Pregame after the jump...

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Those sneaky Mariners...

Do you remember that episode of Star Trek:  The Next Generation where the Enterprise receives a distress call, and they find a ship of bumbling idiots asking for help to "fix our ship, it is broken"?  They're called Pakleds, these aliens, and they want help to repair their engines, in order to "make it go".  Always the good samaritans, the Enterprise sends over chief engineer Geordi LaForge to lend a hand.

Oops!  Turns out those sneaky Pakleds take advantage of good samaritans by kidnapping the help, and forcing them to make weapons and turn over some advanced technology in exchange for the prisoner.  Indeed, they have a habit of taking advantage of the generous by looking useless!  Yes, the Pakleds are more worthless than a box of rocks, but when you succumb to their sneakiness they're disturbingly dangerous because, hell, they've got weapons.  Like a caveman with a grenade.

That's what happened last night.  Those sneaky Mariners managed to get the better of the Twins, again, but this time there were no heroics by Commander Riker and the Enterprise and Minnesota lost to the third worst team in baseball.  Again.

Losers of four straight, the Twins are 2.5 back of the White Sox, who shockingly enough won a game they were supposed to win.  I have a hard time blaming Scott Baker for the defeat, because in spite of allowing 10 hits he did his job.  Six and two-thirds innings and just hree runs is going to count as a good start in my book.  Once again, the Minnesota offense was stymied by a less than imposing hurler, as former Twins farm hand (from December 13, 2004 - March 26, 2005) Ryan Rowland-Smith pinned down the lineup for seven innings, allowing just two runs.

This afternoon the Twins have a chance to avoid complete embarassment, as well as a five-game losing streak.  If we're lucky, timing a win with a Chicago loss would help off-set the disappointments of the last four days.

Here's our roll call for the first two games of the Seattle series.  All hail 33MorneauMVP and his vice president caseintheface, whose campaign based on economic growth with a focus on green energy inspired the populous.

Stars of the Game

#3  Denard Span  (0-for-2, 2 BB, good defense)
#2  Randy Ruiz  (1-for-4, HR, RBI, R)
#1  Scott Baker  (6.2 IP, 10 H, 0 HR, 3 R, 3 K, 3 BB)

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"The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated."  -Mark Twain

My eyebrows raised in a skeptical nature when I'd read that the Twins had promoted Anthony Swarzak to triple-A Rochester in late July.  Because for most of the season in New Britain, whoever was taking the mound on most of Swarzak's starts certainly didn't look like Swarzak.  Rather, the results didn't look like Swarzak's.  When I voiced my confusion to the promotion, Dianna was quick to point out something I was more or less unaware of, which was the sad state of the Rock Cats' defense.  But after 20 starts and more than 100 innings, the 5.67 ERA and .304 opponent average couldn't all be pinned on the defense.  Could it?

According to fangraphs, Swarzak's FIP (which we actually think is xFIP thanks to how they calculated Perkins' "FIP" increasing after his start against the Angels last week) was 4.42; a full run shorter than that 5.67 ERA we mentioned a second ago.  FirstInning.com lists his double-A FIP as 4.46.  This tells me that Swarzak was actually pitching better than his numbers indicate, and also that he likely would have seen his numbers sway back toward the mean...which in his case was a good thing.  Also, he was still striking out two batters for every one he walked, so while the strikeout rates weren't as high as we've been used to seeing over the last four years he wasn't putting himself in dire jeopardy with the additional free passes.  Indeed, with his spiked home run rate combined with a weak defense behind him, I'm ready to buy the fact that I may have under-estimated how good Swarzak had been in New Britain.

Last night in Syracuse, Swarzak made his sixth start for the Rochester Red Wings.  It was his best night yet, as he logged eight strong innings, striking out six and walking a pair en route to another win.  He's now 5-0, and proving my skeptical ass dead wrong.

Strangely enough, some of those same peripherals we've been discussing, the ones that insisted he was better than his numbers in double-A, are hinting at cracks beneath the surface of his mind-numbing start with in triple-A.  His strikeout rates (5.69 K/9), down.  Walk rates (3.31 BB/9), holding steady.  Additionally, while fangraphs hasn't updated their stats from yesterday, going into his eight-inning stomp on Syracuse his (x)FIP was an incredible 5.23.  Firstinning.com HAS updated their stats, and their FIP for Swarzak sits at 4.77.  But he's still getting amazing results.

But one thing I've come to realize...okay, two things I've come to realize...is that first, I'm wrong about a lot of stuff, partially due to the fact that my knowledge of advanced metrics is relatively limited in some aspects.  And also because sometimes I'm just wrong.  Second, while there's nothing better than stats to predict future performance, when you're talking about how good or how effective someone has already been, it's okay to throw some things out the window.

Swarzak is one of those cases.  No matter what's to come, he's been remarkably effective in his six starts for the Red Wings, and he's put himself back on the radar.  He's earned his promotion. 

Oh yeah, and he doesn't turn 23 for two weeks.

