Corbin Burnes has officially turned the corner.
We also look at Willians Astudillo's glorious inning on the mound and discuss Josh Hader's usage.
Will the Twins ever play another game?
The answer is yes, obviously, but when you have three consecutive games called off due to positive COVID tests on the team AND you’ve lost six of seven, there’s a distinct black-licorice-taste-in-your-mouth feeling while you sit and wait for enough players to be cleared to play.
Certainly things don’t look great for the Twinkies at the moment, but remember, it’s a 162-game season once again. Your hand should be nowhere near the panic button. Nearly all of their losses have been close, or at least games that were close at some point in the final innings. Do we really think the Royals are going to win 60 percent of their games all year?
Let’s converse.
Corbin Burnes has made it
~Curt
For those unacquainted, there are various extremely-unscientific classifications of ballplayers. A Dude is just about the top classification you can get unless your name is Mike Trout, in which case you do not receive a classification and are simply revered among mere mortals.
Players who are Dudes get there by being very, very good, sure, but sometimes talent and stats alone isn’t enough to enter that phylum. You see, Dudes, especially pitchers, know they’re Dudes and that they’re the baddest man on the field. Ryan Braun was A Dude from the get-go. Ronald Acuna Jr. is A Dude. Marcus Stroman may not be in the top tier of starting pitchers, but you watch him pitch and you know that’s A Dude.
In his latest start, Corbin Burnes officially became A Dude.
Burnes went six innings, allowing two hits and no runs while striking out 10 and walking none against the Cubs. It was business as usual for the right-hander, who has now struck out 30 and walked none this season. The statistical dominance is nothing new. Burnes proved the legitimacy of his ability a while ago.
What turned Burnes into A Dude in my mind was, ironically enough, an at-bat against a career .637 OPS hitter in Austin Romine—the type of battle that you usually chalk up as a strikeout for Burnes before it even begins.
The Brewers thwacked the Cubs, 7-0, on Wednesday in a game where Chicago didn’t have all that many real scoring chances, but there was one early rally against Burnes.
The Cubs put runners on second and third with one out in the top of the second after Joc Pederson reached on a dropped third strike and Jason Heyward doubled. After Burnes punched out David Bote for the second out, the Brewers had an easy way out of the inning. First base was wide open and the pitcher spot was due up next.
It was the perfect spot for the manager to put four fingers up, send the eight-hole hitter to first base intentionally and get the easy final out against Jake Arrieta.
But Burnes wanted no part of conceding to Romine, even if it is the smart play statistically speaking. Burnes—and Craig Counsell, for that matter—sent a message that they knew no eight hitter should be a match for the right-hander. Dudes don’t issue intentional walks to guys with a career 69 wRC+, no matter how nice the idea of facing the pitcher as a get-out-of-jail-free card is.
Romine flew out to right field to dissipate the threat. Burnes allowed just one base runner the rest of the afternoon. He lowered his ERA to 0.49. He became A Dude.
The Willians Silver Lining
~Jake
This season isn’t exactly going to plan for the Minnesota Twins.
Sure, it’s not as bad as last year, where we couldn’t play ball until the summer, but it’s not going drastically better than that either. As much as we want to just forget about the global pandemic, the Twins were reminded that a brutal virus stops for no one. First, it began with Andrelton Simmons, a noted anti-vaccination guy. Then, just a few days later, Kyle Garlick and two others in the Twins organization tested positive for the virus, forcing the team to postpone games with the Angels and the Athletics.
The health of those in the organization is notably more important than wins and losses, but the Twins aren’t doing much better in that category either, sitting at 6-8 just above the cellar-bound Detroit Tigers.
It very much feels like Rocco Baldelli and Co. would take a do-over for April if they could. Well, everyone outside of Byron Buxton anyways.
The lasting baseball impact of this delay is going to be a significant topic of conversation for some time to come, to say nothing of how players recover from COVID-19.
With so much bad energy in the Twin Cities right now, though, I just need a shot of positivity right now. YouTube videos of puppies only go so far, you know?
Instead, I look back to one of the last bits of Twins action we got. Yes, the 10-3 blowout by Mike Trout’s Angels. Near the end of that ugly game, we got one bit of beauty that has sustained me.
Everyone’s favorite Tortuga took the hill for the second time in his lively career, pitching a scoreless eighth inning. Let’s dive deep into that positive energy and analyze all seven of his pitches from the outing, beautifully collected by CJ Fogler on Twitter.
Pitch One: This one was a ball off the plate, clocked at 51 miles per hour. Every time I see a position player pitching, it actually humbles the hell out of me. It’s not like I think 51 miles per hour is straight gas, but did you see the arc on that pitch? It looks like slowpitch softball. Even more, Astudillo looks like he’s casually lobbing it. Which, I mean, he probably is. You really should go to a batting cage and see what 50 miles per hour looks like, though—I promise you it’s harder than you think.
Pitch Two: Astudillo, now warmed up, tosses a 59 mile per hour floater right down the heart of the plate to noted enemy of the newsletter Kurt Suzuki. Suzuki sends a rocket down the left field line, speared by Josh Donaldson, who may or may not have gotten hurt on the play (editor’s note: He didn’t. JAKE’S NOTE: PROVE IT). The best part of this pitch is Suzuki was out and that made me happy.
