Pic of the Week

The Fenway Park scoreboard pretty much tells the
story, in one game, of the 2018 season for both the
Boston Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles.

The Baltimore Orioles have lost more games this season (115) than the Boston Red Sox have won (107). I would like to say that they're not really that bad, but ... they kinda are.

Imagining the 2019 bullpen

The Twins used six pitchers Thursday night, with Stephen Gonsalves the "primary" pitcher but only recording 10 outs. He and "opener" Gabriel Moya were the two most ineffective pitchers the Twins used, but Gonsalves got credited with the win, for whatever that's worth.

Anyway: None of the six spent the entire 2018 season with the big league club, and their ERAs suggest why: 4.84, 6.57, 3.88, 7.82, 6.61, 5.68. (The 3.88 is Matt Magill.)

The Twins last offseason brought in three veteran relievers as free agents -- Fernando Rodney, Addison Reed and Zach Duke. They traded two of them away, and Reed, who has another year on his contract, has been an afterthought since returning from his first career stint on the disabled list.

Not counting position players or starters under another name, I count 19 relievers used by Paul Molitor this season. Six of the 19 are no longer in the organization. Only two, Trevor Hildenberger and Taylor Rogers, have been on the active roster throughout.

Hildenberger was given an opportunity these last two months of the season to claim the closers role. He hasn't, and nothing he does in the final weekend will change that. The Twins will go into the offseason with a vacancy in the glory job, and that means the rest of the roles are undecided.

If the 2019 closer is on the roster now, it's probably Trevor May. But Molitor has used May with some caution in this post-op season, and I can see him being aimed at the starting rotation next year.

I suspect the Twins will delve again into the free-agent market in search of another stopgap closer for 2019. They'd like to have a set guy for the ninth to build the rest of the bullpen around, and I don't think they are comfortable with the notion of starting next season with May, Hildenberger or Reed in the role.

Notes, quotes and comment

A generous gesture from the manager of the Chicago White Sox:

Rick Renteria donated 200 tickets to children who were treated at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis for Sunday's game at the Twins. It’s a thank you to staff involved in his care while he was a patient there last month.

— Daryl Van Schouwen (@CST_soxvan) September 26, 2018

It's been a trying season for Renteria. The White Sox weren't expected to be good, and they haven't. They were expected to start seeing some progress from a collection of prospects from whom much is expected -- the Sox made a bunch of trades last year, dealing off quality players such as Chris Sale, David Robertson and Adam Eaton -- and those guys have largely spun their wheels.

With the pitchers -- guys like Michael Kopech, Lucas Giolito. Carlos Rodon and Dylan Covey -- that's more or less expected. I note with frequency that many star pitchers struggle in their first 30 big league starts. And Kopech, of course, blew out his elbow in his fourth start.

More concerning, I think, is  Yoan Moncada's struggles. He's hitting in the .230s and leads baseball in strikeouts. They had to expect more from him, and maybe better is coming. He is just 23.

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I somehow missed entirely the Juan Graterol addition to the Twins, not that he's a big deal.

The Twins signed the journeyman as catching insurance in June after the Angels released him, and he spent much of the season in Triple A sharing time behind the dish with Willians Astudillo and a collection of who-dats. He got a belated September callup last week, with Ervin Santana going on the 60-day DL to make roster space, when it became obvious that Mitch Garver (concussion) wasn't going to catch again this year.

So the Twins have three catchers on their roster. Astudillo is by far the most interesting.

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The Twins' win Wednesday was greatly aided by an odd umpiring ruling. Runners on first and second, no outs, and Paul Molitor put on the hit-and-run with Astudillo, who figures to be really good at this. But he lined out to the second baseman for what should have been a triple play.

Except that the shortstop was nowhere near the bag at second for the throw, and Niko Goodrum muffed the throw at first. The second base ump called Robbie Grossman out at second, and Grossman, who never tried to return, went to the dugout. But the Twins appealed the call, and it was overturned. The umps put Grossman back at second, and the Twins wound up scoring five runs.

As I see it, Grossman conceded the out when he left the field. I think the umps -- in Minneapolis and New York -- messed up.

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Trevor May has an idea:

So, I had an idea.

I’m going to do a contest to see who the biggest Twins fan is. A big enough fan, to say, to beat a drum (or another noisemaker) and Twins games in 2019. If you choose to accept this quest... I leave you a ticket to EVERY SINGLE HOME GAME FOR THE ENTIRE SEASON.

— Trevor “IamTrevorMay” May (@IamTrevorMay) September 26, 2018

May apparently is quite taken by the atmosphere at Oakland and Cleveland. I'm not sure how well the notion will play in staid Minnesota.

Primary colors: Coincidence or evidence?