Pregame

For the second time as a starter this year, the Twins are running up against right-hander Miguel Batista.  On August 4, Minnesota lit up the 37-year old for six runs over three innings, and if I'm honest I'll be disappointed if they don't repeat that performance tonight in Seattle.  He seems to have an affinity for walking hitters to the point that if he doesn't do it, there's something wrong; he's STILL walking more batters than he strikes out.  The Mariners aren't oblivious of this fact, trying to keep him out of the rotation, but with Erik Bedard and Carlos Silva on the disabled list they're struggling to find four competent starters much less five.  When your 3-4-5 starters are R.A. Dickey, Ryan Rowland-Smith and Ryan Feierabend, your season clearly isn't going the way you hoped it would.  Opponents are throwing up a .920 OPS this season against Batista.  Yikes.

To put a halt to their two-game skid the Twins launch Francisco Liriano, who's 4-0 in four starts since his return.  Over 23.2 innings he's struck out 20, walked 10, given up 16 hits (just one homer) and allowed six runs (three earned).  On the season opposing hitters are hitting .242/.355/.320, and that's about right as they still aren't squaring up well against Cisco with just a 14.7 line-drive percentage.  Overall, his xFIP is 3.90, which is marginally better than his 4.24 traditional ERA.  I recognize that the Twins may have set him up to succeed by lining him up against weaker opponents for the rest of the season, but A) there's nothing wrong with that and B) he's still getting good results.  Tonight it'd be nice to see more of the same, but hopefully he can start getting ahead of more hitters more often, and can therefore start getting stretched into the seventh inning and beyond.  He's completed six innings in only two of his four most recent starts, and right now this team needs its starters to be efficient.

For the Twins against a righty I'll wager:  Span (RF), Casilla (2B), Mauer (C), Morneau (1B), Kubel (DH), Young (LF), Buscher (3B), Everett (SS), Gomez (CF)

And on the Seattle side of the coin I'm guessing:  Suzuki (RF), Betancourt (SS), Ibanez (LF), Beltre (3B), Lopez (2B), Balentien (CF), Johjima (C) LaHair (DH), Cairo (1B)

Twins pick up southpaw.

As we discussed last week, the bullpen-starved Twins have been looking all month for a way to improve their prospects post-starter, including picking up our own former closer Eddie Guardado.

Now, it seems, he's back.

LEN III says the Twins will decide today on who gets the boot to make room for Guardado.  My short list on candidates include Craig Breslow, Mike Lamb and Randy Ruiz.

Click here for the official press release.

In return, the Twins are sending RHP Mark Hamburger to the Rangers, which is too bad because I'd love nothing more than to cheer for a guy with a name like that.  Hamburger, 21, had been spending the season in Elizabethton with the Appalachian Rookie League.

Pregame

The Twins face their toughest pitcher of the series in Ervin Santana, he of the great fastball/slider combination.  Santana owns the fourth-fastest fastball in baseball, averaging 94.3 mph.  He's not necessarily a ground-ball or fly-ball pitcher, because he gets a fair bit of both.  High strikeout rates, low walk rates and an incredible 3.26 xFIP make him a mean customer.

Kevin Slowey is coming off what could be the best start of his career, where he K'd 12 in seven innings against the A's.  Over his last three starts he's logged 18.2 innings and allowed just three earned runs.  Stingy on the walks but able to ring up the strikeouts on occasion, Slowey's the proud owner of a 5.35 K/BB ratio...which is just amazing.  When his breaking balls are working, Kevin can be as effective as anyone.

We know Blackburn will never blow anyone away.  But what's the difference between one of his good starts, and one of his bad ones?

With a chance to extend the AL Central lead to a relatively wide 1.5 games last night, Nick Blackburn was once again in a position to help the Twins get comfortable in the driver's seat of the division.  But, once again, he stumbled.  So below I'll be using chart data from Brooks Baseball's pitchfx, who feed their data directly from MLB.com's Gameday readings, to see if there's a discernable reason for his faltering performance last night.

On August 18, Blackburn went eight strong innings against the Athletics, allowing just three runs on six hits.  Last night he didn't manage to get through five innings against the Angels, and while his defense didn't do him any favors, it's quite clear that between the two starts he wasn't the same pitcher.  He logged 4.2 innings, allowing six runs (three earned) on 10 hits, and he didn't strike out a single Angel batter.

For a pitcher to be effective, and for his pitches to "work", he needs to apply force to the ball.  In conjunction with velocity and drag force, how a pitcher grips and releases the baseball can cause it to do beautiful things.  Inducing spin and angle, the trajectory of any pitch is dependent on exactly how the pitcher handles the delivery.  As you can see from the charts below, Blackburn wasn't controlling his pitches as well on Saturday night as he had six days ago against Oakland in the Dome.

