Notes, quotes and comment

Tyler Duffey pretty much summed up his season in Thursday's game. He was very good (retired the first 10 men he faced) and was very bad (got just one more out.) He threw 28 balls and 35 strikes, a poor ratio. The command just vanished in the fourth inning, and he couldn't get it back

I said a few days ago that Duffey's pitching this year mystifies me. It still does.

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Supposedly Kurt Suzuki cleared waivers, so theoretically there is a window here in which he can be traded to any team. But ...

• any team could have claimed him and nobody did;
• his throwing problems are probably cooling interest in him;
• somebody's got to catch for the Twins the next six weeks or so.

I doubt he's going anywhere.

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I heard Paul Molitor on the radio praising backup catcher Juan Centeno. The manager says Centeno calls a good game, does some things at the plate and "is getting better at blocking balls."

Centeno has caught 302.2 innings. There have been 23 wild pitches and two passed balls with him back there, 0.75 per nine innings. Suzuki's comparable numbers: 671.2 innings, 27 wild pitches, no passed balls: 0.36, about half Centeno's rate.

Wild pitches are officially the pitcher's fault, but just as there are "base hits" that obviously could/should have been outs, there are wild pitches that a better receiver handles.