Boston Red Sox @ Minnesota Twins GameThread, May 12, 2008 7:05 PM EDT

Game 36: Red Sox @ Twins

by Jesse on May 12, 2008 6:00 PM EDT in Game Threads Comment 18 comments

Boston Red Sox at Minnesota Twins, May 12, 2008 7:05 PM EDT

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2008 - Clay Buchholz	2-2	7	7	1	0	0	0	38.0	41	20	19	3	15	39	4.50	1.47

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2008 - Livan Hernandez	5-1	8	8	1	0	0	0	51.2	62	24	22	8	10	20	3.83	1.39

0 recs | Comment 18 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Wow...

...that didn’t take long.

by dwintheiser on May 12, 2008 7:19 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Or for the Twins to get back into it

At some point, the ‘bad offense’ label is going to fall off this team, if they keep scoring like they have been.

by dwintheiser on May 12, 2008 8:20 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

But I don’t think that they will continue to hit .311/.371/.452 with runners in scoring position if they keep hitting .265/.312/.376 overall. They’ve been fortunate so far to hit that well with the runners they have had on base, but every team goes through stretches of the season where the hits with RISP start to dry up, and then we’ll start to notice that the Twins aren’t putting too many runners on base in the first place. Not that I’m complaining about our good luck so far-I don’t want to give those runs back to the luck police or anything-but it seems highly unlikely that the offense will continue to score like this unless they actually start hitting better.

by ubelmann on May 12, 2008 9:47 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

True...

However, I don’t think they will hit.265/.312/.376 overall. I think they will hit better than this for the remainder of the season. So while the RISP hitting will regress to their overall line, I think their overall line will also increase. This should (in theory) raise the number of opportunities of hitting with men on the important bases, so even if the rate decreases, I think the count will stay the same. If that makes sense…

by GACTwinFan on May 12, 2008 10:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think that they will...

...also probably hit a bit better than .265/.312/.376 overall, but I don’t think it’s going to be enough to offset their regression in performance with RISP. We shall see, though. (Also, they aren’t too deep, so if they have any significant position player injuries, that could hurt a lot.)

by ubelmann on May 12, 2008 10:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Nice point, ubel

In fact, I was thinking about that myself while looking at Lamb’s splits:

Overall – .233/553
RISP – .455/1059

and figuring the rest of the team was doing similarly. Thanks for the update.

by dwintheiser on May 13, 2008 6:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

they have

they have a bunch of singles. It would be nice to have an extra base hit

by DedicatedFollowerOfFashion on May 12, 2008 9:01 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

MIA

MIA Delmon Young…now KIA Delmon Young.

He rolled his ankle on a hit-and-run…not good.

Primary Focus writer:
http://theprimaryfocus.net

Bleacher Report Senior Writer:
http://bleacherreport.com/users/4918-Andrew_Kneeland

Check them out!

by Andersklasen on May 12, 2008 9:50 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

hey!

Hey, he’s running back out! Bring out the cheese!

Primary Focus writer:
http://theprimaryfocus.net

Bleacher Report Senior Writer:
http://bleacherreport.com/users/4918-Andrew_Kneeland

Check them out!

by Andersklasen on May 12, 2008 9:52 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The Twins rule!!

They took 3 of 4 from the defending world champions. Plus there’s a ton of ex-pat twins fans here in Brooklyn that come out of the woodwork once a season when we make it onto ESPN. More Twins fans than Red Sox fans at the bar I was at. Pretty sweet.

"I don't care about feelings." - Lou Piniella

by natetheskate on May 12, 2008 10:22 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Livan being Livan.

Sure is fun to see Livan being Livan and ruining the “projections” of all the so-called “experts” who said his K/9 was too low and his flies/grounders was too high and he would fail in the AL. So far he is exactly what a few of us thought he would be. The inning eater who did his job to keep the team in the game. There’s a reason he has thrown more innings this century than any other pitcher in baseball.

by nathaneide on May 12, 2008 11:45 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Don't twist your arm too far patting yourself on the back

by ubelmann on May 13, 2008 12:50 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Oh, I will

Only because it’s just too damn fun.

by nathaneide on May 13, 2008 9:21 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don't recall a positive comment from you vis-a-vis Livan

Please fill me in. Maybe I just lost the lone tree in the forest of rampant negativity. I don’t think you can gloat if you didn’t predict success.

I will readily admit I’m shocked at how well he’s done. I hoped he would be an outlier to the whole xFIP analysis, similar to Paul Byrd. But it simply is not rational to predict that he would, especially considering his trends are all going down (all except for walks, which were steadily going up). I keep expecting the other shoe to drop, but he is just pitching better than his numbers suggested he would. He’s not striking anybody out, but he’s walking fewer than he had and he’s giving up fewer homers, with the exception of his two bad outings, where he seemed to revert to the Livan of 2006-7.

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on May 13, 2008 12:53 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Oh, I predicted that he would eat innings, save the pen and be productive. So far, I’m feeling awfully good about the signing I have called for previously and praised this year.

by nathaneide on May 13, 2008 3:11 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

formerly known in these parts as adamb

by ravenfly on May 13, 2008 5:33 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I did say one good comment

I never EVER expected him to do this well and I as well expect some regression and a few horrific starts. I just made the comment that he’s alway put together a decent number of quality starts each year. I don’t feel like doing the legwork to remember but I know it was like top 20 or 30 in the league in QS every year, even last year. This at least encouraged me to believe he would give us a good number of games we could win while mixing in some horrific games that keep his overall #’s from looking sexy.

A part of me really wonders if him switching leagues has helped more than hindered. A lot of these guys have never seen him before so even though this may be the better league it may have helped him. What will be really interesting is how teams do a 2nd and 3rd time against him as the only team he’s faced twice is KC, and they don’t really count.

Peyton's good but have you ever heard of Jeff George?

by halfchest on May 13, 2008 6:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs