(but not the Twins' beat!)
The first round of the IBL playoffs was surprisingly academic – the first through fourth seeds advanced, and the fifth through eight seeds were eliminated. As I remember it, in addition to Brantford sweeping the Twins, Guelph and Barrie beat Oshawa and Kitchener respectively in five games, and Toronto knocked out the defending pennant winners (and seventh game championship losers) London.
Interestingly, Kitchener got close – very close, even – against Barrie, even if the 4-1 series win doesn’t show it. Two of their losses were by a single run, another was by 2 and the third by five. For a team that started the season 8-8 and then only won a single game the rest of the way, that ain’t bad at all.
So, the second round (semi final, actually) pairings feature Brantford against Guelph and Barrie against Toronto. Both series are already underway, and to recap:
Brantford dropped game one at home by a count of 5-1, but bounced back to win game 2 on the road 4-2. They had a week’s layover between their sweep of the Twins and game one, and let’s face it – they hadn’t had to play hard for the back half of the Twins’ series, either. Until Guelph can prove otherwise, I’m going to say that Brantford was just shaking off a bit of rust and are good to go for the rest of the playoffs.
I’m not too sure what the storyline going into the Toronto-Barrie series is. Toronto had a very see-saw six game first round against London, and there’s no question they had to be locked in all the way to the end. That would suggest to me that they carry some momentum into the Barrie series. As for the Baycats, though, I think their far-from-overpowering showing against Kitchener may have something to do with how early they clinched and the fact that they were on cruise control for what must have been a long time in a league like the IBL. Maybe the Kitchener series was just them getting back into the swing of meaningful baseball, and they could well be newly awakened giants from here on out.
Barrie won game one by a count of 8-7, so that could well bear my argument out. Game two goes tomorrow (Sunday) at Christie Pits at 2 PM, and I’m planning on being there. I fully expect an exciting game and great atmosphere tomorrow, as well as a competitive series the rest of the way!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
That's a Wrap
The Mississauga Twins were swept out of the playoffs tonight, losing by a decisive count of 14-1 in a game that they were never really in. Coach Held put it succinctly after the game – and this quote might go in my game story, as a point of full disclosure – when he said that “we were in it right up until the umpire said ‘play ball.’”
It’s true – the Twins never really were in this one, trailing 4-0 after one, 8-0 after two and 11-0 after three. It’s very much worth noting, I would think, that all four of the Red Sox’ runs in the first came with two out. Not good – but also a testament to the Brantford hitters.
The game’s biggest story was Brantford starter Brad Hogeterp’s no hitter, which he carried into, I believe it was, the sixth.
So, that’s a wrap. I could go into further detail about tonight’s game, how the big innings came together and so on, but I don’t think I will. I’m planning on (eventually) writing a game story for the Twins’ website, and anyone dying to know the nitty gritty can get their fix from that. Instead, I think I’ll talk a bit about the Twins’ season overall and where things are going to go from here.
Inaugural seasons are often tough, and I think the reason that this one seemed as tough as it did is because of the lofty expectations that a lot of people – myself included – had going in. The prevailing wisdom was that these guys would fight for a spot in the middle of the standings – and up until the last 3 weeks or so of the regular season, they were within a couple games of fifth place – and obviously it was tough for everyone to take when the fight wound up being over the eighth and final playoff spot.
There’s absolutely a core in place – Banski, Dickson, Joseph, Duke, Macleod and Pui are the ones that jump at me off the top of my head, but there are others who can contribute to a winning team in the future, I think. A lot of the Twins’ future success will depend on how GM Doug Kelcher goes about adjusting the roster in the off-season. I very much liked his mid-season pick ups (Banski and Macleod); they suggested to me that he had learned a feel for what kinds of players it takes to compete in this league, and I’m sure that will guide his off-season acquisitions.
Everyone I spoke to after the game was very non-committal as far as their future with the Twins goes – everyone seemed to want to come back, but at the same time went out of their way to defer to ownership/management’s decisions and their own personal situations. Ian Held never shed the ‘interim’ label on his managerial tenure, and I’m very interested to see what the Twins’ do about their coaching staff heading into next year.
It’ll also be interesting to see what happens from an off-field standpoint. Landmark Sports, I think, are going to spend a lot of time thinking things through from point A – attendance is a major, massive concern. Their expectations were 500 fans a game at the beginning of the season; obviously, on some nights it was a struggle to get to 100, and that will need to be addressed. I suspect that full-time staff will be devoted to marketing the Twins’ brand headed into next year, and it’ll be interesting to see what avenues they pursue. Social media – Facebook and Twitter – were only used much later in the season, and I think they made a big difference, so it’ll be neat to see what happens after the Twins’ personnel have a full winter to work on things and become more comfortable with the whole sports marketing gig.
On a personal level, I’d like to thank Scott Rogers for giving me the chance to be the Twins’ first ever beat writer – it was awesome having my own beat to work and I really did have a blast doing it. I’d like to thank Doug Kelcher for his helpfulness as far as keeping me up to date on roster moves and for always getting back to me quickly; I’d like to thank Ian Held and Adeo Calcagni for their co-operation and availability during each of their respective managerial tenures; I’d also like to thank all of the players – especially captain Henry Duke, who was always willing to talk and always had something intelligent to say – for their friendliness and availability. Most importantly, I’d like to thank everyone who read this blog and followed my coverage on MississaugaTwins.ca – despite your refusal to comment, my new hit counter proves that you do indeed exist!
I’m not quite sure just yet what the future of this blog is – I’m more than happy to remain on board with the Twins and write articles for their site as things come into focus for next year; obviously, if I do that, that content will also go up on the blog alongside my own analysis. I’m also considering blogging a bit about the rest of the IBL playoffs – and going out to a few Toronto games if they’re still in it after I get back from the cottage.
Check back within a week to ten days and there will definitely be some sort of update on what’s going on!
It’s true – the Twins never really were in this one, trailing 4-0 after one, 8-0 after two and 11-0 after three. It’s very much worth noting, I would think, that all four of the Red Sox’ runs in the first came with two out. Not good – but also a testament to the Brantford hitters.
The game’s biggest story was Brantford starter Brad Hogeterp’s no hitter, which he carried into, I believe it was, the sixth.
So, that’s a wrap. I could go into further detail about tonight’s game, how the big innings came together and so on, but I don’t think I will. I’m planning on (eventually) writing a game story for the Twins’ website, and anyone dying to know the nitty gritty can get their fix from that. Instead, I think I’ll talk a bit about the Twins’ season overall and where things are going to go from here.
Inaugural seasons are often tough, and I think the reason that this one seemed as tough as it did is because of the lofty expectations that a lot of people – myself included – had going in. The prevailing wisdom was that these guys would fight for a spot in the middle of the standings – and up until the last 3 weeks or so of the regular season, they were within a couple games of fifth place – and obviously it was tough for everyone to take when the fight wound up being over the eighth and final playoff spot.
There’s absolutely a core in place – Banski, Dickson, Joseph, Duke, Macleod and Pui are the ones that jump at me off the top of my head, but there are others who can contribute to a winning team in the future, I think. A lot of the Twins’ future success will depend on how GM Doug Kelcher goes about adjusting the roster in the off-season. I very much liked his mid-season pick ups (Banski and Macleod); they suggested to me that he had learned a feel for what kinds of players it takes to compete in this league, and I’m sure that will guide his off-season acquisitions.
Everyone I spoke to after the game was very non-committal as far as their future with the Twins goes – everyone seemed to want to come back, but at the same time went out of their way to defer to ownership/management’s decisions and their own personal situations. Ian Held never shed the ‘interim’ label on his managerial tenure, and I’m very interested to see what the Twins’ do about their coaching staff heading into next year.
It’ll also be interesting to see what happens from an off-field standpoint. Landmark Sports, I think, are going to spend a lot of time thinking things through from point A – attendance is a major, massive concern. Their expectations were 500 fans a game at the beginning of the season; obviously, on some nights it was a struggle to get to 100, and that will need to be addressed. I suspect that full-time staff will be devoted to marketing the Twins’ brand headed into next year, and it’ll be interesting to see what avenues they pursue. Social media – Facebook and Twitter – were only used much later in the season, and I think they made a big difference, so it’ll be neat to see what happens after the Twins’ personnel have a full winter to work on things and become more comfortable with the whole sports marketing gig.
On a personal level, I’d like to thank Scott Rogers for giving me the chance to be the Twins’ first ever beat writer – it was awesome having my own beat to work and I really did have a blast doing it. I’d like to thank Doug Kelcher for his helpfulness as far as keeping me up to date on roster moves and for always getting back to me quickly; I’d like to thank Ian Held and Adeo Calcagni for their co-operation and availability during each of their respective managerial tenures; I’d also like to thank all of the players – especially captain Henry Duke, who was always willing to talk and always had something intelligent to say – for their friendliness and availability. Most importantly, I’d like to thank everyone who read this blog and followed my coverage on MississaugaTwins.ca – despite your refusal to comment, my new hit counter proves that you do indeed exist!
I’m not quite sure just yet what the future of this blog is – I’m more than happy to remain on board with the Twins and write articles for their site as things come into focus for next year; obviously, if I do that, that content will also go up on the blog alongside my own analysis. I’m also considering blogging a bit about the rest of the IBL playoffs – and going out to a few Toronto games if they’re still in it after I get back from the cottage.
Check back within a week to ten days and there will definitely be some sort of update on what’s going on!
Monday, August 3, 2009
(Settling into) The Noose
The noose that I suggested the Twins were trying to slip is now fitted firmly around their necks, and their only way out is to somehow pull off four consecutive victories against the defending champions.
They dropped tonight’s tilt in Brantford by a score of 14-2 – it was a great game for most of it; the wheels came off in the bottom of the eighth when the Twins surrendered 10 (ten!) runs, putting it far out of reach.
In that eighth inning (as will be documented in game story, to be posted soon on the Twins’ site), Mike Bonnano was put in to do mop-up duty and he was just all over the place – at one point, the bases were loaded and all three runs scored on passed balls. Not pretty.
Other than that one inning, the Twins absolutely showed up tonight – in terms of defense and pitching, at least. They kept it close; it was a 1-run game for a lot of it and only a 2-run game as of the sixth inning. The big problem, though, was that the bats just would not come around – they couldn’t get hits in key situations, and they ran themselves into a lot of stupid outs (Brendan Emmett making the third out stealing third; Branson Joseph hosed at the plate on a hopeless send; Jonathan Slattery picked off second to end an inning).
Bonnano being put into the game was more or less a waving of the white flag of sorts. After the game, coach Held conceded that he was basically out of options. The only real bullets he had left in his chamber were Derek Gordon and Adam Banski, both of whom will be needed at full capacity for Wednesday’s elimination game (although they’re all elimination games from here on out, which is obviously a bit of a problem).
Held obviously had no intention of taking Bonnano out of the game – I wonder just how long it could have gone on for – and I suppose that’s fine. It must have been a bit demoralizing for the players on the field – and Bonnano himself – to have to string it out, but what other options were there? Throw in another position player and hope he gets better results? I suppose that was one of them, but in the grand scheme of things it’s hardly a debate worth having.
But really, in case I’ve overlooked it – this was, up to the eighth, an absolute jewel of a game and I had a blast watching it in the Brantford press box with some IBL lifers who really knew their stuff and had a ton of knowledge to share about the league.
So, then, to the future we now look. And the view isn’t pretty – I don’t really care to research the exact percentage chance that teams down 3-0 in best of sevens have of coming back, but we can all imagine it’s a very low one. I’ll say this for the Twins, though: the Boston Red Sox in 2004 had a far lower chance of coming back against New York than Mississauga does against Brantford, and we all know how that one turned out (or we shouldn’t be reading a baseball blog if we don’t, anyways).
And dammit, the Twins have been so frustratingly close. Surely, surely, surely, if the baseball gods have any sense of justice whatsoever, they manage to rattle off a win or two in this series. It’s true – it would require the full wrath and fury of the baseball gods being directed at the Red Sox for the Twins to come back and win this thing, but a few wins hardly seem out of the question.
Anyways, I guess we’re standing on the abyss – I’ll be back on Wednesday with coverage of game four, and with any luck there’ll be a fifth one. Stay tuned!
They dropped tonight’s tilt in Brantford by a score of 14-2 – it was a great game for most of it; the wheels came off in the bottom of the eighth when the Twins surrendered 10 (ten!) runs, putting it far out of reach.
In that eighth inning (as will be documented in game story, to be posted soon on the Twins’ site), Mike Bonnano was put in to do mop-up duty and he was just all over the place – at one point, the bases were loaded and all three runs scored on passed balls. Not pretty.
Other than that one inning, the Twins absolutely showed up tonight – in terms of defense and pitching, at least. They kept it close; it was a 1-run game for a lot of it and only a 2-run game as of the sixth inning. The big problem, though, was that the bats just would not come around – they couldn’t get hits in key situations, and they ran themselves into a lot of stupid outs (Brendan Emmett making the third out stealing third; Branson Joseph hosed at the plate on a hopeless send; Jonathan Slattery picked off second to end an inning).
Bonnano being put into the game was more or less a waving of the white flag of sorts. After the game, coach Held conceded that he was basically out of options. The only real bullets he had left in his chamber were Derek Gordon and Adam Banski, both of whom will be needed at full capacity for Wednesday’s elimination game (although they’re all elimination games from here on out, which is obviously a bit of a problem).
Held obviously had no intention of taking Bonnano out of the game – I wonder just how long it could have gone on for – and I suppose that’s fine. It must have been a bit demoralizing for the players on the field – and Bonnano himself – to have to string it out, but what other options were there? Throw in another position player and hope he gets better results? I suppose that was one of them, but in the grand scheme of things it’s hardly a debate worth having.
But really, in case I’ve overlooked it – this was, up to the eighth, an absolute jewel of a game and I had a blast watching it in the Brantford press box with some IBL lifers who really knew their stuff and had a ton of knowledge to share about the league.
So, then, to the future we now look. And the view isn’t pretty – I don’t really care to research the exact percentage chance that teams down 3-0 in best of sevens have of coming back, but we can all imagine it’s a very low one. I’ll say this for the Twins, though: the Boston Red Sox in 2004 had a far lower chance of coming back against New York than Mississauga does against Brantford, and we all know how that one turned out (or we shouldn’t be reading a baseball blog if we don’t, anyways).
And dammit, the Twins have been so frustratingly close. Surely, surely, surely, if the baseball gods have any sense of justice whatsoever, they manage to rattle off a win or two in this series. It’s true – it would require the full wrath and fury of the baseball gods being directed at the Red Sox for the Twins to come back and win this thing, but a few wins hardly seem out of the question.
Anyways, I guess we’re standing on the abyss – I’ll be back on Wednesday with coverage of game four, and with any luck there’ll be a fifth one. Stay tuned!
Sunday, August 2, 2009
(Plotting to Slip) The Noose
I sort of fell behind the blogging curve because of being up north, but I’m back now and the Twins are in the heat of their first ever playoff series – not incidentally, they’re also teetering on the brink of disaster.
They wound up coming in seventh, passing Kitchener in the tiebreaker, which turned out to be run differential in head-to-head games. As a result, they drew second place Brantford in the first round. I heard several different descriptions of how the tiebreaker was settled throughout the season; I’m pretty sure that head-to-head run differential was not one of them.
Anyways, even before game 1 was played I saw a bit of a problem with this. I have always argued that a first round match-up with Brantford was the Twins’ best shot because they’ve beaten them and played them tight in the regular season, but my thinking shifted over the last week of the season: Barrie spent the better part of a week on cruise control after clinching; Brantford, on the other hand, have been playing hard to fight for second.
Trying to jump the complacent, cruise-control team and take them by surprise seemed to me, by far, to be a better bet than taking on the Red Sox. Reality, I think, bears me out: Barrie find themselves in a shockingly tight series with Kitchener, up 2-1 but with both of their wins being by a single run. Mississauga, on the other hand, trail Brantford 2-0. I think the Twins are a better team than Kitchener, so had they drawn Barrie it’s not unthinkable that they could have the 2-1 advantage.
But the punchline is that they didn’t – they’re in a hole against Brantford and have their heads in a noose heading into tomorrow (today’s) 8.00 tilt in Brantford. If they lose, the noose is substantially tightened as they’ll trail 3-0 in the series; if they win, they’ll come home with a chance to even the series up before heading back on the road later in the week, where they normally play far better than at home.
There’s some upside for the Twins. The two games that they dropped to open the series have been very tight – the real heartbreaker was a 2-1 loss in extra innings to open the series up on Saturday night (they took a 1-0 lead in the top of the ninth and coughed it up), and today they lost 7-4, and, from what I’ve seen and read, they were right there: it was a 1-run game until Brantford put up 2 in the ninth, and given the Twins’ season it’s very likely that a couple of the Brantford runs shouldn’t have scored and/or that they missed a few chances to punch in extra runs.
Branson Joseph, I’m pretty sure it was, told the Mississauga news today that he felt the first two games of the set were the best the Twins have played all year.
So, the following factors all go in the Twins favour right now, despite how ominous a 2-0 deficit strikes most people as: they have beaten Brantford in Brantford; they’ve come close to beating Brantford at home; they’ve played very well lately; they’ll have an acute sense of urgency that Brantford will not have, being down 2-0; and, most importantly, they play a hell of a lot better on the road than at home.
Like I said, all it takes is a W tomorrow on the road, and they get to come home looking to tie the series. They’ve been very close; tomorrow could well be their day.
I’ll be at the game tomorrow – to make up for missing the 2 o’clock long-weekend Sunday home game – and on Wednesday, and likely the rest of the games from here on out (for the first round, at least).
Take a look at my game story from the Kitchener playoff-clinching win at http://www.mississaugatwins.ca/gamenotes.htm and check back tomorrow night for post-game blogging!
They wound up coming in seventh, passing Kitchener in the tiebreaker, which turned out to be run differential in head-to-head games. As a result, they drew second place Brantford in the first round. I heard several different descriptions of how the tiebreaker was settled throughout the season; I’m pretty sure that head-to-head run differential was not one of them.
Anyways, even before game 1 was played I saw a bit of a problem with this. I have always argued that a first round match-up with Brantford was the Twins’ best shot because they’ve beaten them and played them tight in the regular season, but my thinking shifted over the last week of the season: Barrie spent the better part of a week on cruise control after clinching; Brantford, on the other hand, have been playing hard to fight for second.
Trying to jump the complacent, cruise-control team and take them by surprise seemed to me, by far, to be a better bet than taking on the Red Sox. Reality, I think, bears me out: Barrie find themselves in a shockingly tight series with Kitchener, up 2-1 but with both of their wins being by a single run. Mississauga, on the other hand, trail Brantford 2-0. I think the Twins are a better team than Kitchener, so had they drawn Barrie it’s not unthinkable that they could have the 2-1 advantage.
But the punchline is that they didn’t – they’re in a hole against Brantford and have their heads in a noose heading into tomorrow (today’s) 8.00 tilt in Brantford. If they lose, the noose is substantially tightened as they’ll trail 3-0 in the series; if they win, they’ll come home with a chance to even the series up before heading back on the road later in the week, where they normally play far better than at home.
There’s some upside for the Twins. The two games that they dropped to open the series have been very tight – the real heartbreaker was a 2-1 loss in extra innings to open the series up on Saturday night (they took a 1-0 lead in the top of the ninth and coughed it up), and today they lost 7-4, and, from what I’ve seen and read, they were right there: it was a 1-run game until Brantford put up 2 in the ninth, and given the Twins’ season it’s very likely that a couple of the Brantford runs shouldn’t have scored and/or that they missed a few chances to punch in extra runs.
Branson Joseph, I’m pretty sure it was, told the Mississauga news today that he felt the first two games of the set were the best the Twins have played all year.
So, the following factors all go in the Twins favour right now, despite how ominous a 2-0 deficit strikes most people as: they have beaten Brantford in Brantford; they’ve come close to beating Brantford at home; they’ve played very well lately; they’ll have an acute sense of urgency that Brantford will not have, being down 2-0; and, most importantly, they play a hell of a lot better on the road than at home.
Like I said, all it takes is a W tomorrow on the road, and they get to come home looking to tie the series. They’ve been very close; tomorrow could well be their day.
I’ll be at the game tomorrow – to make up for missing the 2 o’clock long-weekend Sunday home game – and on Wednesday, and likely the rest of the games from here on out (for the first round, at least).
Take a look at my game story from the Kitchener playoff-clinching win at http://www.mississaugatwins.ca/gamenotes.htm and check back tomorrow night for post-game blogging!
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Taking it Home
The Mississauga Twins clinched their first ever playoff berth in my first ever non-Christie Pitts road game, doing so with a 5-4 win over Kitchener. It is now mathematically impossible for the Hamilton Thunderbirds to finish the season tied with the Twins for the eighth seed – and final playoff spot – in the IBL.
The win also means that I’ll be skipping tomorrow’s home finale against Guelph in favour of the cottage – is it that tough of a choice, really? – but I’ll be back for the playoffs!
The game tonight was a bit sloppy – a few runners thrown out on awkward plays where they probably shouldn’t have been running (or obviously shouldn’t have been running, in hindsight), but that applied to both teams. Both teams loaded the bases with nobody out and failed to capitalize one time apiece, as well. Kitchener booted the ball around a bit – with crisper defence, Mississauga wouldn’t have built up the 4-0 lead that it did in the top of the first and we would be looking at an entirely different outcome (and playoff picture) right about now.
Shane Cole was as good as I’ve ever seen him, both in terms of stuff (his ball was both quick and lively) and results – he pitched five innings, only allowing three runs and picking up the W. Adam Banski pitched three awesome innings of relief (including the bottom of the ninth) and he again proved himself to be GM Kelcher’s best mid-season pick up. The Twins would literally have 2 or 3 (maybe as many as 4) fewer wins than they now do without him; giving him a chance to play again after Tommy John surgery was literally a season-saving decision on their part.
Darryl Pui hurt himself early in the game (a pulled hamstring, I’m told) and the Twins will need him back for the playoffs. Jeff Macleod, normally strictly a pitcher, filled in in right field and didn’t look a beat off tune the whole time. He was also smooth with the bat, having extra bases taken away from him by the Kitchener centre fielder late in the game.
His real contribution, though, came in the bottom of the ninth, when he hosed an ill-advised Panther who attempted to turn a single into a double at second base. It was actually a close play – I’m thinking it wasn’t altogether an awful decision by Kitchener to force the issue – and Macleod threw both a rocket and a strike to nail him. Without that throw, Kitchener would have had the tying run in scoring position with no one out and we could well still be playing.
The Twins and Panthers are now tied for seventh. I’m told, however, that Kitchener has the edge in a hypothetical tiebreaker, so if both teams lose tomorrow the seventh seed goes to them and the Twins fall to eighth.
That said, if Mississauga beats Guelph and Kitchener loses to Brantford tomorrow, the Twins finish the year with sole possession of seventh.
I’m not really sure anymore that there’s a real advantage to playing Brantford over Barrie in the first round. Mathematically, though, Toronto and Guelph are both still in the running for second place – so we’ll have to see how it all shakes out.
Oh yes – I didn’t update the blog to reflect some scheduling changes made on Sunday: the Twins did wind up getting in their make-up against Brantford, playing in Brantford on Monday night and losing 7-1. They were sloppy in doing so, making four errors over the course of the game.
The playoff schedule is still very much up in the air – the tentative (home) schedule that I saw had the Twins at home on Monday the 3rd, and then the following Wednesday and Saturday. But tonight there were rumours of a Saturday home game (which will be tougher for me to make, but I just might still do it anyways), so at this point I really don’t know.
I’ll try to update the blog to inform ya’ll of the dates and times of the Twins’ home games once they are confirmed, though!
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Scheduling the Twins
The most important day of the Mississauga Twins’ season came and went without a single game being played that affected them. There were six games on slate for Sunday in the IBL – an absurd number for a nine team league – and only two were played; that was a doubleheader at Christie Pitts, where the Maple Leafs beat the just-clinched pennant champion Barrie Baycats twice.
All of the rained out games directly impacted the Twins in some way: Brantford-Kitchener was cancelled, and the Twins need Kitchener to continue losing if they are to have a shot at seventh place; both of the Twins’ games, including a pivotal contest against Kitchener that will determine whether or not the Twins even have a chance at the seventh spot and a rained out home game against Guelph that was only being played in Guelph due to diamond availability, were scrapped; and, lastly, the Hamilton/London game, in which a Hamilton loss would assure the Twins of a playoff spot and a Hamilton victory would force them to win at least one of their remaining games to not finish the season in a tie for eighth was also a wash.
The Hamilton-London contest will be played tomorrow, Monday, as the only game on the IBL slate, and its outcome will certainly dramatically alter, one way or another, the tone of the Twins’ final three games: there will be a big difference between playing for a playoff spot and playing with a playoff spot guaranteed and only the luxury of moving up in the standings hanging in the balance.
Mississauga’s schedule the rest of the way out is not entirely clear just yet, in part due to what appears to be an administrative error by the league. What we do know is that the Twins play Kitchener in Kitchener on Tuesday; however, the IBL website lists the Twins playing Guelph twice on Wednesday. The problem with this, of course, is that the Twins only have one game left against Guelph – their other remaining home game is a make-up against Brantford.
I’m not entirely sure what’s going on – maybe there wasn’t an administrative error and the Twins actually are playing Guelph twice on Wednesday, instead of Guelph once and Brantford once. Brantford are in Kitchener Wednesday night, so it would obviously be very hard for them to play in Mississauga earlier in the day and get up there for a 7.30 start. In this case, they would have changed the schedule, obviously, having Guelph take Brantford’s place in a game against Mississauga, and while that seems highly improbable, the IBL are desperate to wrap the regular season up and it’s tough to imagine the season extending beyond Wednesday. Of course, it’s equally tough to imagine that they’d just substitute one team for another in the schedule, so I really have no idea whatsoever.
I’ve sent a couple of emails and I’ll probably follow them up with phone calls tomorrow if necessary to get concrete answers. If I do get a reply tonight that contains important information, I’ll put it up here and fire off a news post for the website.
One more thing before I go – looking at the standings, a very interesting development has cropped up: Toronto is now tied for second place with Brantford, each of them two games back of Barrie. The kicker, though, is that Brantford has played two games less than Toronto has – all the more reason to think, given that they’re now in a tie, that they absolutely must get that rain-out against Mississauga in.
Beyond that, though, the exciting part is the possibility of Mississauga finishing in seventh and Toronto second – that would set up a Battle of the GTA first round, and I’m sure it would be a lot of fun for everyone. It’s certainly an angle I’ll keep an eye on as the next few days play out!
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Where We Are
The Twins have dealt with two consecutive rainouts in the past two nights, and there’s a real possibility tomorrow’s game against Brantford could be a wash as well. It’s going to be a problem because there simply aren’t enough days left in the regular season to make them up. The season officially ends Sunday; the Twins, though, play in Kitchener to make up the Wednesday rain-out and then need to play into next week to get in the Guelph game. Word right now is either Monday or Wednesday, and possibly in Guelph (despite it being a home game).
The problem is that they want to wrap things up ASAP so they can have the maximum amount of time possible to rest up for the playoffs – presumably, if they play Monday they could start the playoffs Wednesday or Thursday, and if they play Wednesday they’d have to start Thursday. Maybe they’d start as late as Friday, but I doubt it.
And what happens if the Twins finish the year tied for eighth with Hamilton and require a sudden death, one game playoff after all of the regular season games have been completed? That pushes everything back further, since that game would obviously be absolutely necessary.
Speaking of which, let’s revisit the Twins’ playoff arithmetic:
Hamilton lost tonight in London; it was as close as could possibly be with a 1-0 final. The Thunderbirds now sit two games back of the Twins for the final playoff spot – but the problem is, one of those games is composed of two half games from games which Hamilton has played that Mississauga has not.
Mississauga has three games remaining; Hamilton has one. In order for the two teams to finish in a tie, the Twins need to lose all three of their remaining games and Hamilton needs to win their last game, at home against London on Sunday. The problem is, though, that Hamilton has been playing well as of late. Earlier in the season, they were as far back of the Twins as five and six games; of the past month and a half or so, they’ve narrowed that to one game (in real terms, anyways) and recently have played Brantford to within one run (losing 8-7 earlier in the week) and also lost games by a single run to Mississauga and, tonight, London.
Coupled with all the games they’ve won recently that the Twins haven’t, there’s a very credible chance that they could upset London at home on Sunday, inasfar as the chances of upsets can be credible.
The good news, though, is that the Twins clinch a playoff spot by winning one of their remaining games. At that point, they’d the most ground they could lose to Hamilton is the two games (which are actually worth one in the standings) that are made up of games Mississauga has in hand.
The one that they really want to win is against Kitchener on Sunday. It would pull them even with Kitchener for the seventh spot, and to overtake them they’d need to win one more game than Kitchener loses. Other than the game against each other, both teams have two games remaining: Kitchener plays Toronto tomorrow and Brantford Sunday, before they play Mississauga, and Mississauga, as we know, plays Brantford tonight (Saturday) and Guelph at a yet to be determined date.
There’s a good chance that Kitchener loses to both Toronto and Brantford – both teams are good, and they’ll be playing to kill because they’re very much fighting for leverage in the standings. The problem is that the same thing could be said of Mississauga’s chances against Brantford and Guelph. Twins’ fans can take heart in the fact that the Twins almost beat Guelph on Tuesday, in a game everyone says they should have won, and have already beaten Brantford earlier in the year and played them very close on other occasions. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that they’ll pick off one of those games.
I was at the park tonight and all the players and everyone was there, but even after the game was called I didn’t bother doing any story-chasing. If tomorrow’s game is cancelled, and that would create a huge mess for everyone, I’ll likely be at the park until it’s officially off because they’ll do everything they can to get it in. When I am, I’ll try to tie down some pre-playoff loose ends I’ve been trying to pin down – conversations with newcomers, like Banski and Dickson, as well as getting injuries updates on Asis and Pui. The Twins will need them to be hot to have a fighting chance in any playoff series.
Blog at you after the game tomorrow!
PS -- I almost forgot! Jake Eliopolis, who was drafted by the Blue Jays this past June (and who is younger than me -- my God) is supposedly still with the Red Sox right now, and I've been planning on trying to chat with him for a long time but I haven't seen the Red Sox play since May 23rd, prior to his being drafted. I'm not sure if I'll do a feature on him if I get the chance to talk, due to the lack of a place to publish it (although I may well shop it around -- who knows?) but if I do talk to him, I'll definitely either paraphrase or quote what he had to say on the blog.
I've also wanted to talk to Rick Johnston, a Red Sox coach/executive who has been around Baseball Canada, the Blue Jays & really everything else baseball in Canada for quite some time. The big thing I wanted to chat about was the future of the national team -- and Ernie Whitt's future as manager -- after that debacle in March, but I was also curios to get his thoughts on what's going on with the Blue Jays right now, since I'm pretty sure he guest-coached at spring training during the Gaston Era I. Anyways, nothing against Rick, but I kind of doubt that there's a market for an article about that conversation, but it'll definitely go up here because I'm sure it'll be very interesting stuff!
The problem is that they want to wrap things up ASAP so they can have the maximum amount of time possible to rest up for the playoffs – presumably, if they play Monday they could start the playoffs Wednesday or Thursday, and if they play Wednesday they’d have to start Thursday. Maybe they’d start as late as Friday, but I doubt it.
And what happens if the Twins finish the year tied for eighth with Hamilton and require a sudden death, one game playoff after all of the regular season games have been completed? That pushes everything back further, since that game would obviously be absolutely necessary.
Speaking of which, let’s revisit the Twins’ playoff arithmetic:
Hamilton lost tonight in London; it was as close as could possibly be with a 1-0 final. The Thunderbirds now sit two games back of the Twins for the final playoff spot – but the problem is, one of those games is composed of two half games from games which Hamilton has played that Mississauga has not.
Mississauga has three games remaining; Hamilton has one. In order for the two teams to finish in a tie, the Twins need to lose all three of their remaining games and Hamilton needs to win their last game, at home against London on Sunday. The problem is, though, that Hamilton has been playing well as of late. Earlier in the season, they were as far back of the Twins as five and six games; of the past month and a half or so, they’ve narrowed that to one game (in real terms, anyways) and recently have played Brantford to within one run (losing 8-7 earlier in the week) and also lost games by a single run to Mississauga and, tonight, London.
Coupled with all the games they’ve won recently that the Twins haven’t, there’s a very credible chance that they could upset London at home on Sunday, inasfar as the chances of upsets can be credible.
The good news, though, is that the Twins clinch a playoff spot by winning one of their remaining games. At that point, they’d the most ground they could lose to Hamilton is the two games (which are actually worth one in the standings) that are made up of games Mississauga has in hand.
The one that they really want to win is against Kitchener on Sunday. It would pull them even with Kitchener for the seventh spot, and to overtake them they’d need to win one more game than Kitchener loses. Other than the game against each other, both teams have two games remaining: Kitchener plays Toronto tomorrow and Brantford Sunday, before they play Mississauga, and Mississauga, as we know, plays Brantford tonight (Saturday) and Guelph at a yet to be determined date.
There’s a good chance that Kitchener loses to both Toronto and Brantford – both teams are good, and they’ll be playing to kill because they’re very much fighting for leverage in the standings. The problem is that the same thing could be said of Mississauga’s chances against Brantford and Guelph. Twins’ fans can take heart in the fact that the Twins almost beat Guelph on Tuesday, in a game everyone says they should have won, and have already beaten Brantford earlier in the year and played them very close on other occasions. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that they’ll pick off one of those games.
I was at the park tonight and all the players and everyone was there, but even after the game was called I didn’t bother doing any story-chasing. If tomorrow’s game is cancelled, and that would create a huge mess for everyone, I’ll likely be at the park until it’s officially off because they’ll do everything they can to get it in. When I am, I’ll try to tie down some pre-playoff loose ends I’ve been trying to pin down – conversations with newcomers, like Banski and Dickson, as well as getting injuries updates on Asis and Pui. The Twins will need them to be hot to have a fighting chance in any playoff series.
Blog at you after the game tomorrow!
PS -- I almost forgot! Jake Eliopolis, who was drafted by the Blue Jays this past June (and who is younger than me -- my God) is supposedly still with the Red Sox right now, and I've been planning on trying to chat with him for a long time but I haven't seen the Red Sox play since May 23rd, prior to his being drafted. I'm not sure if I'll do a feature on him if I get the chance to talk, due to the lack of a place to publish it (although I may well shop it around -- who knows?) but if I do talk to him, I'll definitely either paraphrase or quote what he had to say on the blog.
I've also wanted to talk to Rick Johnston, a Red Sox coach/executive who has been around Baseball Canada, the Blue Jays & really everything else baseball in Canada for quite some time. The big thing I wanted to chat about was the future of the national team -- and Ernie Whitt's future as manager -- after that debacle in March, but I was also curios to get his thoughts on what's going on with the Blue Jays right now, since I'm pretty sure he guest-coached at spring training during the Gaston Era I. Anyways, nothing against Rick, but I kind of doubt that there's a market for an article about that conversation, but it'll definitely go up here because I'm sure it'll be very interesting stuff!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Cooking the Birds
(pre-post aside: sorry about the lack of coverage of the London doubleheader; it was one of those things where they lost both and there wasn’t a ton to say, other than that the real focus shifts to tonight’s game against Hamilton – which everyone already knew, anyways. There will be a game story on the Twins’ site for the doubleheader, though!)
Tonight was one of those rare nights where things played out about as well as they could have for the Twins – it’s true, a couple different bounces this way or that way, and the outcome could have been disastrous, and perhaps ‘as well as they could’ means pounding your opponent 25-0 and never having any real competition, but it’s really tough to complain at all about a walk-off win in a game that amounted to single elimination in front of the home fans.
The Twins came into tonight tied with Hamilton for the final playoff spot, and this was the final meeting between the two teams. A win and they move a comfortable game ahead; a loss and they’re behind the eight ball in a very big way. They nailed the win, and now the bigger question becomes whether or not they can leap-frog Kitchener for the seventh spot.
The game tonight was the sort of Jekyll and Hyde bipolar baseball that has characterized the Twins’ season so far – they jumped all over Hamilton to stroll to an 8-3 lead early on, and it looked like the coaching staff’s biggest decision of the evening would be the ethics of running up the score against a helpless opponent (the answer, of course, is to keep the foot on the pedal – as shown by Toronto hammering out 22 runs once upon a time against Mississauga). But starter Mike McGilvray faltered – or maybe Hamilton just started hitting better, it’s tough to say – and after an ugly six run fourth the visitors had a one run lead and seemingly all the momentum.
Mississauga, to their credit, tied it up in the bottom of the fourth, and it remained knotted at nines until the Good Guys took the lead back in the bottom of the seventh. That lead, of course, was promptly squandered in the tenth thanks to an Adam Banski throwing error, but that just set the stage for Zach Dickson’s bottom of the ninth heroics.
Anyways, the minute details of who walked who and who advanced to which base on what pitch in the dirt will all be featured in the game story, which will be up on MississaugaTwins.com soon, but there’s a few bigger stories that are worth looking at right about now:
The biggest, I think, is the performance of Adam Banksi. Don’t let the above tidbit about his throwing error fool you – he’s been an absolute godsend for the Twins since they gave him a chance to re-start his career after Tommy John surgery. He’s been about as clutch as possible, working in relief in a handful of games since debuting. He picked up the win in his first ever appearance as a Twin against Oshawa several weeks ago; he also got the win tonight, working more than three innings in outstanding relief.
I said as soon as he signed that anyone who was good enough to have been expected to contribute to Barrie’s pitching staff last year – that’s where he played before needing the surgery – would help the Twins immeasurably, and he has. He has tremendous stuff – a ‘plus’ fastball and downright nasty breaking pitches, and the Twins would be extremely lucky to have him as an anchor of their pitching staff heading into next year and beyond. With the way he has pitched so far, he is certain to command interest from other teams, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens.
I tried to talk to him tonight, but he left by the time I was done with coach Held’s media scrum – I might be at the game in Kitchener on Thursday, and I hope to catch up with him then.
Another pitcher who has shown great stuff is Jeff Macleod – he was cut by Barrie earlier in the year, and he’s been a reliable, veteran (although I’m not sure of his age)-type player for Mississauga thus far. He got himself into huge trouble in the top of the ninth, putting two on with no one out (including a dicey runners-on-second-and-third-with-one-out situation), but he was unfazed and worked out of with near-superhuman poise. He’s certainly commanded the coaching staff’s confidence as much as any other pitcher, and he should be a go-to guy in tough situations in the homestretch and the playoffs.
Zach Dickson has been a bonafide superstar since arriving from the States several weeks ago. He has consistently been an impact player, hitting near the top of the line up and turning in exemplary at-bats. He can work a pitcher and foul off multiple pitches with unfathomable ease, and he has the kind of inside-out swing that batting coaches dream about. He has been a lead-off hitter under both Calcagni and Held, but Held seems to have moved him into the number two slot – I think that’s a great position for him to hit out of, provided an adequate lead-off hitter can be found. Dickson can handle the bat really well, so you could use him to hit and run, play for contact, or bunt, as the situation calls for. Emmett was just fine in the lead-off slot tonight, so I think that Zach will be a big part of the offense hitting second.
So, this is getting long and I would like to knock off a few game stories before I turn in for the night. Let’s just take a brief look at the Twins’ prospects for the rest of the season first, though:
They sit a game and a half ahead of Hamilton for the final playoff spot right now. If they can win the game that they have in hand over Hamilton, that’ll jump to a two game lead; if they lose it, it’ll fall to a single game lead. Mississauga has four games remaining: tonight (Tuesday) in Guelph; Thursday in Kitchener; Friday at home against Guelph, and Saturday at home against Brantford. Hamilton has three games to go – once in Brantford and twice against London.
To overtake the Twins, Hamilton needs to win at least one of their remaining games, which seems unlikely given the way that their season has gone. Even if they can manage a single win, the best it would do is pull them into a tie with the Twins and force a sudden-death playoff game.
Mississauga, on the other hand, stands a fair chance of beating Kitchener – doing so would effectively eliminate Hamilton, since there’s just about no way that they’ll win two of their final three, which is what would need to happen if the Twins beat the Panthers. Even in the Twins lose all of their remaining games, though, it’s still very tough for the Thunderbirds to catch them in the standings, all things considered. In short, it would take the baseball equivalent of an ice fishing trip in Hell – and I’m told that those things do happen on occasion, as they have the last two years when the Mets collapsed in September – for the Twins to altogether miss the playoffs.
More exciting, though, is the arithmetic surrounding the possibility of the Twins jumping into the seventh spot. The Panthers have three games left – one each against Mississauga, Toronto, and Brantford. Unless they beat Mississauga, they’re very likely to go 0-3.
Right now, Kitchener is a half-game ahead of the Twins, and that half-game is because of the fact that they’ve played one more game than the Twins, which they happened to win.
If they beat the Twins Thursday, they’ll jump to a game and a half ahead of the Twins, and it’ll then become very difficult for the Twins to overtake them.
But, if the Twins win, they’ll slip a half-game ahead of Kitchener, and a full game ahead if they can win one of their remaining games (to make up for the game in hand). If Mississauga beats Kitchener and loses the rest of their remaining games, they’ll finish tied with Kitchener for the final spot – provided that Kitchener doesn’t upset Brantford or Toronto. I’ll have to do some research on seventh-place tie breakers and get back to you guys about how that’ll work.
So, this is how it sits for the Twins right now:
Sole possession of seventh: beat Kitchener Thursday and win one other game
Tie for seventh: beat Kitchener Thursday and lose all the other games
Sole possession of eighth: lose all remaining games, Kitchener included.
Wow, that’s a lot to process for one night! I’m off to try to tackle some game stories – I’m likely to attend the game in Kitchener, so I’ll blog on it after. Comments are always welcome and will be responded to!
Tonight was one of those rare nights where things played out about as well as they could have for the Twins – it’s true, a couple different bounces this way or that way, and the outcome could have been disastrous, and perhaps ‘as well as they could’ means pounding your opponent 25-0 and never having any real competition, but it’s really tough to complain at all about a walk-off win in a game that amounted to single elimination in front of the home fans.
The Twins came into tonight tied with Hamilton for the final playoff spot, and this was the final meeting between the two teams. A win and they move a comfortable game ahead; a loss and they’re behind the eight ball in a very big way. They nailed the win, and now the bigger question becomes whether or not they can leap-frog Kitchener for the seventh spot.
The game tonight was the sort of Jekyll and Hyde bipolar baseball that has characterized the Twins’ season so far – they jumped all over Hamilton to stroll to an 8-3 lead early on, and it looked like the coaching staff’s biggest decision of the evening would be the ethics of running up the score against a helpless opponent (the answer, of course, is to keep the foot on the pedal – as shown by Toronto hammering out 22 runs once upon a time against Mississauga). But starter Mike McGilvray faltered – or maybe Hamilton just started hitting better, it’s tough to say – and after an ugly six run fourth the visitors had a one run lead and seemingly all the momentum.
Mississauga, to their credit, tied it up in the bottom of the fourth, and it remained knotted at nines until the Good Guys took the lead back in the bottom of the seventh. That lead, of course, was promptly squandered in the tenth thanks to an Adam Banski throwing error, but that just set the stage for Zach Dickson’s bottom of the ninth heroics.
Anyways, the minute details of who walked who and who advanced to which base on what pitch in the dirt will all be featured in the game story, which will be up on MississaugaTwins.com soon, but there’s a few bigger stories that are worth looking at right about now:
The biggest, I think, is the performance of Adam Banksi. Don’t let the above tidbit about his throwing error fool you – he’s been an absolute godsend for the Twins since they gave him a chance to re-start his career after Tommy John surgery. He’s been about as clutch as possible, working in relief in a handful of games since debuting. He picked up the win in his first ever appearance as a Twin against Oshawa several weeks ago; he also got the win tonight, working more than three innings in outstanding relief.
I said as soon as he signed that anyone who was good enough to have been expected to contribute to Barrie’s pitching staff last year – that’s where he played before needing the surgery – would help the Twins immeasurably, and he has. He has tremendous stuff – a ‘plus’ fastball and downright nasty breaking pitches, and the Twins would be extremely lucky to have him as an anchor of their pitching staff heading into next year and beyond. With the way he has pitched so far, he is certain to command interest from other teams, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens.
I tried to talk to him tonight, but he left by the time I was done with coach Held’s media scrum – I might be at the game in Kitchener on Thursday, and I hope to catch up with him then.
Another pitcher who has shown great stuff is Jeff Macleod – he was cut by Barrie earlier in the year, and he’s been a reliable, veteran (although I’m not sure of his age)-type player for Mississauga thus far. He got himself into huge trouble in the top of the ninth, putting two on with no one out (including a dicey runners-on-second-and-third-with-one-out situation), but he was unfazed and worked out of with near-superhuman poise. He’s certainly commanded the coaching staff’s confidence as much as any other pitcher, and he should be a go-to guy in tough situations in the homestretch and the playoffs.
Zach Dickson has been a bonafide superstar since arriving from the States several weeks ago. He has consistently been an impact player, hitting near the top of the line up and turning in exemplary at-bats. He can work a pitcher and foul off multiple pitches with unfathomable ease, and he has the kind of inside-out swing that batting coaches dream about. He has been a lead-off hitter under both Calcagni and Held, but Held seems to have moved him into the number two slot – I think that’s a great position for him to hit out of, provided an adequate lead-off hitter can be found. Dickson can handle the bat really well, so you could use him to hit and run, play for contact, or bunt, as the situation calls for. Emmett was just fine in the lead-off slot tonight, so I think that Zach will be a big part of the offense hitting second.
So, this is getting long and I would like to knock off a few game stories before I turn in for the night. Let’s just take a brief look at the Twins’ prospects for the rest of the season first, though:
They sit a game and a half ahead of Hamilton for the final playoff spot right now. If they can win the game that they have in hand over Hamilton, that’ll jump to a two game lead; if they lose it, it’ll fall to a single game lead. Mississauga has four games remaining: tonight (Tuesday) in Guelph; Thursday in Kitchener; Friday at home against Guelph, and Saturday at home against Brantford. Hamilton has three games to go – once in Brantford and twice against London.
To overtake the Twins, Hamilton needs to win at least one of their remaining games, which seems unlikely given the way that their season has gone. Even if they can manage a single win, the best it would do is pull them into a tie with the Twins and force a sudden-death playoff game.
Mississauga, on the other hand, stands a fair chance of beating Kitchener – doing so would effectively eliminate Hamilton, since there’s just about no way that they’ll win two of their final three, which is what would need to happen if the Twins beat the Panthers. Even in the Twins lose all of their remaining games, though, it’s still very tough for the Thunderbirds to catch them in the standings, all things considered. In short, it would take the baseball equivalent of an ice fishing trip in Hell – and I’m told that those things do happen on occasion, as they have the last two years when the Mets collapsed in September – for the Twins to altogether miss the playoffs.
More exciting, though, is the arithmetic surrounding the possibility of the Twins jumping into the seventh spot. The Panthers have three games left – one each against Mississauga, Toronto, and Brantford. Unless they beat Mississauga, they’re very likely to go 0-3.
Right now, Kitchener is a half-game ahead of the Twins, and that half-game is because of the fact that they’ve played one more game than the Twins, which they happened to win.
If they beat the Twins Thursday, they’ll jump to a game and a half ahead of the Twins, and it’ll then become very difficult for the Twins to overtake them.
But, if the Twins win, they’ll slip a half-game ahead of Kitchener, and a full game ahead if they can win one of their remaining games (to make up for the game in hand). If Mississauga beats Kitchener and loses the rest of their remaining games, they’ll finish tied with Kitchener for the final spot – provided that Kitchener doesn’t upset Brantford or Toronto. I’ll have to do some research on seventh-place tie breakers and get back to you guys about how that’ll work.
So, this is how it sits for the Twins right now:
Sole possession of seventh: beat Kitchener Thursday and win one other game
Tie for seventh: beat Kitchener Thursday and lose all the other games
Sole possession of eighth: lose all remaining games, Kitchener included.
Wow, that’s a lot to process for one night! I’m off to try to tackle some game stories – I’m likely to attend the game in Kitchener, so I’ll blog on it after. Comments are always welcome and will be responded to!
Friday, July 17, 2009
A Changing of the Guard
Well, well, well… first of all, my apologies for the lack of blogging over the past week – I was out west and I did not have as reliable of Internet access as I had expected to. And, while I was gone, the Twins’ season took a dizzying mixture of ups, downs, turns and bends. I’m not quite sure how turns are different from bends, but you probably get the idea.
The big news is that manager Adeo Calcagni was fired – turns out his position was paid, according to sources, so he wasn’t simply ‘released’ or ‘let go’ – after Wednesday’s loss in Brantford. He was replaced by erstwhile bench coach and now interim manager Ian Held, and General Manager Doug Kelcher becomes the second assistant coach for the remainder of the year.
I – and a lot of other people – expected the axe to fall on Calcagni a lot sooner than it did. In my mind, he became a lame duck-type after the two consecutive home drubbings to Barrie, and it was in those games that he first started to admit that he really had no answers. I pinpoint those games in particular because the Sunday before, after the Twins lost 9-0 at Christie Pitts, he told the media he still had a very positive outlook on the season (and I more or less agreed, too). After the Barrie beatings, they lost 22-2 to Toronto and then I really thought he was done.
But nothing happened for a long time – a long time in baseball terms, anyways – and I figured the Twins’ brass had settled on stringing out the season and going back to the drawing board in the off season. A week ago tonight, I asked Kelcher if the current coaching staff would finish the year, and even though his answer was far from an unequivocal vote of confidence, he did seem to take any changes off the table.
I suppose the reason I thought that they would just string it out is because I didn’t expect the new manager to come from within the organization – as Held obviously is – so I thought any change that might have been made would have been wholesale and a whole new staff would have been brought in to learn the team before the playoffs.
And when I first learned that Held was going to be the new guy, I had my doubts – based on my limited exposure to him, which consisted of two media scrums Calcagni hadn’t been available for , I thought it would have been better to go outside the organization – but tonight’s game against Oshawa put those mostly to rest. It’s true, the Twins lost by one, but they played head over heels better than they have at any point recently; they were as into the game as I’ve ever seen them; and Held clearly has a great relationship with his player – which Calcagni certainly did not.
Indeed, the Twins were vocal, enthusiastic, persistent, and – most importantly – played error-free baseball in their post game under Held, and had Shane Cole turned in a slightly better start, or had Jon Amendola been slightly better in relief, they would have won.
Held also impressed me in his post-game media meeting – I suppose that the two previous times I had spoken to him, he was talking as Calcagni’s assistant coach, but tonight, speaking as his own boss, his was fluent in discussing the team, his plans for individual players, and his vision of how he sees things potentially coming together for the Twins over the home stretch.
And really, it was time for Calcagni to go – I was muted in my criticism of him, as was the other beat writer, Gary McCarthy, until he wrote what I thought was a fairly scathing article (relative to anything else he’s written previously, anyways) right after Calcagni was fired, but really, it was all there:
-- Debatable personnel use
-- By all accounts, zero respect and often overt dislike from his players (this being gleaned from my conversations with players, their family/friends and, well, nearly everybody else)
-- The Gordon Scandal: pitching non-pitcher Derek Gordon for a hundred and forty-friggin-four pitches against Barrie, and then never pitching him again after he held them to three runs!
n And the results – a 7-20 record, which is where they were at at the time of his firing, has to weigh in in some way
Anyways, that page is turned, but the Twins aren’t out of the woods yet. The logjam that once existed at the top of the IBL standings now exists at the bottom: Hamilton is a game behind Mississauga, who is a game behind Kitchener. Those teams, of course, are seeded 7-8-9.
So, it’s conceivable that the Twins could miss the playoffs – and equally conceivable that they could leap frog into that seventh spot, and a potentially winnable first round series against Brantford. They have a pivotal make-up game against Hamilton on Monday, and then end the season against Kitchener on the road on the following weekend.
Their chances of missing the playoffs have decreased significantly since the coaching change. I think it hugely increases their chances of winning that pivotal Hamilton game; I also think they’ll be able to pick up another win or two along the way – they have seven games left, according to Held – with the improved play and attitude that they showed tonight.
It starts with a doubleheader against London tomorrow – first game’s first pitch at 5.30 at home – and then primetime will come on Monday when Hamilton arrives in town.
I’m behind on my articles – what else is new! – and the Twins’ website guy is apparently away for a little bit, so look for some new material on the website for Monday or Tuesday, including my long-anticipated feature on the new players. In the mean time, to see the quick piece I hammered out at the Calgary airport this morning, check out ‘Mississauga Twins’ on Facebook; the article is posted as a note there.
I just realized I totally skimmed over the details of tonight’s game – but obviously, there was a far bigger story, and you’ll all get to read about the game in my story later this week anyways!
The big news is that manager Adeo Calcagni was fired – turns out his position was paid, according to sources, so he wasn’t simply ‘released’ or ‘let go’ – after Wednesday’s loss in Brantford. He was replaced by erstwhile bench coach and now interim manager Ian Held, and General Manager Doug Kelcher becomes the second assistant coach for the remainder of the year.
I – and a lot of other people – expected the axe to fall on Calcagni a lot sooner than it did. In my mind, he became a lame duck-type after the two consecutive home drubbings to Barrie, and it was in those games that he first started to admit that he really had no answers. I pinpoint those games in particular because the Sunday before, after the Twins lost 9-0 at Christie Pitts, he told the media he still had a very positive outlook on the season (and I more or less agreed, too). After the Barrie beatings, they lost 22-2 to Toronto and then I really thought he was done.
But nothing happened for a long time – a long time in baseball terms, anyways – and I figured the Twins’ brass had settled on stringing out the season and going back to the drawing board in the off season. A week ago tonight, I asked Kelcher if the current coaching staff would finish the year, and even though his answer was far from an unequivocal vote of confidence, he did seem to take any changes off the table.
I suppose the reason I thought that they would just string it out is because I didn’t expect the new manager to come from within the organization – as Held obviously is – so I thought any change that might have been made would have been wholesale and a whole new staff would have been brought in to learn the team before the playoffs.
And when I first learned that Held was going to be the new guy, I had my doubts – based on my limited exposure to him, which consisted of two media scrums Calcagni hadn’t been available for , I thought it would have been better to go outside the organization – but tonight’s game against Oshawa put those mostly to rest. It’s true, the Twins lost by one, but they played head over heels better than they have at any point recently; they were as into the game as I’ve ever seen them; and Held clearly has a great relationship with his player – which Calcagni certainly did not.
Indeed, the Twins were vocal, enthusiastic, persistent, and – most importantly – played error-free baseball in their post game under Held, and had Shane Cole turned in a slightly better start, or had Jon Amendola been slightly better in relief, they would have won.
Held also impressed me in his post-game media meeting – I suppose that the two previous times I had spoken to him, he was talking as Calcagni’s assistant coach, but tonight, speaking as his own boss, his was fluent in discussing the team, his plans for individual players, and his vision of how he sees things potentially coming together for the Twins over the home stretch.
And really, it was time for Calcagni to go – I was muted in my criticism of him, as was the other beat writer, Gary McCarthy, until he wrote what I thought was a fairly scathing article (relative to anything else he’s written previously, anyways) right after Calcagni was fired, but really, it was all there:
-- Debatable personnel use
-- By all accounts, zero respect and often overt dislike from his players (this being gleaned from my conversations with players, their family/friends and, well, nearly everybody else)
-- The Gordon Scandal: pitching non-pitcher Derek Gordon for a hundred and forty-friggin-four pitches against Barrie, and then never pitching him again after he held them to three runs!
n And the results – a 7-20 record, which is where they were at at the time of his firing, has to weigh in in some way
Anyways, that page is turned, but the Twins aren’t out of the woods yet. The logjam that once existed at the top of the IBL standings now exists at the bottom: Hamilton is a game behind Mississauga, who is a game behind Kitchener. Those teams, of course, are seeded 7-8-9.
So, it’s conceivable that the Twins could miss the playoffs – and equally conceivable that they could leap frog into that seventh spot, and a potentially winnable first round series against Brantford. They have a pivotal make-up game against Hamilton on Monday, and then end the season against Kitchener on the road on the following weekend.
Their chances of missing the playoffs have decreased significantly since the coaching change. I think it hugely increases their chances of winning that pivotal Hamilton game; I also think they’ll be able to pick up another win or two along the way – they have seven games left, according to Held – with the improved play and attitude that they showed tonight.
It starts with a doubleheader against London tomorrow – first game’s first pitch at 5.30 at home – and then primetime will come on Monday when Hamilton arrives in town.
I’m behind on my articles – what else is new! – and the Twins’ website guy is apparently away for a little bit, so look for some new material on the website for Monday or Tuesday, including my long-anticipated feature on the new players. In the mean time, to see the quick piece I hammered out at the Calgary airport this morning, check out ‘Mississauga Twins’ on Facebook; the article is posted as a note there.
I just realized I totally skimmed over the details of tonight’s game – but obviously, there was a far bigger story, and you’ll all get to read about the game in my story later this week anyways!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Changing the Twins
(pre-post aside: check out some recent game stories at http://www.mississaugatwins.ca/gamenotes.htm)
I’ve tried about four different times to write an intro paragraph to this post, and it just isn’t working. I was going for something that would encapsulate the recent direction of the team – sort of like how my posts after the Barrie/Toronto blow outs were hugely negative, and my post after the Oshawa W was more positive.
Truth is, it’s tough to know what to say anymore – they were beaten handily, although nowhere near as bad as last time, by the Leafs again right after the Oshawa win offered a flicker of hope. But then, somehow, they played Barrie really tight, losing 3-2 on the road. The most remarkable part? Derek Gordon pitched a complete game for the Twins – which was only his second appearance of the year as a pitcher, and his first as a starter.