Pitch Three: Next, we get a beautiful 46 mph toss that turned Luis Rengifo into stone. It was beautiful.
Pitch Four: [Insert the “Just a bit outside” joke from Bob Uecker in Major League]
Pitch Five: This was easily the best pitch of the day for Astudillo, and may, perchance, be the best pitch by a Twins pitcher all day. My guy threw it 72 miles per hour on the black. Haters will say the umpire just wanted the game to be over. Statheads like me will just count that as a framing win for Mitch Garver.
Pitch Six: Very strong “Screw this, I want to go home” vibes from Luis Rengifo here. Astudillo floats another pitch, probably sub-50 miles per hour, this time up in the zone. Rengifo grounds out easily to Josh Donaldson, standing in the shortstop hole. Side note: I love that the Twins clearly didn’t care enough about this game to put a competitive pitcher out there but cared enough to continue using the shift. Beautiful.
Rengifo was probably just happy to be done with the game but mark that as a 5-3 in the scorebook.
Pitch Seven: This was also in the conversation for Astudillo’s best pitch of the game. He knows David Fletcher LOVES the high ball, so he threw it in Fletcher’s favorite zone—up and away. Donaldson, standing back at third base, hauls in the line drive to end the inning. (Seriously, check this out, I’m still laughing).
Statcast stuff: The best part about Major League Baseball tracking every metric for every pitch is being able to look at Astudillo’s seven pitches. Four of them were labeled as an eephus, while one (pitch five, the 72 mph dart) was called a changeup. As someone who lived at 72 mph as a bad high school pitcher, I’m offended to see that called a changeup. In his one previous pitching appearance back in 2018, Astudillo threw 35 pitches tracked by Statcast, including 30 four-seam fastballs that averaged 84 mph.
The change in speed apparently was the right decisión for Astudillo. His expected ERA for his most recent outing was only 5.23, notably much better than his 88.39 mark from the 2018 appearance (lol). Another lol: Astudillo’s spin rate on the eephus averaged 1257 rpm. By comparison, Devin Williams threw a changeup the other day that with 3041 rpm.
I’ll leave you on this beautiful overlay by Pitching Ninja on Twitter:
About the bullpen…
~Curt
I, regrettably, am going to write about bullpen usage.
I say ‘regrettably’ because, dear reader, I don’t like doing this. Bullpen management is the most analyzed aspect of a manager’s job. Everybody, including myself at times, thinks they could do it. The reality is that it’s a much tougher job than it seems.
The reason I’m writing about it isn’t because there was just a blip on the radar of a spot where arguably the wrong guy was used. Instead, what happened was a telling sign of a pivotal trend that will play out over the remainder of the season: Hader’s specific role.
The Brewers’ bullpen management in 2021, in terms of which pitchers get deployed and when, has largely been devoid of question marks. A large part of that, sure, may be that it’s simply not a deep unit and outside of Josh Hader, I’m not sure there’s anyone that is currently able to be relied upon on a nightly basis.
The Brewers have made it clear that Hader is their Capital-C closer in 2021. The southpaw will be a ninth-inning guy the greater majority of the time. It’s not at all unusual to see MLB teams use their best reliever in that role, so this wouldn’t normally be all that big of a surprise.
What makes this specific decision by the Brewers noteworthy, of course, is that Hader has been utilized as a multi-inning fireman for years. It was in that role that Hader became a two-time National League reliever of the year.
On Sunday, we saw just how strict the Brewers may be sticking to their Hader restraints. After a 13-pitch ninth, the Brewers could have gone to Hader for at least one batter in the 10th. That batter was Colin Moran, a lefty and arguably the team’s best hitter, to lead off the extra frame. It would have required a double switch after the eighth, but it was very feasible, especially given Hader’s history of getting more than three outs.
Instead, the Brewers didn’t double switch. They pulled Hader after the ninth and Moran doubled to lead off the 10th against JP Feyereisen, who otherwise allowed no more damage.
I had previously figured that there would be more flexibility with using Hader in the eighth or having him get four or five outs, but the early results indicate things are going to look different this year.
The organization hasn’t fully explained why this was their decision, which is more than fair. Perhaps there are legitimate concerns about how Hader’s body can hold up to all that usage. Perhaps Hader himself prefers this role. Heck, maybe Sunday wasn’t indicative of how Hader will be utilized going forward and this is all a wash.
Or, as we saw Monday, having Hader available to go two nights in a row is worth taking the gamble with a different reliever in extras. That 3-1 Brewers win was another prime example of the difficulty of bullpen management. Removing Hader on Sunday after one inning will be plenty criticized but managers manage for 162 games and nobody will say a peep about the fact that it allowed Hader to pitch consecutive days and sit down Cronenworth-Machado-Hosmer
I guess we will have to wait and see.
Bullpen usage: it’s always more complicated than meets the eye, even if the strict role of Hader makes you scratch your head.
Here, watch some filth.
~Curt
My favorite part of the week is sifting through all the called and swinging strikes thrown by Brewers pitchers in the last week. This week’s arsenal, thanks in large part to Fred Peralta, is fantastic. Let’s dig in.
