It’s drizzly and in the mid-60s as the Minnesota Twins prepare for the final home series of the season, a three-game set with the Seattle Mariners. The Twins won’t hit on the field before the game, but there wasn’t much in the way of worry about not getting the game in among team employees at the park.
UPDATE:
The Mariners come in with dim playoff chances, but if the series goes anything like the one with Detroit did, things can change for the positive in a real hurry. The Tigers came into the series around 24 percent playoff odds, and left Minneapolis fat and happy at 57.3 percent. The Mariners are 80-72, two games behind the Tigers for the final spot with playoff odds of 13.6 percent according to Fangraphs.
It’s left-hander James Paxton on the mound for the Mariners against Twins righty Kyle Gibson. More on that in a bit, though the Twins are 18-22 against left-handed starters this year. That’s far better than their 37-76 mark against righties.
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Injury Updates
Max Kepler (neck) isn’t in the starting lineup, but told reporters before the game that he’s available off the bench to pinch-hit late after injuring himself in the nightcap of the doubleheader on Thursday. “The ball kinda snuck under where the wall sticks out, you know?” Kepler said. “So I couldn’t get my glove under there. I decided to knock it down with my hand, and my neck went in first. I felt some cracks, and a sharp pain, but it was fine.”
Kepler said the neck stiffened up after the game, and he’d expected it to be a lot worse when he got up on Friday but that wasn’t the case. “After the game I thought it was going to be a lot worse today,” Kepler said. “I guess I treated it the right way.” Kepler said the neck was a little stiff when he woke up, but it loosened up as the day progressed.
Kepler said the treatment of the neck included the use of a Mark Pro inversion table, some massages and the use of some trigger-point therapy tools.
The larger concern for the organization was if Kepler had to be shut down for the season, in which case they might have had to make a roster move — most likely promoting Adam Brett Walker, who hasn’t played now in about two weeks. Manager Paul Molitor said that wouldn’t have been an ideal situation — and it’s a conclusion he never got close to reaching or breaching with assistant general manager Rob Antony — but the reality of the situation is if Kepler had to be shut down for any reason, they’d probably have had to do that.
Trevor May (back) told me he’ll be a part of the injured contingent that heads home for the offseason at the end of the homestand. Also in that group is Trevor Plouffe, Danny Santana and Byungho Park.
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Here’s how the Twins line up today:
https://twitter.com/Brandon_Warne/status/779413961032597504
The Twins will get a look at Paxton for the first time in what has been a coming-out party of sorts for the big lefty. Paxton has a 3.88 ERA, which isn’t a career low but plays well with a career-best 8.3 K/9 and 1.9 BB/9. He’s still been a bit too hittable — 1.34 WHIP and .283/.317/.408 opponents’ triple-slash line — but for the most part still looks the part of a steady rotation mainstay for the Mariners. He got roughed up to start the month against the Rangers, but his last two starts against the A’s and Astros were solid, as he allowed just nine hits over 13 innings (.200 BAA) and just four earned runs (2.77 ERA).
Paxton is a big guy — Fangraphs lists him at 6-foot-4, 235 lbs. — and he does a good job getting downward plane working with a four-seamer and a cutter predominantly. Brooks has Paxton throwing some type of a fastball — cutter, sinker or four-seam — a staggering 80 percent of the time, while he’ll mix in a curve and a change from time to time as well. The four-seamer comes in firm around 97 mph on average, while he’ll take some off for the cutter to average around 90.2. The cutter is the swing-and-miss pitch to take note of; it has induced a 22.1 percent swinging-strike rate this season, ahead of the curve and change that are both in the 16-17 percent range. This is a very good pitcher, but the Twins have handled lefties pretty well this season.
Tossing for the Twins is Gibson, who’ll need a couple strong starts before season’s end just to get his ERA under 5.00 before all is said and done. It’s been that kind of year for Gibson, whose peripherals aren’t that much worse than last year — a few more walks and a few less strikeouts — but with a pitcher who works a lot with balls in play, he can’t afford to have many hiccups in either respect. As a result, opposing batters have riddled him to the tune of a slash line of .298/.358/.467 — an .825 OPS for the mathematically challenged.
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Notes & Quotes
- The Twins are 2-8 in their last 10 games, 4-15 in their last 15 and just 6-14 over the past 20.
- The Twins have hit 190 home runs as a team to rank sixth-most in their history. The 2004 team hit 191.
- Reliever J.T. Chargois is working on a stretch of nine straight scoreless appearances (9.0 innings).
- It is May’s 27th birthday.
- Brian Dozier is one RBI from joining Chuck Knoblauch as the only Twins player to be in the 100-run, 100-RBI club for three straight years. He’d also join Harmon Killebrew as the only other player in Twins history to score and drive in 100 runs and hit 40 home runs in the same season.
- Dozier’s 24-game hitting streak was snapped in the nightcap of Thursday’s doubleheader. It was the fourth longest streak in baseball this season.
- Molitor on the emergence of Chargois in September: “There are a couple things. He’s found a way to be able to challenge hitters early. Last night was probably as live of a fastball as we’ve seen him have. But he was throwing it over. It gives him opportunities to not have his slider and changeup be critical in terms of command, because when he gets with that velocity he gets swings. The more you compound outings after outings that are resulting in zeroes, I just think you look forward more and more the next time you get a chance to pitch. It’s been nice, because you’re always looking little things that give you some hope and encouragement about what we’re trying to do and people we might be able to at least pencil in going forward. He’s had a nice run here for sure.”
- Molitor on Jorge Polanco’s play Thursday to take away a hit from Detroit’s Cameron Maybin: “It’s a play that all young shortstops work on. You go out there and you repeat that play until they get the footwork down. Catching the ball first, then learning how to rotate and get the ball out of your hand, and accurately. I know he can do it; I’ve seen him do it. It’s just one of those things where it’s a hard play to repeat time after time because there’s a large margin of error. You can give it a high difficulty rating no matter how you want to measure defensive plays. That’s not a routine play. When guys make it, it makes highlight reels because it’s a difficult play to make.”