The biggest news out of the past week, though? A slew of roster moves. To boot:
Joining the Twins: Adam Banski; Jeff Skelhorne-Gross; Zach Dickson; Jeff MacLeod; Tyler Moe
Leaving the Twins: Matt Calcagni; Luis Castillo; Sean Pisraki; Scott Wells.
Banski had Tommy John surgery almost exactly a year ago after making seven starts for the Baycats. He worked in relief in the Oshawa win, and I certainly think it’s encouraging that he had been expected to contribute to a team as good as Barrie pre-injury. Skelhorne-Gross was released by Barrie; time will tell what his contribution will be. Dickson, as I understand, was in the States until recently – although I need to look into the details, and I think he could be an impact player. MacLeod was released by Brantford on the same day he was signed by the Twins; Lord knows a Brantford cast-off will be able to help the at least the back end of the Twins’ staff. I can’t account for Moe, although I will get on it.
Calcagni – the coach’s son – simply didn’t work out after the Twins picked him up following his release for an independent league out west. He struggled to hit .150 and he hasn’t been around recently, so I think in reality he had left the team a while ago.
Castillo goes to the Northwoods League – they play in parts of the northern States (Wisconsin and Minnesota, primarily) and have a team in Thunder Bay. While I’m sure no one on the Twins was happy to see him leave, it is certainly a step up the baseball ladder for him and that’s what happens to the better talents in the IBL, sometimes. I’m not entirely sure why Pisarski was let go – it could just be performance, since he didn’t get a ton of playing time and didn’t tear it up when he did see action. Wells hasn’t been around much, and I’m thinking his release was a formality after being a de facto reality for a while.
I’m planning on doing a feature about these changes shortly – I need to contact GM Kelcher and go over a few of these guys in a bit more detail. I’ll let you all know when it’s up, though!
Anyways, I’ll skim over the long-term prognosis stuff for now, I think. The basic narrative is the same as it has been for the past month or so: the Twins are a lot better than they’ve been playing; they can be a lot more competitive than they have been lately; there would be no better time for that to happen than the playoffs; they might well be sacrificial lambs offered up on the altar of the Baycats in the first round, unless they can find a way to slip out of that eighth place spot (but not into ninth, obviously); the close 3-2 loss could offer reason to doubt the previous statement.
The Twins, at present, find themselves both three games ahead of Hamilton for the final playoff spot and three games behind Kitchener for that seventh spot. The risk of them finding a way to miss the playoffs seems to have mostly passed – they play Hamilton on Saturday (I’ll be in Alberta, though) at home, and if they can beat them and push that gap to four games, I think we can call it with certainty. If Hamilton beats them, well, it’ll be a tight finish with only a two game sized breathing space, but I still think it will be hugely difficult for Hamilton to pick up even two games.
They host Oshawa at home on Friday, and I’ll be there – as always, check back for my post-game blogging!
I’ve tried about four different times to write an intro paragraph to this post, and it just isn’t working. I was going for something that would encapsulate the recent direction of the team – sort of like how my posts after the Barrie/Toronto blow outs were hugely negative, and my post after the Oshawa W was more positive.
Truth is, it’s tough to know what to say anymore – they were beaten handily, although nowhere near as bad as last time, by the Leafs again right after the Oshawa win offered a flicker of hope. But then, somehow, they played Barrie really tight, losing 3-2 on the road. The most remarkable part? Derek Gordon pitched a complete game for the Twins – which was only his second appearance of the year as a pitcher, and his first as a starter.
The biggest news out of the past week, though? A slew of roster moves. To boot:
Joining the Twins: Adam Banski; Jeff Skelhorne-Gross; Zach Dickson; Jeff MacLeod; Tyler Moe
Leaving the Twins: Matt Calcagni; Luis Castillo; Sean Pisraki; Scott Wells.
Banski had Tommy John surgery almost exactly a year ago after making seven starts for the Baycats. He worked in relief in the Oshawa win, and I certainly think it’s encouraging that he had been expected to contribute to a team as good as Barrie pre-injury. Skelhorne-Gross was released by Barrie; time will tell what his contribution will be. Dickson, as I understand, was in the States until recently – although I need to look into the details, and I think he could be an impact player. MacLeod was released by Brantford on the same day he was signed by the Twins; Lord knows a Brantford cast-off will be able to help the at least the back end of the Twins’ staff. I can’t account for Moe, although I will get on it.
Calcagni – the coach’s son – simply didn’t work out after the Twins picked him up following his release for an independent league out west. He struggled to hit .150 and he hasn’t been around recently, so I think in reality he had left the team a while ago.
Castillo goes to the Northwoods League – they play in parts of the northern States (Wisconsin and Minnesota, primarily) and have a team in Thunder Bay. While I’m sure no one on the Twins was happy to see him leave, it is certainly a step up the baseball ladder for him and that’s what happens to the better talents in the IBL, sometimes. I’m not entirely sure why Pisarski was let go – it could just be performance, since he didn’t get a ton of playing time and didn’t tear it up when he did see action. Wells hasn’t been around much, and I’m thinking his release was a formality after being a de facto reality for a while.
I’m planning on doing a feature about these changes shortly – I need to contact GM Kelcher and go over a few of these guys in a bit more detail. I’ll let you all know when it’s up, though!
Anyways, I’ll skim over the long-term prognosis stuff for now, I think. The basic narrative is the same as it has been for the past month or so: the Twins are a lot better than they’ve been playing; they can be a lot more competitive than they have been lately; there would be no better time for that to happen than the playoffs; they might well be sacrificial lambs offered up on the altar of the Baycats in the first round, unless they can find a way to slip out of that eighth place spot (but not into ninth, obviously); the close 3-2 loss could offer reason to doubt the previous statement.
The Twins, at present, find themselves both three games ahead of Hamilton for the final playoff spot and three games behind Kitchener for that seventh spot. The risk of them finding a way to miss the playoffs seems to have mostly passed – they play Hamilton on Saturday (I’ll be in Alberta, though) at home, and if they can beat them and push that gap to four games, I think we can call it with certainty. If Hamilton beats them, well, it’ll be a tight finish with only a two game sized breathing space, but I still think it will be hugely difficult for Hamilton to pick up even two games.
They host Oshawa at home on Friday, and I’ll be there – as always, check back for my post-game blogging!
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Hangin' Around
Ah, the fluidity of baseball. I’m away for a couple of days and the Twins’ entire situation does about three 360’s, and they now find themselves landed somewhere roughly resembling on their feet.
After the 22-1 Toronto loss, I think a lot of people were ready to write the epitaph on this season. The only real question remaining in a lot of minds was whether or not they could cling on to that final playoff spot before being sacrificed to the Baycats in the first round. I was even ready to write a post about how the chances of them hanging onto that playoff spot had gone, in my mind, from about to certain to still highly probable to possibly questionable after they dropped 4-3 game in Hamilton on Sunday.
I would have written that in order for them to miss the playoffs, they would need to lose again to Hamilton and Hamilton would need to steal a couple of games here and there.
And then, lo and behold, paranormal events of paranormal events, the lowly Thunderbirds stun the second place Brantford Red Sox on Tuesday, and I was starting to think that the Twins’ ship had sailed.
And then, and then, and then... the Twins rolled into Oshawa tonight and, looking dead in the water, posted a four-run top of the ninth to go up by 2, and then held on to a one run lead after giving up a run in the bottom of the ninth, to pick up a HUGE come-from-behind win against a key rival in the standings and turn all of this speculation right on its head.
I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the importance of this win. I haven’t had a chance to look at the boxscore yet, which is often just as important as the result itself, but that does little to change what this game means for the Twins.
It gives them a three and a half game buffer over the T-Birds for that last spot, and, perhaps more importantly, pulls them within a game and a half of Kitchener for the seventh spot. London and Oshawa, in the fifth and sixth spots, are a ways up – the Twins trail both by 4 games, and it would take a torrent final month to make up those games. Not impossible – but it will be very, very tough to do.
Aside from the strict math of the standings, the win demonstrates a couple of things: i) the Twins aren’t as bad as they’ve demonstrated over the past little while – which makes sense, since no one could be, and ii) they can still beat the teams ahead of them that they need to beat to make up ground in the playoff race. This, too, was seriously challenged during the losing streak.
The seventh spot is interesting – if Mississauga were to get there, it would set up a likely first round matchup with Brantford. This, by far, represents the Twins’ best shot at an upset. They’ve already beaten the Red Sox once – on the road, to boot. They also came very, very close to beating them at home on opening day. Perhaps most interestingly, the Red Sox have shown that they can be vulnerable at times, dropping that shocker to Hamilton.
Anyways, tomorrow’s (tonight’s, actually) home game against the Maple Leafs represents a chance to take a big step forward. Unfortunately, I won’t be there, but I should be blogging on the outcome and doing a game story based on long-distance interviewing.
Speaking of which, part of the reason I felt so down on the Twins before seeing the outcome of the Oshawa game might have something to do with the fact that I spent about two hours tonight writing the past three games’ worth of articles – man, those were bad. The games, not the articles – obviously. They should be up soon on MississaugaTwins.ca, and whenever they are I’ll include a link here.
The IBL has posted updated statistics, and I would encourage everyone to take a look at them – they really strengthen your understanding of who is doing what and help you think critically about what is going on in the games. They are right here:
http://www.theibl.ca/documents/RELEASE7_000.pdf
I’m going to check into whether or not some of the new guys listed with the Twins are permanent team members now, or if that page is just including call-ups. As always, if I find out anything of substance, it will go here – and possibly into a piece for the website!
After the 22-1 Toronto loss, I think a lot of people were ready to write the epitaph on this season. The only real question remaining in a lot of minds was whether or not they could cling on to that final playoff spot before being sacrificed to the Baycats in the first round. I was even ready to write a post about how the chances of them hanging onto that playoff spot had gone, in my mind, from about to certain to still highly probable to possibly questionable after they dropped 4-3 game in Hamilton on Sunday.
I would have written that in order for them to miss the playoffs, they would need to lose again to Hamilton and Hamilton would need to steal a couple of games here and there.
And then, lo and behold, paranormal events of paranormal events, the lowly Thunderbirds stun the second place Brantford Red Sox on Tuesday, and I was starting to think that the Twins’ ship had sailed.
And then, and then, and then... the Twins rolled into Oshawa tonight and, looking dead in the water, posted a four-run top of the ninth to go up by 2, and then held on to a one run lead after giving up a run in the bottom of the ninth, to pick up a HUGE come-from-behind win against a key rival in the standings and turn all of this speculation right on its head.
I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the importance of this win. I haven’t had a chance to look at the boxscore yet, which is often just as important as the result itself, but that does little to change what this game means for the Twins.
It gives them a three and a half game buffer over the T-Birds for that last spot, and, perhaps more importantly, pulls them within a game and a half of Kitchener for the seventh spot. London and Oshawa, in the fifth and sixth spots, are a ways up – the Twins trail both by 4 games, and it would take a torrent final month to make up those games. Not impossible – but it will be very, very tough to do.
Aside from the strict math of the standings, the win demonstrates a couple of things: i) the Twins aren’t as bad as they’ve demonstrated over the past little while – which makes sense, since no one could be, and ii) they can still beat the teams ahead of them that they need to beat to make up ground in the playoff race. This, too, was seriously challenged during the losing streak.
The seventh spot is interesting – if Mississauga were to get there, it would set up a likely first round matchup with Brantford. This, by far, represents the Twins’ best shot at an upset. They’ve already beaten the Red Sox once – on the road, to boot. They also came very, very close to beating them at home on opening day. Perhaps most interestingly, the Red Sox have shown that they can be vulnerable at times, dropping that shocker to Hamilton.
Anyways, tomorrow’s (tonight’s, actually) home game against the Maple Leafs represents a chance to take a big step forward. Unfortunately, I won’t be there, but I should be blogging on the outcome and doing a game story based on long-distance interviewing.
Speaking of which, part of the reason I felt so down on the Twins before seeing the outcome of the Oshawa game might have something to do with the fact that I spent about two hours tonight writing the past three games’ worth of articles – man, those were bad. The games, not the articles – obviously. They should be up soon on MississaugaTwins.ca, and whenever they are I’ll include a link here.
The IBL has posted updated statistics, and I would encourage everyone to take a look at them – they really strengthen your understanding of who is doing what and help you think critically about what is going on in the games. They are right here:
http://www.theibl.ca/documents/RELEASE7_000.pdf
I’m going to check into whether or not some of the new guys listed with the Twins are permanent team members now, or if that page is just including call-ups. As always, if I find out anything of substance, it will go here – and possibly into a piece for the website!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Lament for a Ballclub
With apologies to Michael Ignatieff's uncle. If you get that, you know your academics way too well.
The Mississauga Twins were massacred – absolutely annihilated – by the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight. The third edition of the Battle of the GTA was settled by a score of 22-2, and, well, at this point there is probably a broader story here than the game itself.
Needless to say, I won’t be providing many details of the various – and there were a lot of them – scoring plays. The highlights will go into my game story (I’m behind on three of them – they’ll likely all get done at once on Monday or so; I’ve been overwhelmingly busy with all day driver’s ed for the next three days and a bunch of academic research to do for tomorrow night) but I do want to go over two fairly telling statistics that span the Twins’ past four games. Two of the games were against Toronto; two were against Barrie.
Over the course of those games, the Twins have been outscored by a combined total of 63-18. In eight of their past eighteen innings (so, the Friday night blowout to Barrie and tonight’s blowout to the Leafs) they have given up four or more runs.
Needless to say, if you come within one four-run inning of giving up four runs every other inning (which is what nine over two games would be), you’re having some big problems and you won’t be winning much.
Some people – well, probably not anyone, but let’s just entertain the argument – might try to argue that those games came against the first and third place teams, and that might sort of deflect the 0-4 record, what with the whole expansion franchise thing and everything.
Fact is, a competitive – even a semi-competitive team – isn’t going to lose games like those by margins like that, to anyone. Period.
