believe that they are systematically wrecking Miami as a baseball market, just as they did Montreal.

I can despise Loria and everything he stands for without trashing this trade.

Miguel Cabrera wasn't the worst defensive
third baseman in the league -- hello, Trevor
Plouffe -- but he was close.

Outrage 2: Miguel Cabrera won the American League MVP award Thursday in a one-sided vote over Mike Trout.

Miggy had a big year, but he wasn't better than Trout, Triple Crown or no. Trout wasn't far behind Cabrera as a hitter, and was far superior in the field and on the bases. Yes, Cabrera's team made the playoffs, but Trout's team (a) won more games (b) playing a far more difficult schedule.

But this isn't the biggest outrage of recent MVP voting. This isn't Juan Gonzalez winning an MVP for piling up RBIs in an extreme hitter's park.

Outrage 3: David Price on Wednesday won the AL Cy Young Award in a close vote over Justin Verlander.

Again, Price had a fine season. Verlander was better. This is very much akin to 2005, when Bartolo Colon won the award over Johan Santana, an award the writers apparently began to regret almost as soon as it was announced. Colon had a good year, but everybody knew Santana was the superior pitcher.

The same is true this year, perhaps not to the degree that it was in 2005, but still ... I doubt anybody in baseball would rather have Price than Verlander (ignoring the salary difference).

Prince Fielder, Mike Ilitch and the quest for value

Prince Fielder and Mike Ilitch: One is rich, the other is richer.

Now that Prince Fielder is officially a Detroit Tiger ...

The Tigers owe Fielder $214 million over the next nine seasons. They owe Miguel Cabrera $86 million over the next four seasons. They owe Justin Verlander $60 million over the next three seasons.

That adds up to $360 million for three players.

According to Forbes, which each spring publishes estimates of the worth of each major league franchise, the entire Tigers franchise was worth $385 million as of 2011. (Forbes valued the Twins at $490 million.)

Frankly, I'm over my head when it comes to numbers like these. I'd be a fool to think that I know more about finances than Tigers owner Mike Ilitch; he and his family have built an empire of pizza and pro sports and casinos and who knows what else that's worth at least $2 billion, and I ... haven't.

I don't even know if extremely pricey players such as Fielder, Cabrera and Joe Mauer count as assets or as liabilities when Forbes estimates a team's worth. There may be no real connection between payroll and worth.

But it feels out of balance for a team to have essentially its entire value tied up in three players.

Certainly Ilitch runs his team differently than do the Pohlads. Forbes consistently estimates that the Tigers operate at an annual loss of more than $20 million; the Fielder signing pretty much guarantees that will continue. The Pohlads have, I'm sure, subsidized the Twins from time to time, but in the main they expect the team to pay its own way.

The Pohlad approach seems to me the more stable way to operate.

Like the late Carl Pohlad, Ilitch has offspring who are active in the family empire, and it would seem likely that there is a succession plan in place — likely that the Tigers will not, when the 82-year-old Ilitch dies, enter the bizarre world of probate that ensnared the Red Sox and Royals when their big-spending owners passed on.

Still: The Tigers have a major market payroll and small market revenues. At some point, that contradiction is going to bite them.

Justin Verlander, Most Valuable Pitcher

Justin Verlander: Not merely a unanimous Cy Young
winner, but the Most Valuable Player to boot.

Justin Verlander was named American League Most Valuable Player on Monday. He is the first starting pitcher to win an MVP since Roger Clemens in 1986, a year that seems recent to me but is a quarter century ago and thus a lifetime ago to at least some of you.

That Verlander is even eligible for the honor, much less the winner, is rather controversial in some circles. Pitchers, the argument goes, have the Cy Young Award; MVP should be limited to position players.

The rules, however, specifically say that pitchers are eligible.

Eligible, but -- at least since 1969, when the mound was lowered and the strike zone redefined -- seldom victorious. No National League pitcher, starter or reliever, has been voted MVP since Bob Gibson in 1968.