Kohl Stewart on Tuesday made his eighth appearance with the Twins. The first four were straight-up starts; the most recent four were as a "primary" pitcher, still charged with getting through the lineup at least twice but not pitching the first inning.

He allowed exactly three earned runs in each of the four starts but never finished the fifth inning: a total of 16.1 innings with an ERA of 6.61 and a dismal nine walks (with 11 strikeouts).

In the second four outings, including Tuesday, he worked 20.1 innings, allowing four runs, three earned. ERA: 1.33. The walk-strikeout ratio is better, but not good (nine walks, 13 strikeouts).

Coincidence, or evidence that the "opener" tactic works? Thirty-six innings and change doesn't really settle anything, and there are signs that a lot of luck is involved, but Stewart has been better while avoiding the top of the order while getting settled in. That's part of the theory behind the opener.

Paul Molitor pulled Stewart after six innings, 75 pitches and 21 batters Tuesday, and the bullpen -- specifically Trevor Hildenberger, who is suddenly struggling again -- promptly surrendered four runs. The decision to yank Stewart was second-guessed on social media, with the commentary focused on the 75 pitches.

More important in that decision, I think, is the 21 batters. That's twice through the batting order, plus three hitters. Opener Gabriel Moya faced the first five men, then Stewart began with the Tigers No. 6 hitter (James McCann). Molitor wanted to prevent Stewart from facing the top of the order a third time, and also wanted to give Hildenberger a clean start to the inning.

The pitch count was a secondary consideration. It clearly didn't work, but that's on Hildenberger.

Losing a writer

A Casey Stengel story: It's 1954. The Yankees are in Cleveland late in September, and the Indians are having a historically great season. The Yankees have won five straight World Series, but they won't win a sixth straight pennant, and the writers aren't going back to New York. They're picking up the Tribe and covering them the rest of the way,

Stengel, who has insisted all along that his squad will catch Cleveland,  is dismayed: "We're losing our writers."

Well, we're loing a writer. Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press is jumping ship this week to join the Indianapolis Star. He'll be based in South Bend and cover Notre Dame sports.

I have linked to Berardino's stuff quite a bit over the years, partly because it's accessible and partly because he's good. I assume the Pioneer Press will have somebody covering the Twins going forward, but the PP newsroom is a shell of former glories -- the descrecration of that newspaper in the name of hedge fund profits is appalling -- and I don't expect that his ultimate replacement will be of the same caliber.

Berardino's had jobs vanish from under him before -- that's how he wound up in St. Paul to begin with -- and I certainly can't blame anybody for getting out of the Pioneer Press' continuing contractions when a promising opportunity arises. But as a reader, I will miss him. And I wish him well in his new post.

Gopher the bullpen

The Twins outscored the Oakland Athletics in their weekend series, but the A's won two of three.

In the process they underlined the biggest failing of the Minnesota bullpen -- its vulnerablity to home runs.

Trevor Hildenberger has given up 12 homers in his first 71.2 innings, far too many for a closer but still a lower rate than many of his colleagues.

Addison Reed and Matt Magill have each given up 11 long balls in 55 and 54 innings respectively. Alan Busenitz has given up eight in less than 25 innings. Gabriel Moya and Tyler Duffey, like Busenitz yo-yo'd up and down this season, six apiece in 33-plus and 22-plus.

There's some things to like about the arms in the Twins bullpen. But giving up homers every four or five innings is a road map to failure.

Searching for catchers

The Twins announced their instructional league invites on Thursday, and eagle-eyed Steve Buhr noted on Twitter that Michael Davis, who took over at shortstop for Cedar Rapids after Royce Lewis was promoted, was listed as a catcher.

Davis was taken in the 24th round as a senior out of Texas Tech, and he apparently played third base as a senior in college, second base as a junior. When I saw him at the end of the Midwest League season, he sure looked like an experienced shortstop.

But even if he is a shortstop, he's sandwiched between Royce Lewis and Wander Javier in the Twins organization, and that doesn't equate to a lot of opportunity moving forward. The Twins, it's safe to say, have a lot more invested in Lewis and Javier than in Davis.

So this experiment -- assuming that the listing as a catcher wasn't some sort of clerical error -- might be a blessing for Davis. Or it might be another logjam; the Twins have in the past few years, both under Terry Ryan and the Falvine regime, seemed to be gathering as many catchers as possible. Their second-round pick in the same draft in which they took Davis is a catcher.

But it's a tough position to fill because it's a difficult position to play. No-hit receivers like Chris Gimenez, Drew Butera and Bobby Wilson seem to hang around forever -- not necessarily with one team, but but into their mid 30s despite their lack of offense. Davis looks like he can hit, he's got a strong arm, and if he can take to the position with alacrity, there will be an opportunity for him.