The outlook for the Twins shifts from a day to day one (‘how do we break this losing streak?’) to an existential one (‘what kind of tem are we, really?’). There are, as far as I can see, four issues/questions that go into sorting this thing out:
i) Were pre-season expectations set too high for an expansion club? I know it’s not an excuse anyone around the club will dare uttering on record, but sometimes reality is reality and an expansion club is an expansion club. Maybe middle of the pack – which was everyone’s overt pre-season goal – is just too much to ask of a first year team in a league where most teams have been together for a long time.
ii) Are the Twins just scuffling right now, and badly? I think this is definitely part of it – there’s just no way I’m sold on the idea that they’re this bad as a group. That said, what has gone on over the past month or so is a lot more than a bit of scuffling. There are deeper-rooted explanations, which, in reality, are likely a mish-mash of everything I’m bringing up, but a self-compounding (but nonetheless natural, happens-to-every-club kind of thing) nasty skid certainly plays a role in what we have been seeing here.
iii) Is the team too young? This extends from points i) and ii), and it’s certainly not a knock on management – young, homegrown talent was the right way to go, and the players they have right now are good enough that once they grow up a bit and play together for a while they will gel and be as good as any other veteran team in the league. But in the context of this specific season and what’s going wrong, their collective youth is something that a lot of people, on and off the record, have mentioned to me, and I think considering the opposing teams and how long some of them have been together – and the veteran make-up of many of them – it is a fair point to raise is assessing what’s currently going wrong.
iv) Is the right personnel in place, and is it being used correctly? This point is perhaps more interconnected with the other 3 than anything else. It’s no secret around the team that there is some disappointment with the players’ attendance and commitment. They haven’t had a full roster in ages, if ever, and tonight they were very, very short – one reporter told me he only saw 12 or 13 guys dressed, and while I didn’t get a chance to count and verify it myself, it wouldn’t surprise me. Even if it’s anything close to that – 15, 15, 17, even 18 19 or 20, it’s still far too low for a ballclub playing at this level. The consequences have been glaring and profound: players playing positions that they’re not used to (including pitchers playing positions and logging multiple at-bats in different games); call-ups being forced into action, like poor Kyle Crawford, who is younger and probably smaller than me and was lit up like the 4th of July ten times over for an inning tonight.
The second part of that question – is personnel being used correctly? – is a bit dicier. The coaching staff haven’t been playing with a full deck much at all this year, so it’s tough to delve into too much detail here. If I were the one filling out the line-up, things would look a bit different – especially in terms of which starters line up to face which teams, at least as far as it’s gone to this point – but on the whole, I’m not sure that personnel use and in-game strategy (which I suppose are one and the same) is enough to be a big – or even a tangible – reason behind the debacle we’ve witnessed so far.
Anyways, that’s my four pointed lament. They’re in Hamilton tomorrow, and if they drop that game, well, I was going to write that things will get pretty ugly, but they’re already quite ugly, and then I was going to write that they’ll get even uglier, but that’s a self-evident statement. You guys all probably know what I mean, though.
Tonight was the first time this season that the beat reporters didn't meet with coach Calcagni after the game. There wasn't much he could have told us, and I can't imagine he'd have been thrilled if we'd asked him to dissect this one. I tried to hang around and grab a player after, but they all dispersed pretty quickly. Henry Duke has always been very friendly to me and I imagine he would have had something of substance to say -- although a lot of my conversation with him probably would have been off the record, due to the nature of the things I want to know right about now -- but I'm sure he wouldn't really want to talk about the game, or even the team, too much after this one either, and I can't say I blame him.
I’m off the beat for a little bit – I’ll be up north for a week as of a few days from now, and then I’m going out west for a week. I think I’ll probably squeeze a game, or possibly two, in between those trips, and I know I’ll be back for the end of the regular season and the playoffs.
I’ll do my best to blog whatever happens while I’m away, and I’ll certainly post about it if there are any major shake-ups or changes!
The Mississauga Twins were massacred – absolutely annihilated – by the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight. The third edition of the Battle of the GTA was settled by a score of 22-2, and, well, at this point there is probably a broader story here than the game itself.
Needless to say, I won’t be providing many details of the various – and there were a lot of them – scoring plays. The highlights will go into my game story (I’m behind on three of them – they’ll likely all get done at once on Monday or so; I’ve been overwhelmingly busy with all day driver’s ed for the next three days and a bunch of academic research to do for tomorrow night) but I do want to go over two fairly telling statistics that span the Twins’ past four games. Two of the games were against Toronto; two were against Barrie.
Over the course of those games, the Twins have been outscored by a combined total of 63-18. In eight of their past eighteen innings (so, the Friday night blowout to Barrie and tonight’s blowout to the Leafs) they have given up four or more runs.
Needless to say, if you come within one four-run inning of giving up four runs every other inning (which is what nine over two games would be), you’re having some big problems and you won’t be winning much.
Some people – well, probably not anyone, but let’s just entertain the argument – might try to argue that those games came against the first and third place teams, and that might sort of deflect the 0-4 record, what with the whole expansion franchise thing and everything.
Fact is, a competitive – even a semi-competitive team – isn’t going to lose games like those by margins like that, to anyone. Period.
The outlook for the Twins shifts from a day to day one (‘how do we break this losing streak?’) to an existential one (‘what kind of tem are we, really?’). There are, as far as I can see, four issues/questions that go into sorting this thing out:
i) Were pre-season expectations set too high for an expansion club? I know it’s not an excuse anyone around the club will dare uttering on record, but sometimes reality is reality and an expansion club is an expansion club. Maybe middle of the pack – which was everyone’s overt pre-season goal – is just too much to ask of a first year team in a league where most teams have been together for a long time.
ii) Are the Twins just scuffling right now, and badly? I think this is definitely part of it – there’s just no way I’m sold on the idea that they’re this bad as a group. That said, what has gone on over the past month or so is a lot more than a bit of scuffling. There are deeper-rooted explanations, which, in reality, are likely a mish-mash of everything I’m bringing up, but a self-compounding (but nonetheless natural, happens-to-every-club kind of thing) nasty skid certainly plays a role in what we have been seeing here.
iii) Is the team too young? This extends from points i) and ii), and it’s certainly not a knock on management – young, homegrown talent was the right way to go, and the players they have right now are good enough that once they grow up a bit and play together for a while they will gel and be as good as any other veteran team in the league. But in the context of this specific season and what’s going wrong, their collective youth is something that a lot of people, on and off the record, have mentioned to me, and I think considering the opposing teams and how long some of them have been together – and the veteran make-up of many of them – it is a fair point to raise is assessing what’s currently going wrong.
iv) Is the right personnel in place, and is it being used correctly? This point is perhaps more interconnected with the other 3 than anything else. It’s no secret around the team that there is some disappointment with the players’ attendance and commitment. They haven’t had a full roster in ages, if ever, and tonight they were very, very short – one reporter told me he only saw 12 or 13 guys dressed, and while I didn’t get a chance to count and verify it myself, it wouldn’t surprise me. Even if it’s anything close to that – 15, 15, 17, even 18 19 or 20, it’s still far too low for a ballclub playing at this level. The consequences have been glaring and profound: players playing positions that they’re not used to (including pitchers playing positions and logging multiple at-bats in different games); call-ups being forced into action, like poor Kyle Crawford, who is younger and probably smaller than me and was lit up like the 4th of July ten times over for an inning tonight.
The second part of that question – is personnel being used correctly? – is a bit dicier. The coaching staff haven’t been playing with a full deck much at all this year, so it’s tough to delve into too much detail here. If I were the one filling out the line-up, things would look a bit different – especially in terms of which starters line up to face which teams, at least as far as it’s gone to this point – but on the whole, I’m not sure that personnel use and in-game strategy (which I suppose are one and the same) is enough to be a big – or even a tangible – reason behind the debacle we’ve witnessed so far.
Anyways, that’s my four pointed lament. They’re in Hamilton tomorrow, and if they drop that game, well, I was going to write that things will get pretty ugly, but they’re already quite ugly, and then I was going to write that they’ll get even uglier, but that’s a self-evident statement. You guys all probably know what I mean, though.
Tonight was the first time this season that the beat reporters didn't meet with coach Calcagni after the game. There wasn't much he could have told us, and I can't imagine he'd have been thrilled if we'd asked him to dissect this one. I tried to hang around and grab a player after, but they all dispersed pretty quickly. Henry Duke has always been very friendly to me and I imagine he would have had something of substance to say -- although a lot of my conversation with him probably would have been off the record, due to the nature of the things I want to know right about now -- but I'm sure he wouldn't really want to talk about the game, or even the team, too much after this one either, and I can't say I blame him.
I’m off the beat for a little bit – I’ll be up north for a week as of a few days from now, and then I’m going out west for a week. I think I’ll probably squeeze a game, or possibly two, in between those trips, and I know I’ll be back for the end of the regular season and the playoffs.
I’ll do my best to blog whatever happens while I’m away, and I’ll certainly post about it if there are any major shake-ups or changes!
Friday, June 26, 2009
Mauled by Cats
I’ll probably be a bit shorter tonight than usual for several reasons: one, I’ve got drivers’ ed this weekend so I need to be up far earlier than I’m used to tomorrow; two, the Twins were slaughtered again tonight which is never fun to write about, and lastly, three, there were far less positives to write about tonight than the Wednesday blow out.
Ironically, the margin of victory was the same: 18-10 tonight compared to 16-8 on Wednesday, but tonight’s game was a lot less close because the Twins needed to put up six in the bottom of the ninth to get to ten runs. Minus those, it was a 14-run Barrie lead, and it was altogether unpretty.
The Baycats put up four runs each in four innings – pretty unbelievable, actually. They just kept coming. Coach Calcagni betrayed quite a bit of frustration after the game, inviting the press to ‘put something intelligent in [his] mouth’ in our stories, and lamenting about the deficiencies of the starters, the offense, and well, everything else in between.
He also acknowledged that he hasn’t been playing with a full deck, due to the different absences, injuries and so on that have kept various Twins’ players away over the last little while. Tonight was no exception as they used a handle of junior call-ups. One of them, someone Hurley, worked a few innings of relief and wasn’t altogether bad, despite giving up a 4-spot.
Ryan Asis – in his first game back in a little while – smacked a two-run homer to cash Greg Densem early in the game. At the time, it halved Barrie’s lead to 4-2 and it looked like we might have a ballgame for a while (as it did on Wednesday night, too) but obviously that didn’t materialize.
Alarmingly, Densem went down to injury – he was nailed in the head sliding into third after he advanced on a throwing error to first when Asis hit into a fielder’s choice. He was down a while and I thought it might have been something really serious – like a dislocated body part – at the time, but coach C described it as a ‘mild concussion’ after the game. Of course, no one wants to underestimate concussions – just look at Aaron Hill last year – and it will be a while yet before we get a firm prognosis on Densem.
Mike McGillvray as a bit shaky tonight – he gave up four in the first to put the Twins in a huge hole, and he only lasted four innings. Coach C specifically mentioned starters failing to give the team innings in his post game media chat, so we know his outing didn’t get him far in the coaching staff’s eyes.
Darryl Pui had another good game in right field tonight – he hosed a guy at second who was trying to turn a hit off the wall into a double, and he wasn’t half-bad out of the lead off spot. Coach C mentioned putting him in centre field after the game, and Lord knows he would be an asset to the team no matter where he plays in the outfield.
Anyways, that’s all I have for tonight. The Maple Leafs are in town tomorrow and who knows, maybe the Battle of the GTA will import some fans from Toronto and it’ll be a lively, spirited night at the ballpark. Check back for some post-game bloggage tomorrow!
Ironically, the margin of victory was the same: 18-10 tonight compared to 16-8 on Wednesday, but tonight’s game was a lot less close because the Twins needed to put up six in the bottom of the ninth to get to ten runs. Minus those, it was a 14-run Barrie lead, and it was altogether unpretty.
The Baycats put up four runs each in four innings – pretty unbelievable, actually. They just kept coming. Coach Calcagni betrayed quite a bit of frustration after the game, inviting the press to ‘put something intelligent in [his] mouth’ in our stories, and lamenting about the deficiencies of the starters, the offense, and well, everything else in between.
He also acknowledged that he hasn’t been playing with a full deck, due to the different absences, injuries and so on that have kept various Twins’ players away over the last little while. Tonight was no exception as they used a handle of junior call-ups. One of them, someone Hurley, worked a few innings of relief and wasn’t altogether bad, despite giving up a 4-spot.
Ryan Asis – in his first game back in a little while – smacked a two-run homer to cash Greg Densem early in the game. At the time, it halved Barrie’s lead to 4-2 and it looked like we might have a ballgame for a while (as it did on Wednesday night, too) but obviously that didn’t materialize.
Alarmingly, Densem went down to injury – he was nailed in the head sliding into third after he advanced on a throwing error to first when Asis hit into a fielder’s choice. He was down a while and I thought it might have been something really serious – like a dislocated body part – at the time, but coach C described it as a ‘mild concussion’ after the game. Of course, no one wants to underestimate concussions – just look at Aaron Hill last year – and it will be a while yet before we get a firm prognosis on Densem.
Mike McGillvray as a bit shaky tonight – he gave up four in the first to put the Twins in a huge hole, and he only lasted four innings. Coach C specifically mentioned starters failing to give the team innings in his post game media chat, so we know his outing didn’t get him far in the coaching staff’s eyes.
Darryl Pui had another good game in right field tonight – he hosed a guy at second who was trying to turn a hit off the wall into a double, and he wasn’t half-bad out of the lead off spot. Coach C mentioned putting him in centre field after the game, and Lord knows he would be an asset to the team no matter where he plays in the outfield.
Anyways, that’s all I have for tonight. The Maple Leafs are in town tomorrow and who knows, maybe the Battle of the GTA will import some fans from Toronto and it’ll be a lively, spirited night at the ballpark. Check back for some post-game bloggage tomorrow!
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Attacked by Cats
The Twins were absolutely mauled by the Barrie Baycats in Meadowvale tonight – it felt like it would be a ballgame for a while, it really did, but the first place team opened things up against Mickey Campeanu in the middle innings, plastering him for six runs over three innings of work. The final wound up being 14-6; minus Campeanu’s horror show, it would have been a two run game and the Twins’ final at bats would have meant something, with them being within striking distance.
Shane Cole got the start, and his line wasn’t pretty either – he gave up six runs over four innings, but I really thought he pitched a lot better than those numbers suggest. He was hit hard – and I mean hard – a few times, but at the same time a lot of the hits the Baycats put up against him were just well placed. He had very good stuff, and I think that in a parallel universe his start tonight could have yielded far better results than the baseball gods chose to give it.
A few other Twins really, really impressed me. Jon Amendola was spectacular, smacking a solo home run early in the game, crushing an RBI double later on, and also drawing a walk before coming around to score. He struck out – looking pretty bad in doing so, I might add – later in the game with the bases loaded, but he was facing a lefty (he’s a lefty himself) and his earlier offense more than afforded him an excellent night at the dish despite the K.