Ignore the three relief pitchers who've won the AL award -- all of which were mistakes by an electorate that hadn't begun to come to grips with the meaning of the save statistic -- and only two AL starters (Clemens and Vida Blue in 1971) have taken the honor since Denny McLain in 1968.

Verlander was helped some by the flaws in the other candidates' arguments. Jacoby Ellsbury's team faded badly in September. Jose Batista -- seen by the sabermetric community as the best player in the league -- fell off in the second half, and his team was never in the race. Curtis Granderson led the league in runs and RBIs and bopped 41 homers, but his rate stats weren't great. Miguel Cabrera, Verlander's teammate, probably crippled his chances with his DWI arrest before spring training.

So Verlander emerged from a divided field.

There is a legitimate reason to be skeptical of a modern pitcher's MVP candidacy, and it has nothing to do with the Cy Young Award. It has to do with workload.

Blue worked 312 innings in his MVP season. McLain had 336, Gibson 304. Sandy Koufax had 311 in his MVP season (1963). On the other hand, Clemens had 254 in his MVP year, Verlander 251.

Two-hundred fifty innings is a lot in today's pitch count era. But the difference between 300 innings and 250 is significant. That's Alex Burnett's entire workload in 2011. Koufax worked 300-plus innings in three seasons, and in each he faced 300-plus more batters than Verlander did this season.

Were I a voter, I'd have an easier time voting for a pitcher with a 1960s-type workload than a 2000s workload. I'm not complaining that Verlander won, but I wouldn't have complained if Ellsbury, Batista, Granderson or Cabrera had either.

Pic of the Week

Justin Verlander pitches in Game 5 of the ALCS.

I always wonder, when I see the Associated Press move a photo like this, what newspaper is going to print it.

It's ... different. I'll even grant that it's arty. I don't know that it's photojournalism.

Verlander-Sabathia II

CC Sabathia eats his glove.

A few observations on Monday's Tigers-Yankees game:

*The TBS crew seems startled at how Justin Verlander geared up the velocity for the final couple batters of the game. Their amazement merely underlined how little they know about Verlander in particular, and -- here I extrapolate a bit -- probably about baseball outside the New York Boston axis.

Velander ALWAYS does this. In fact, it's the surest way to know that he's in his final inning. For that last out, he's leaving nothing in the tank. He opens the game throwing low 90s, dials it up to 100 or more when he's in a jam, throttles it back down when not in trouble -- and lets it all out for the final few pitches.

*Maybe it's just me, but CC Sabathia looked fatter than ever. Perhaps I've mainly seen him in the (slimming) home pinstripes this year, but man, in the road grays, he looked particularly blimped out.

* The beauty of that matchup is that Sabathia and Verlander appear to be the workhorses of their generation. It comes out in different ways. Sabathia is probably the most equipped current pitcher to work on short rest. Verlander hasn't done that nearly as often as Sabathia has, but he probably throws more 120-plus pitch games than anybody else -- and, as noted, holds that velocity.

* I was happy to see the Tigers use the bunt on Captain Cheeseburger, and not at all surprised that after Alex Avila missed on his first bunt attempt, Sabathia came up and in on him.  Sabathia hates it when people bunt on him, hates having to field his position and move his poundage.

* Even without his command, Sabathia is still impressive. When he needs a strikeout, he can do that; when he needs a ground ball, he can do that too. No, he didn't pitch well (neither, really, did Verlander, at least by his own standards). After a season spent watching Twins starters (and infielders) make bad situations worse, it was striking to see Sabathia and his infielders display their mastery of damage control.

*The TBS boys were surprised to see Sabathia pitch at all in the sixth; they figured he was done after five. On the surface, I agreed. But here's the thing: Sabathia's shortest outing in 2011 was 5.6 innings (once in April, once in September). Joe Girardi expects more than five-and-fly from the big man. He didn't get it Monday, and today he's counting on A.J. Burnett, which is something he probably doesn't want.

Cy Verlander

Justin Verlander on Tuesday against the Twins:
7.2 innings, seven hits, one walk, eight strikeouts, one run.

Just in: Justin Verlander is good.

