Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Recap 4/18/2007 Twins 5, Mariners 3

Just this week new MNSG writer Ray Felix did a fantastic write up of Carlos Silva's early season success and gave his rationale. Tonight Carlos Silva took the mound looking for his third win of the season just like Ramon Ortiz did last night. Once again he was near brilliant for much of the game going 6 1/3 innings while allowing 3 runs on 8 hits. The damage was done in the sixth when the Mariners had two bloop singles and a Richie Sexson homerun on what was a very good pitch down at the knees and in. Silva couldn't have made a much better pitch. He also walked one and struck out four. So far Twins fans, skeptical or otherwise must be completely thrilled with Silva's early success. Coming into this season you'd have had a hard time finding anyone who would've said they had faith in Carlos Silva, except perhaps Terry Ryan and Gardy. While I'm not saying that he'll continue to be so successful throughout this year, on the contrary, Mr. Felix pointed out the one very good reason he wont, even if he limits the total number of hits as he has and continues to keep the ball in the yard, it's simply not possible to continue scattering the hits he does allow as well as he has. He will give up runs, he will have bad games, its the nature of sinker-ball pitchers. But if he can continue to intersperse the good with the bad the Twins will be thrilled to have a .500 season from him, as would I.

In the 7th inning the Twins brought out Silva to try to get one last inning out of him as he was only at about 75 pitches and after a bloop to left that was into and out of Kubel's glove on a sliding play and a sharp single by Lopez, then Twins brought in Reyes who failed to get Ichiro. With the bases loaded and needing an answer the Twins turned to Matt Guerrier, usually a long reliever forced into short duty due to the injury to Jesse Crain got Adrian Beltre swinging on a curve and got some defense when Justin Morneau made a great play on a smashed liner off the bat of Jose Vidro to end the inning.

The other huge piece of news from this game was the Mariners loss of star pitcher and phenom Felix Hernandez. Hernandez who had been utterly dominant in his first two starts came into tonight expecting to continue his torrid pitching against a Twins team that would seem to play right into the hands of a strikeout pitcher. However he got off to a real tough start and ended up leaving with an injury after 24 pitches in the first inning while surrendering three earned runs. This was definitely welcome news as no one wanted to face Hernandez the way he had been pitching this season.

On offense the Twins scored all their runs in the first two innings, taking advantage of Felix Hernandez's bad outing to jump out to a 5-0 lead on an assortment of singles, stolen bases, and walks. However after Hernandez left the Twins bats fells silent against long reliever Jake Woods who didn't surrender a run after the 2nd inning. Even though the Twins did manage to put up five runs the offense wasn't particularly impressive managing just 6 hits on the night with four walks.

The Twins will have the chance to break out the brooms on the road tomorrow when El Presidente squares off against Jarrod Washburn.

Positives


- A good game from Luis Castillo who finally got his bat back going 2-4.

- Carlos Silva. Another quality start.

- Matt Guerrier who came in a clutch situation and got two huge outs when he had no room for error and the game was on the line.

- Jason Tyner kept his hitting going with a 1-3 night at the plate and played a serviceable if occasionally frightening center field.

- Stand Up and Shout got his fourth save but made it interesting in the ninth but got some defensive help in the form of Michael Cuddyer getting his 5th (?) outfield assist as the Mariners inexplicably sent Beltre home where he made the final out by about 15 feet.

Negatives

- Jason Kubel, what a terrible night. He went 0-4 with a strikeout and his only good looking at-bat was his first when he lined a pitch to left center that Ichiro used his virtually limitless range to catch. He also dropped a ball on a sliding play in the seventh that very nearly cost the team the game.

7 comments:

Nick N. said...

Tonight Carlos Silva took the mound looking for his third win of the season just like Ramon Ortiz did last night.

Actually, Silva was looking for his first win of the season. He hasn't gotten quite as much run support as Ramon.

Nick N. said...

Also, I don't think it counts as an OF assist if it goes through a cut-off man, which would mean that Cuddyer did not actually pick up his fifth OF assist by getting Beltre at home to end the game last night.

Ray Felix, III said...

The MLB boxscore gave Cuddy an assist.

It seemed like the third time through the order, the Mariners had Silva figured out. 5 of his 8 hits allowed came in those 9 at-bats.

Anyway, another good start by Carlos (and this time he got a win!). Can't be disappointed with that.

Corey Ettinger said...

1) Total my bad on the Silva win thing. I'm going to say I meant "quality starts" but that wouldn't be exactly true either...

2) It does count as an assist.

3) Your right King Felix, they did have him figured out and even though this was his worst start of the year, he deserved a W.

Corey Ettinger said...

You're* man I'm having a rough go of it.

Anonymous said...

Corey,

I was one of the few Silva Koolaid drinkers in ST. A number or posts on the Strib blogs.

I think alot more of you folks might have seen it coming, had Silva not had that one idiot inning in his next to last ST start. Prior to the meltdown he had a good start, his last ST start was excellent.

The signs were there, yet the focus was on last year and the meltdown.

Things are not always what they seem for either the dommsayers or Pollyannas like me :-)

Regards,

Corey Ettinger said...

Thats why we love you Pollyanna.