Spin Angle & Magnitude

August 23:
 
via brooksbaseball.net

August 18:
 
via brooksbaseball.net

The changes here are pretty drastic, since Blackburn uses spin on his balls to induce movement; more spin equals more movement.  His fastballs on August 18 were regularly spinning at 2200-2600 RPM.  Last night only one fastball broke 2200, and usually spun 1800-2000 RPM.  Both the slider and the changeup show the same symptom, spinning much slower against the Angels.  Only the curveball was consistently picking up more RPM, sitting right around 1000.  Unfortunately, while this made for a better curveball it also meant it was coming in at the roughly the same height as all of his other pitches, because relative to his appearance against the A's his fastball, changeup and slider were all pretty flat.  Angel hitters rarely had to work to pick up where the ball was coming from, because they were all coming in on the same angle.  For some pitchers, that works.  For Blackburn, it certainly doesn't...at least, not last night.

Average Pitch Virtualization, Top View

August 23:
 
via brooksbaseball.net

August 18:
 
via brooksbaseball.net

Average Pitch Virtualization, Side View

August 23:
 
via brooksbaseball.net

August 18:
 
via brooksbaseball.net

The side virtualization is a little deceiving, because once you remove the orange line (the two cut fastballs), there isn't much difference in break.  The curve stilll starts out higher before dropping off, and the fastball, slider and change have similar side-view trajectories.  The real difference is in the top view, where you can really see how Blackburn used spin to create drag force on the ball to induce movement.  Everything, especially the fastball and slider, moved better against Oakland on August 18.

Finally, looking at the top virtualization it would be easy to assume that Blackburn was actually a bit more wild horizontally.  And the fact is, he was.  On the 18th, when he threw 99 pitches (66 for strikes), 62 of the pitches hit a standardized strike zone, for a strike percentage of 62.6.  On Saturday night, he threw 79 pitches (54 for strikes), and 55 of those pitches were strikes on a standardized strike zone, for 69.6%.  But because every pitch looked different, and almost every pitch was breaking harder, Blackburn was able to be effective by pitching outside of the strike zone against the A's.  Against the Angels he was hitting the strike zone more consistently, and with a good offense like LA has that's a dangerous game to play--especially when a guy like Blackburn didn't have his best stuff.

I'm certainly not excited by the prospect of the Angels lighting up one of our starting pitchers.  But after doing this bit of research I'm a bit more optimistic because it confirms for me that Blackburn isn't a good pitcher this season just because of luck.  He's a good pitcher because when he's on, he gets movement on all of his pitches.  Some nights you have it, others you don't, and when Nick gets another chance to extend Minnesota's AL Central lead, hopefully he'll be able to step up to the challenge.

Pregame

Two of the American League's three division leaders are taking to the field for a brilliant Saturday night matchup.  In what's become, from my perspective, a rivalry based on respect, the Minnesota Twins and Los Angeles Angels will square diamond off in round three of a very telling series for our boys from Minneapolis.  Rounds one and two have gone to the away team, and while the first contest could have gone either way the Twins earned two big victories over a very good team.

To avoid dropping a series at home, the Angels will fly out another old nemesis.  Right-hander Jon Garland spent eight seasons taking on the Twins while donning black and whites, but has already seen them once earlier in the season wearing red; on April Fool's Day he threw eight innings of six-hit, one-run ball in the Dome.  But at his best, Garland is a back-of-the-rotation, smoke and mirrors pitcher.  His stuff isnt overwhelming by any stretch of the imagination, with all due respect to a decent fastball, and gets by like a lot of pitchers have to get by in baseball...on a little grit, location, on pitching in-and-out, and, on good days, by limiting his walks.  For Garland though, his strikeout rates are the lowest of his career (4.09 K/9), and his walk rates are the highest they've been in four years.  He doesn't have a specific advantage against right-handed hitters (.796 opponent OPS) or left-handers (.821 opponent OPS).  To state it plainly, Garland is a very mediocre and very plain pitcher...but in baseball, to be able to just be average for as long as Garland has been is an extraordinary achievement.  So, in spite of how it may seem, Garland can string up zeros on the score board at any time.  We've seen him do it many times over the course of his career.  But hopefully in nine years the Twins have compiled a nice thick scouting report on the 28-year old, and can figure him out a bit easier than they did four and a half months ago.

For the Twins it's Nick Blackburn, who usually is the picture of consistency.  In his last ten outings he's logged quality starts against the Tigers, Red Sox, Tigers again, Indians, Indians again, Mariners, and most recently the Athletics.  Against Oakland he went eight innings, a great theme for Twins starters over the last week.  Blackburn is better than most people have given him credit for, including me, and in spite of a very mediocre 4.6 K/9 his strikeout-to-walk ratio is a superb 3-to-1.  His xFIP, at 3.98, is just 0.27 points higher than his traditional ERA.  Meaning, that even if his future performance isn't sustainable on its current level, the difference between who his numbers say he is and who he actually has been is very small.  Blackburn is effective, and that's the bottom line, and whether he's a number three or number four starter that's a very, very good thing.

For the Angels tonight I'm predicting:  Figgins (3B), Aybar (SS), Teixeira (1B), Guerrero (RF), Hunter (CF), Anderson (DH), Kendrick (2B), Rivera (LF), Napoli (C)

And for the Minnesota Twins I like:  Span (RF), Casilla (2B), Mauer (C), Morneau (1B), Kubel (DH), Young (LF), Buscher (3B), Punto (SS), Gomez (CF)