Tuesday's win against the Twins gave the Tigers ace his 18th win of the season and 101st of his career. He's leading the American League in wins, innings pitched and strikeouts, and his ERA is more than a full run better than his career low.

As matters stand, he should win the AL Cy Young, easily.

The Tigers have a long tradition of great outfielders, starting with Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford and running through the likes of Harry Heilmann, Heine Manush and Al Kaline. They've had a scattering of Hall of Famers at other positions as well — most prominently Hank Greenberg (who did play left field as well as first base) and Charley Gehringer (second base).

But great pitching has not been a Detroit hallmark. The Tigers' career record for wins is held by Hooks Dauss, who won 223 games from 1912-26. If you knew of Hooks Dauss before reading this post, you are a baseball historian.

The only pitcher who made the Hall of Fame for what he accomplished as a Tiger is Hal Newhouser, who won a pair of MVP awards during World War II and racked up records of 29-9, 25-9 and 26-9 in the three years 1944-46. Newhouser won exactly 200 games as a Tiger.

Newhouser is almost certainly the greatest pitcher in Tigers history, ahead of Dauss and Jack Morris and Earl Whitehill and everybody else.

Verlander has a real chance to be the best. He's only 28, he's demonstrated that he's the rare hurler who can consistently throw 120 pitches without getting hurt, and this year he's learned pacing. He no longer tries to throw his best fastball every time. He saves the 99 mph stuff for when he really needs it.

As a Twins fan, I don't like seeing him pitch against the Twins; as a baseball fan, I appreciate what I see when he does.

Justin Verlander, pitcher

Justin Verlander: Nine strikeouts, no walks
in eight innings. He threw 126 pitches.

That was indeed an impressive outing Thursday night from Justin Verlander.

As I noted earlier this month when the Tigers changed pitching coaches, Verlander this year had learned to hold back his best stuff for when he needed it. He demonstrated that ability on Thursday, cruising along with a fastball around 93 most of the time mixed in with one of the best curveballs in the league. But when he needed it, he had 97-99 mph heaters to throw.

That much of the time it came with Jim Thome at the plate struck me. Go back a bit to last season, when the White Sox opted not to bring the big DH back in part because they had seen his bat slow down in 2009. When he hit that big August homer off a Matt Thornton fastball, one of the things Ozzie Guillen said was that Thome wouldn't have hit that pitch the year before.

I don't think he can now, either. Whether that's age or back problems or both, I don't know, but I just don't think Thome's getting to high velocity pitches as well as he did in 2010.

Which makes a matchup with Velander's velocity more emphatically unfair to Thome.

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The more time Joe Mauer spends at first base, the less time Trevor Plouffe sees in right field. (Mauer at first means Michael Cuddyer in right.) And now that Jason Kubel is ready to come off the DL -- he's to be reactivated today -- it would seem a rather safe bet that there will be even fewer at-bats available for Plouffe.

This figures to be another test of Ron Gardenhire's willingness to use platoon strategy. Kubel and Thome both struggle against left-handed pitchers. If Plouffe is indeed a hitter worthy of time in a corner outfield, he should at least get starts against southpaws. But between Gardenhire's reluctance to platoon and Plouffe's thin track record as a quality hitter -- a track record essentially limited to his 2011 performance in Triple A -- I doubt he'll get that opportunity.

Not that platooning is a factor the rest of this series. Detroit will start righties the next three games. And Mauer, who has played first base the last three games, figures to move back behind the plate.

The final weekend

The Twins obviously have no margin for error. They also have no good option to start tonight, and they face Zach Grienke on Saturday.

Apparently Jeff Manship (right) starts tonight, Manship and a cast of thousands. I figured after Liriano's disaster last Sunday that Manship would get the call, but ... I suspect he can become a useful major league starter someday, but that day is not here.

As I understand it, the matchups for the final series:

Friday

Kansas City at Minnesota: DiNardo (0-2, 7.52) vs. Manship (0-1, 5.81). Wow, a matchup that might favor Manship.