Darryl Pui was spectacular – and I mean off-the-friggin-charts-brilliant – in right field tonight. Ironically, he didn’t even wind up with an outfield assist or anything flashy like that, but nonetheless three plays come to mind: in the third, Barrie DH Todd Betts ripped a single to right with runners on first and second, and Pui came up throwing, somehow preventing the lead runner from scoring – from where I was, it looked like a sure runner-scores-from-second kind of single, but Darryl’s arm held him at third. In the seventh, Jeff Cowan smacked a double into the right field corner, and even though it was a clear double off the bat, Pui tracked it down and came up gunning for second, somehow getting the throw there within a split second of the runner. Cowan was definitely safe, but the play had absolutely no right even being close to close, and it’s entirely thanks to Pui’s effort that the Twins almost stole an out. Later in the seventh, with Ryan Spataro on second, Dave Latour poked another base hit to Pui in right, and again, even though Spataro wound up scoring, Pui’s gun came within inches of nailing him at the plate. It was a fairly slowly hit ball that Pui had to charge, and it was another play that shouldn’t have been close by the wildest stretch of the imagination, but Pui made it as close as close gets with an awesome throw.
That’s baseball for you: zero outfield assists for Pui, but three absolutely out of this world plays that made all the real baseball people watching the game’s jaws drop. Awesome.
I suppose it’s tough to argue that Twins won any sort of victory – moral or otherwise – in a game they lost 14-6, but as I wrote earlier, minus Campeanu’s six run disiaster when the game was still within reach, the Twins would have been there, playing with the league leaders, the whole way.
Bench coach Ian Held provided some enlightening insight during the post-game media scrum: due to the absence of a couple outfielders and a couple position players, a couple of pitchers (that’s a lot of couples) had to play positions – and thus hit. Luis Castillo subbed in in left field, and Benson Merritt was also playing the field – at first base, I think. Anyways, as Held pointed out, correctly, both of those guys struck out with the bases loaded a couple of times. Neither of them have hit at a competitive level in years and years and years, being pitchers and all, and if the Twins had had a full roster there would have been actual hitters hitting in those slots, and who knows how a two run single or a bases clearing double at the right time would have changed the complexion of the game.
So, we have two different causes for optimism the Twins can bank on after being – according to the scoreboard, at least – taken to the woodshed by the league leaders: a relief pitcher imploded in a manner that was far outside the norm of what one might expect from any bullpen, and several of the Twins’ biggest at-bats, with the bases loaded, were taken by pitchers who simply were not qualified as hitters. It’s true – the game is played on the diamond and not on paper, but on paper those are both compelling reasons to think that on a happier day, the Twins just might be able to hang with the Baycats.
That happier day could potentially come on Friday, when Barrie is back in town for a regularly scheduled game (tonight’s was a make-up of an earlier rain out). If the Twins can avoid giving up one of those big innings that always seem to kill them, we could have a very exciting game and a far better gauge of where they stand relative to the rest of the league.
I absolutely must say a couple of things about the Baycats before I wrap this up, though. I was a little more than surprised to see that they had a player-manager – actually a player-starter. Their starting pitcher, Angus Roy, is also their manager. Strange, beyond strange even. Someone told me that he was recently released as a player – presumably on his own advice – and only re-signed with the team as a player, in addition to keeping his duties as manager, before the game tonight because the ‘cats were in dire straits as far as personnel goes.
As shocked as I was to see a player-manager, it was nothing compared to when the Baycats put in their mop-up guy in the ninth – and he didn’t have a right hand. I know, I know, it’s bad to stigmatize and point these things out, but it was pleasant shock: the man, who is named Jake Hines, was absolutely spectacular, flawlessly and, it seemed, effortlessly flipping the ball from his stub to his throwing hand and his glove from his stub to his fielding hand (which was the same as his throwing hand, obviously). My God, he was good. He fielded a comebacker to the mound and threw the runner out at first like it was absolutely nothing; the throw, stub-to-hand transition and all, easily beat the runner by thirty feet. Wow.
Anyways, my pieces from the weekend’s games are up on MississaugaTwins.ca, and, as always, you can look for my piece about tonight’s game in a day or two! I need to finish some academic research in the next couple of days, but I’ll try to squeeze in some time tomorrow to hammer out the story on tonight’s game.
Check back for more blog coverage after the Friday Barrie game; the Twins also host the Maple Leafs on Saturday night, and I’ll be covering – and blogging – that game as well.
Shane Cole got the start, and his line wasn’t pretty either – he gave up six runs over four innings, but I really thought he pitched a lot better than those numbers suggest. He was hit hard – and I mean hard – a few times, but at the same time a lot of the hits the Baycats put up against him were just well placed. He had very good stuff, and I think that in a parallel universe his start tonight could have yielded far better results than the baseball gods chose to give it.
A few other Twins really, really impressed me. Jon Amendola was spectacular, smacking a solo home run early in the game, crushing an RBI double later on, and also drawing a walk before coming around to score. He struck out – looking pretty bad in doing so, I might add – later in the game with the bases loaded, but he was facing a lefty (he’s a lefty himself) and his earlier offense more than afforded him an excellent night at the dish despite the K.
Darryl Pui was spectacular – and I mean off-the-friggin-charts-brilliant – in right field tonight. Ironically, he didn’t even wind up with an outfield assist or anything flashy like that, but nonetheless three plays come to mind: in the third, Barrie DH Todd Betts ripped a single to right with runners on first and second, and Pui came up throwing, somehow preventing the lead runner from scoring – from where I was, it looked like a sure runner-scores-from-second kind of single, but Darryl’s arm held him at third. In the seventh, Jeff Cowan smacked a double into the right field corner, and even though it was a clear double off the bat, Pui tracked it down and came up gunning for second, somehow getting the throw there within a split second of the runner. Cowan was definitely safe, but the play had absolutely no right even being close to close, and it’s entirely thanks to Pui’s effort that the Twins almost stole an out. Later in the seventh, with Ryan Spataro on second, Dave Latour poked another base hit to Pui in right, and again, even though Spataro wound up scoring, Pui’s gun came within inches of nailing him at the plate. It was a fairly slowly hit ball that Pui had to charge, and it was another play that shouldn’t have been close by the wildest stretch of the imagination, but Pui made it as close as close gets with an awesome throw.
That’s baseball for you: zero outfield assists for Pui, but three absolutely out of this world plays that made all the real baseball people watching the game’s jaws drop. Awesome.
I suppose it’s tough to argue that Twins won any sort of victory – moral or otherwise – in a game they lost 14-6, but as I wrote earlier, minus Campeanu’s six run disiaster when the game was still within reach, the Twins would have been there, playing with the league leaders, the whole way.
Bench coach Ian Held provided some enlightening insight during the post-game media scrum: due to the absence of a couple outfielders and a couple position players, a couple of pitchers (that’s a lot of couples) had to play positions – and thus hit. Luis Castillo subbed in in left field, and Benson Merritt was also playing the field – at first base, I think. Anyways, as Held pointed out, correctly, both of those guys struck out with the bases loaded a couple of times. Neither of them have hit at a competitive level in years and years and years, being pitchers and all, and if the Twins had had a full roster there would have been actual hitters hitting in those slots, and who knows how a two run single or a bases clearing double at the right time would have changed the complexion of the game.
So, we have two different causes for optimism the Twins can bank on after being – according to the scoreboard, at least – taken to the woodshed by the league leaders: a relief pitcher imploded in a manner that was far outside the norm of what one might expect from any bullpen, and several of the Twins’ biggest at-bats, with the bases loaded, were taken by pitchers who simply were not qualified as hitters. It’s true – the game is played on the diamond and not on paper, but on paper those are both compelling reasons to think that on a happier day, the Twins just might be able to hang with the Baycats.
That happier day could potentially come on Friday, when Barrie is back in town for a regularly scheduled game (tonight’s was a make-up of an earlier rain out). If the Twins can avoid giving up one of those big innings that always seem to kill them, we could have a very exciting game and a far better gauge of where they stand relative to the rest of the league.
I absolutely must say a couple of things about the Baycats before I wrap this up, though. I was a little more than surprised to see that they had a player-manager – actually a player-starter. Their starting pitcher, Angus Roy, is also their manager. Strange, beyond strange even. Someone told me that he was recently released as a player – presumably on his own advice – and only re-signed with the team as a player, in addition to keeping his duties as manager, before the game tonight because the ‘cats were in dire straits as far as personnel goes.
As shocked as I was to see a player-manager, it was nothing compared to when the Baycats put in their mop-up guy in the ninth – and he didn’t have a right hand. I know, I know, it’s bad to stigmatize and point these things out, but it was pleasant shock: the man, who is named Jake Hines, was absolutely spectacular, flawlessly and, it seemed, effortlessly flipping the ball from his stub to his throwing hand and his glove from his stub to his fielding hand (which was the same as his throwing hand, obviously). My God, he was good. He fielded a comebacker to the mound and threw the runner out at first like it was absolutely nothing; the throw, stub-to-hand transition and all, easily beat the runner by thirty feet. Wow.
Anyways, my pieces from the weekend’s games are up on MississaugaTwins.ca, and, as always, you can look for my piece about tonight’s game in a day or two! I need to finish some academic research in the next couple of days, but I’ll try to squeeze in some time tomorrow to hammer out the story on tonight’s game.
Check back for more blog coverage after the Friday Barrie game; the Twins also host the Maple Leafs on Saturday night, and I’ll be covering – and blogging – that game as well.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Plastered
The Twins were nothing short of horrible in dropping an ugly 9-0 decision on what was otherwise a gorgeous day at Christie Pits – I imagine the day at the ballpark was close to ideal for most Leafs’ fans, but I had a tough time stringing out the last few innings. But I did, and as a result you’ll all get to read coach Calcagni’s verbatim thoughts on the slaughter early this week.
It was really one of those games where nothing went right. Brian Speck, who was supposed to start Saturday in Meadowvale but was rained away, got the ball, and he didn’t help himself very much – a handful of wild pitches led to a bunch of runs scored, on actual steals of home and due to the ease with which the Leafs’ baserunners advanced on a few of them.
That said, his defence wasn’t there for him – three errors in the second, and six on the day, made it very tough for him, and no doubt if the defence had been there his line wouldn’t be as ugly as it wound up being. The Twins were behind by a 6-0 count after two, and it was tough to believe that they had much of a chance against Leafs’ ace Matt Taylor.
I’m not sure what Speck’s future holds – he started the season as a starter, was sent to the ‘pen to work a few things out, earned another start and blew it today. Coming to think of it, coach C did indicate Speck would get a start next weekend, and it would be a bit silly to demote someone to the ‘pen on the basis of today’s game, when absolutely nothing went right, so I think he gets at least another shot as a starter.
The Twins’ offense wasn’t there either. They had their chances early against Taylor – they got their first two men on in the top of the first and couldn’t do anything, and they hit a few balls very hard in the top of the second when they were only down by 3 and could have made a game out of it, but nothing fell for them. It was all downhill after that as they put together very few solid at-bats – there were, it seemed, a lot of disinterested-looking fly balls that came off their bats, and they swung at a ton of pitches they shouldn’t have and let a few go right down the middle.
Toronto Maple Leafs
Not pretty at all, all things considered. It was a tough game to drop after firing on all cylinders against Kitchener the right before.
Baseball, of course, is a very redeeming sport – and the Twins have an unscheduled shot at redemption on Wednesday night when they play a make-up game against Barrie. From what I have heard about the mighty, mighty Baycats, the Twins don’t even need to win the game to redeem themselves – although none of them will tell you that, obviously. If they keep it close and prove they can at least play with Barrie – you know, furthering the whole ‘play with any team in the league’ thesis – it’ll be a huge moral victory and they’ll be fine for the back half of the season.
Even though they’re 0-2 against the Leafs this season, I think they would be very competitive in a best of seven series, should the Battle of the GTA (as dubbed by Roger Lajoie) resume in the playoffs (it resumes next Saturday at Meadowvale first, though). I’m told that the Leafs have very, very little pitching depth after Taylor, and the Twins have run into him in both games. He pitches Leafs’ Sunday home games, and with the Twins not playing anymore Sunday games at Christie Pits we’ll get a chance to see how they fare against Leafs’ starters not named Matt Taylor, which is what they would get a shot at about five times in a playoff series.
I’ll probably add some further thoughts on how the Twins match up against the top of the league in a hypothetical-but-probably-likely first round series after the Barrie game. Look for my pieces on MississaugaTwins.ca in the next couple of days and check out my blogging after the Barrie game!
It was really one of those games where nothing went right. Brian Speck, who was supposed to start Saturday in Meadowvale but was rained away, got the ball, and he didn’t help himself very much – a handful of wild pitches led to a bunch of runs scored, on actual steals of home and due to the ease with which the Leafs’ baserunners advanced on a few of them.
That said, his defence wasn’t there for him – three errors in the second, and six on the day, made it very tough for him, and no doubt if the defence had been there his line wouldn’t be as ugly as it wound up being. The Twins were behind by a 6-0 count after two, and it was tough to believe that they had much of a chance against Leafs’ ace Matt Taylor.
I’m not sure what Speck’s future holds – he started the season as a starter, was sent to the ‘pen to work a few things out, earned another start and blew it today. Coming to think of it, coach C did indicate Speck would get a start next weekend, and it would be a bit silly to demote someone to the ‘pen on the basis of today’s game, when absolutely nothing went right, so I think he gets at least another shot as a starter.
The Twins’ offense wasn’t there either. They had their chances early against Taylor – they got their first two men on in the top of the first and couldn’t do anything, and they hit a few balls very hard in the top of the second when they were only down by 3 and could have made a game out of it, but nothing fell for them. It was all downhill after that as they put together very few solid at-bats – there were, it seemed, a lot of disinterested-looking fly balls that came off their bats, and they swung at a ton of pitches they shouldn’t have and let a few go right down the middle.
Toronto Maple Leafs
Not pretty at all, all things considered. It was a tough game to drop after firing on all cylinders against Kitchener the right before.
Baseball, of course, is a very redeeming sport – and the Twins have an unscheduled shot at redemption on Wednesday night when they play a make-up game against Barrie. From what I have heard about the mighty, mighty Baycats, the Twins don’t even need to win the game to redeem themselves – although none of them will tell you that, obviously. If they keep it close and prove they can at least play with Barrie – you know, furthering the whole ‘play with any team in the league’ thesis – it’ll be a huge moral victory and they’ll be fine for the back half of the season.
Even though they’re 0-2 against the Leafs this season, I think they would be very competitive in a best of seven series, should the Battle of the GTA (as dubbed by Roger Lajoie) resume in the playoffs (it resumes next Saturday at Meadowvale first, though). I’m told that the Leafs have very, very little pitching depth after Taylor, and the Twins have run into him in both games. He pitches Leafs’ Sunday home games, and with the Twins not playing anymore Sunday games at Christie Pits we’ll get a chance to see how they fare against Leafs’ starters not named Matt Taylor, which is what they would get a shot at about five times in a playoff series.
I’ll probably add some further thoughts on how the Twins match up against the top of the league in a hypothetical-but-probably-likely first round series after the Barrie game. Look for my pieces on MississaugaTwins.ca in the next couple of days and check out my blogging after the Barrie game!