Chicago at Detroit: Peavy (2-0, 2.25) vs. Jackson (13-8, 3.38). Peavy's numbers are AL only. Jackson's August ERA was 4.45; his September ERA, 5.08. He's shot way past his career high in innings, and things are falling apart for him.

Saturday

Kansas City at Minnesota: Greinke (16-8, 2.06) vs. Blackburn (11-11, 4.08). Greinke is the unanimous pick for AL Cy Young in the poll. Blackburn will be working on three days rest for the first time in his brief career. He's 1 1/3 innings short of 200.

Chicago at Detroit: Garcia (2-4, 4.78) vs. Figaro (2-1, 5.74). The Tigers are holding back Rick Porcello after the 20-year-old threw 111 pitches against the Twins. Garcia's stats don't look like much, but he's impressed the Sox enough that he's penciled into their 2010 rotation.

Sunday

Kansas City at Minnesota: Hochevar (7-12, 6.24) vs. Duensing (5-2, 3.69). Hochevar is either brilliant or awful. Duensing is coming off the worst start of his brief career. It's possible the Twins would use Carl Pavano on three days rest instead if this game means something.

Chicago at Detroit: Danks (13-10, 3.69) vs Verlander (18-9, 3.45). The Tigers really don't want Verlander pitching Sunday. They'd rather save him to open against the Yankees.

Here's the Detroit Free Press' take on the matchups on the Tigers end of things. I think Michael Cuddyer's right on the Sox pitchers — these are the best the Twins could hope for.

The odds are definitely against the Twins, but these matchups suggest it's not impossible.

Game 2: Tigers 6, Twins 5

Tragic number: Four.

Tuesday split doubleheader was an example of how the Tigers have remained in first place since May. They've been challenged, but they haven't broken, as the White Sox did in late August-early September on a death-march road trip through New York, Boston and Minnesota.

Or, for that matter, as the Twins did after a couple of difficult losses on a long West Coast road trip in July.

If the Tigers hold off the Twins this week, we shouldn't look so much to this game with regret as the game of July 18 — when R.A. Dickey tried to sneak a fastball past Ian Kinsler with the game on the line. Or the game of July 19, when the Twins staked Nick Blackburn to a 12-2 lead and lost 14-13, with the final out coming on a blown call at the plate. And the four losses in five games that followed those two shouldn't-have-happeneds.

The Twins keep grinding though. It's difficult to believe that they touched up Justin Verlander for four runs the way he was overpowering hitters the first five innings. But Brian Duensing had his worst start — five runs allowed in 4 2/3 innings, and Bobby Keppel didn't help a whole lot.

Facing Verlander is a lot like facing Zach Grienke — it's not easy to get the win. The Twins theoretically have the advantage in the pitching matchups the next two games. They need to win both. A split of this series does them no good.

I'm looking forward to seeing Eddie Bonine pitch Wednesday for the Tigers. Besides my tendency to root for my fellow Eddies, he is said to throw a knuckleball, albeit not as his primary pitch. There used to be a lot of pitchers who threw a knuckleball as a changeup, but that approach died out sometime in the 1960s.

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Other news:

*The Pioneer Press says the Twins have a deal with Miguel Angel Sano, a supposedly 16-year-old superprospect from the Dominican.

This signing, once finalized, would be significant as an indication that Minnesota is becoming a major player in the Dominican market. The Twins have scouted Dominica, and they've traded for players (Cristian Guzman, David Ortiz, Francisco Liriano) as a result of their scouting, but they haven't signed amateur players there.

*Chuck Knoblauch, once the Twins best player and then the resource upon which then-general manager Terry Ryan used to trigger the revival of the team, has been charged in a domestic battery case.

* The White Sox will not use Mark Buehrle against the Tigers in the season-closing series — he'll make his final start on Wednesday in a make-up doubleheader — but will pitch Jake Peavy against Detroit. This is good for the Twins, as Buehrle is struggling now and Peavy dominated the Tigers last week. The Sox's scheduled starters: Peavy, Freddy Garcia and John Danks.

Thanks, Ozzie.