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Washed Away
Just a quick post letting everyone know that tonight's game against Guelph is a wash. It's stopped raining, but Mississauga was absolutely pounded by rain all morning and for most of the afternoon, so I guess the field is unplayable.
The first place Barrie Baycats are in town Wednesday night to play a make-up game for an earlier rain out. No word yet on when this Guelph game will be replayed.
As it stands, I'll still be covering tomorrow's game at Christie Pits!
The first place Barrie Baycats are in town Wednesday night to play a make-up game for an earlier rain out. No word yet on when this Guelph game will be replayed.
As it stands, I'll still be covering tomorrow's game at Christie Pits!
Friday, June 19, 2009
Kicking the Skid
The Twins snapped a nasty seven game skid tonight at home against the Kitchener Panthers – fittingly, more or less everything that went wrong for them during the streak went right tonight, and the players’ relief was quite apparent after the game when I did my interviews.
The final score was 7-3, so one could fairly call it a decisive win. They got a stellar outing from Luis Castillo – exact numbers in my game stories, which should likely be up early in the week – and Shane Cole came in to shut Kitchener down. Castillo, if memory serves, only walked two Panthers, and if memory serves further, starters walking south of five guys per game was a huge problem during the streak.
The Twins were stellar in the clutch tonight – several big hits with runners in scoring position; they busted it open with four runs in the bottom of the fifth, including an RBI double that Henry Duke absolutely crushed off the wall. Duke, by the way, went on to add a two run homer in the seventh to put things out of reach. George Mensah also had a bomb for the Twins in the bottom of the second; it answered the Panthers’ first inning solo shot and knotted the game at one.
Unlike games past, I spoke to a couple of players in addition to coach Calcagni afterwards. I talked to Duke, which seemed fitting after his big offensive night, and he provided some interesting and insightful thoughts on his hitting – apparently, he had been killing the ball of late, but right at the centre fielder, which led to several 0 for’s with a bunch of loud outs. He forced himself to make the adjustment and start hitting to the left and right side, and the results spoke for themselves.
I also chatted with Castillo, who seemed relaxed and relieved after the W. He told me his curveball wasn’t working properly – and it’s true, a lot of pitches stayed up, above the chest, that looked like they were meant to break downward – but that his cutter compensated. Whatever it was, it wound up working fabulously and Castillo’s effort tonight is a big reason why the Twins are looking to start a streak in the other direction rather than break out of what would be an eight game death spiral.
I really like talking to the players – they’re all very media-friendly – and the reason I haven’t been talking to them lately has a lot more to do with the fact that they usually disappear pretty quickly after the games than a lack of interest on my part. I will certainly be trying to make players’ comments a regular part of my coverage from here on out.
Everyone I talked to seemed very relieved to have picked up the win – not that anyone is ever unhappy after a win, but you could tell it was a big one for them. The manner in which they came out and pasted a team that had beaten them by a single run in a game they should won at the height of their losing streak goes a long way to confirm what I – and most other people – have been saying all along, which is that they are far better than their record AND more than capable of hanging with every team in the league. Frankly, I think they are a far better team than Kitchener and I think it would take a bad game on the Twins’ part to see them lose to the Panthers again.
Coach C told me that as a team they’re trying to be a bit more aggressive – especially when it comes to solid secondary leads – and I think that came through tonight. An impressive first to third caught my eye, as did a steal of home on a passed ball. Aggression is obviously a good addition to any team; with the Twins being really young, you’d think they’re predisposed to be a fast team and it will be interesting to see if adding that element to their game can put them over the top.
Guelph is up next – it’ll be a good test; as you may remember, the Twins were slaughtered in Guelph by a count of 9-0 during that skid. It was an awfully played game by the Twins, and Guelph was tied with Kitchener in the standings going into tonight’s action, so we’ll see how the Twins handle them tomorrow. Look for more post-game bloggage around this time tomorrow!
The final score was 7-3, so one could fairly call it a decisive win. They got a stellar outing from Luis Castillo – exact numbers in my game stories, which should likely be up early in the week – and Shane Cole came in to shut Kitchener down. Castillo, if memory serves, only walked two Panthers, and if memory serves further, starters walking south of five guys per game was a huge problem during the streak.
The Twins were stellar in the clutch tonight – several big hits with runners in scoring position; they busted it open with four runs in the bottom of the fifth, including an RBI double that Henry Duke absolutely crushed off the wall. Duke, by the way, went on to add a two run homer in the seventh to put things out of reach. George Mensah also had a bomb for the Twins in the bottom of the second; it answered the Panthers’ first inning solo shot and knotted the game at one.
Unlike games past, I spoke to a couple of players in addition to coach Calcagni afterwards. I talked to Duke, which seemed fitting after his big offensive night, and he provided some interesting and insightful thoughts on his hitting – apparently, he had been killing the ball of late, but right at the centre fielder, which led to several 0 for’s with a bunch of loud outs. He forced himself to make the adjustment and start hitting to the left and right side, and the results spoke for themselves.
I also chatted with Castillo, who seemed relaxed and relieved after the W. He told me his curveball wasn’t working properly – and it’s true, a lot of pitches stayed up, above the chest, that looked like they were meant to break downward – but that his cutter compensated. Whatever it was, it wound up working fabulously and Castillo’s effort tonight is a big reason why the Twins are looking to start a streak in the other direction rather than break out of what would be an eight game death spiral.
I really like talking to the players – they’re all very media-friendly – and the reason I haven’t been talking to them lately has a lot more to do with the fact that they usually disappear pretty quickly after the games than a lack of interest on my part. I will certainly be trying to make players’ comments a regular part of my coverage from here on out.
Everyone I talked to seemed very relieved to have picked up the win – not that anyone is ever unhappy after a win, but you could tell it was a big one for them. The manner in which they came out and pasted a team that had beaten them by a single run in a game they should won at the height of their losing streak goes a long way to confirm what I – and most other people – have been saying all along, which is that they are far better than their record AND more than capable of hanging with every team in the league. Frankly, I think they are a far better team than Kitchener and I think it would take a bad game on the Twins’ part to see them lose to the Panthers again.
Coach C told me that as a team they’re trying to be a bit more aggressive – especially when it comes to solid secondary leads – and I think that came through tonight. An impressive first to third caught my eye, as did a steal of home on a passed ball. Aggression is obviously a good addition to any team; with the Twins being really young, you’d think they’re predisposed to be a fast team and it will be interesting to see if adding that element to their game can put them over the top.
Guelph is up next – it’ll be a good test; as you may remember, the Twins were slaughtered in Guelph by a count of 9-0 during that skid. It was an awfully played game by the Twins, and Guelph was tied with Kitchener in the standings going into tonight’s action, so we’ll see how the Twins handle them tomorrow. Look for more post-game bloggage around this time tomorrow!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Riding the Skid
It's been a while off the beat, but it looks like I’ll be back in a big way for the next little while – as it stands, I think I should be at the next five Twins’ games, so that should provide a chance for some consistent coverage and I can sharpen my understanding of the team as they hit the homestretch.
They are certainly scuffling – after beating Brantford in Brantford, they went on to drop seven straight and that streak is very much alive heading into tomorrow’s home game against Kitchener. That, of course, would be the same Kitchener team they lost to by a single run two weeks ago.
After that, they host London on Saturday and head to Christie Pitts to play the Maple Leafs on Sunday. The Leafs, surprisingly, are at 10-6 and only two and a half games out of first place; many of the Leafs’ devoted perennial followers seemed to think they were a weaker team this year than in years past when I spoke to a few the last time they played the Twins.
Before I get too far, I should selfishly and shamelessly plug a Jays article I wrote for U of T’s paper recently:
http://thevarsity.ca/article/19318
Anyways, back to the Twins (and things). At 5-11, they presently sit in the eighth and final playoff spot. Hamilton is four and a half games out; interestingly, the low point of the Twins’ skid thus far came when they fell to the Thunderbirds in Hamilton, giving the T-Birds their first (and to date only) win of the season. I still don’t think the Twins need to be genuinely concerned about the possibility of being overtaken by the lowly Birds, but if their losing streak continues and Hamilton can string a few together (that being, by the way, far less probable than the Twins continuing to lose, as far as I can see) it could certainly be tight heading into the homestretch.
That said, there are four teams within four games of the Twins, and as the season develops I fully expect a few of them will drop a bit and a few will rise. Conversely, I am near certain that the Twins are far better than that sub-.333 winning percentage, and they should pick up a few games against a couple of the teams above them. All in all, I still think the Twins will do better than eighth place – but hey, sometimes the whole expansion team thing is just too much to overcome and a team scuffles all year. We’ll see, obviously.
That attempt to climb in the standings begins tomorrow against Kitchener, who sit three games up on the Twins. London is actually tied with Kitchener, and it would be meaningful if they could pick up games against both teams this weekend.
I’m awfully tired tonight, so this is as long as it gets, I think. Look for post-game bloggage tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday night! I have a few general and a few specific things to say about the team that I haven’t gone into tonight, so my blog posts throughout the weekend will have that stuff scattered throughout.
And you’ll all be heartbroken to learn that I’ve yet to write those feature pieces for an insert in the Twins’ published-once-a-year program. Rightly or wrong – probably wrongly – I’ve felt swamped for the past little bit, not to mention having been out of town for four days out of the past week, so I just haven’t gotten around to them. I’m trying to settle down and focus on doing some substantive writing over the next little while, so they should get done soon.
They are certainly scuffling – after beating Brantford in Brantford, they went on to drop seven straight and that streak is very much alive heading into tomorrow’s home game against Kitchener. That, of course, would be the same Kitchener team they lost to by a single run two weeks ago.
After that, they host London on Saturday and head to Christie Pitts to play the Maple Leafs on Sunday. The Leafs, surprisingly, are at 10-6 and only two and a half games out of first place; many of the Leafs’ devoted perennial followers seemed to think they were a weaker team this year than in years past when I spoke to a few the last time they played the Twins.
Before I get too far, I should selfishly and shamelessly plug a Jays article I wrote for U of T’s paper recently:
http://thevarsity.ca/article/19318
Anyways, back to the Twins (and things). At 5-11, they presently sit in the eighth and final playoff spot. Hamilton is four and a half games out; interestingly, the low point of the Twins’ skid thus far came when they fell to the Thunderbirds in Hamilton, giving the T-Birds their first (and to date only) win of the season. I still don’t think the Twins need to be genuinely concerned about the possibility of being overtaken by the lowly Birds, but if their losing streak continues and Hamilton can string a few together (that being, by the way, far less probable than the Twins continuing to lose, as far as I can see) it could certainly be tight heading into the homestretch.
That said, there are four teams within four games of the Twins, and as the season develops I fully expect a few of them will drop a bit and a few will rise. Conversely, I am near certain that the Twins are far better than that sub-.333 winning percentage, and they should pick up a few games against a couple of the teams above them. All in all, I still think the Twins will do better than eighth place – but hey, sometimes the whole expansion team thing is just too much to overcome and a team scuffles all year. We’ll see, obviously.
That attempt to climb in the standings begins tomorrow against Kitchener, who sit three games up on the Twins. London is actually tied with Kitchener, and it would be meaningful if they could pick up games against both teams this weekend.
I’m awfully tired tonight, so this is as long as it gets, I think. Look for post-game bloggage tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday night! I have a few general and a few specific things to say about the team that I haven’t gone into tonight, so my blog posts throughout the weekend will have that stuff scattered throughout.
And you’ll all be heartbroken to learn that I’ve yet to write those feature pieces for an insert in the Twins’ published-once-a-year program. Rightly or wrong – probably wrongly – I’ve felt swamped for the past little bit, not to mention having been out of town for four days out of the past week, so I just haven’t gotten around to them. I’m trying to settle down and focus on doing some substantive writing over the next little while, so they should get done soon.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
On a Chilly Saturday...
The Twins were edged on Saturday night by the Kitchener Panthers – the final score was 6-5, and, mercifully, it was a bit more exciting than the Friday game. I’ve put off writing my game stories until tomorrow or so, and I don’t have my notes in front of me, nor do I care to go get them, so I’ll see what I remember.
The big story – I think – was that the Twins were a hell of a lot more aggressive on the basepaths than I have ever seen them be. By any standard, they were very aggressive. A couple of double steals; a straight steal of third; a steal of second to put the tying run in scoring position with two out in the bottom of the eighth. Matt Calcagni – who just joined the team after being released by a Northern League squad – had a really great at-bat in I think the fifth or so. He wound up striking out, but he fouled off about four or five pitches with a full count. Funny thing is, there were guys on first and second and they ran on each full count pitch, so they got their work in. And despite the strike out, the double steal was successful!
Coach Calcagni told us afterwards that as a team they want to be a bit more aggressive on the basepaths, and that the steals were called by him. I don’t think they lost any baserunners to over-aggression last night, so he certainly picked his spots. There will be some more precise comments from him about that part of the game in my story, whenever it is eventually written.
In terms of pitching, this time Brian Speck came out of the’ pen to do some long-relief work – he picked up Benson Merritt, who was pretty mediocre. As I remember it, both guys walked far too many batters. Anyways, this was a case of Speck being sent to the ‘pen to work out whatever issues kept him from being dominant as a starter. On the balance, he was fine – he certainly kept the Twins in the game, but the Panthers put up a crooked number on him late in the game to give themselves some breathing room, and obviously that wound up being the difference.
Another pitcher who really impressed me was Adam Zorzit – he worked a single inning of relief, and he has great stuff. It doesn’t break ten to twelve inches the way Mike McGilvray’s stuff does, but it buzzes and is pretty electric. He picked up the save in their first ever game in Hamilton, and even though I haven’t seen a lot of the Twins’ pen, I have to think I would be pretty comfortable putting him in for most save opportunities. When it’s up, I’ll take a look at tonight’s boxscore and see if he was put in to protect the one run lead, and now that I think of it I may as well check some of their previous wins and see what his role has been. If he isn’t the closer, the closer is pretty good – I’ll say that much!
To look at some long-term prognosis stuff: the Twins, having won a make-up game tonight in Oshawa by a count of 3-2, sit at 5-6. Not ideal, but far above anything that could have reasonably been expected of an expansion club. A few people have told me that they think the record is what it is because it’s a really young team that just needs to grow into hanging with some of the teams that have been together for years and years, and I think that theory may have some truth to it, as far as accounting for the actual wins and losses goes. Coach C said – and this will be in either the game piece or something else (more on that later) – he’s thrilled with where the team is, and if I were in his position I would probably feel the same. Baseball being baseball, as long as you know you can hang with anyone in the league – and the Twins now know that – it’s all about executing once you get into a short playoff series.
Anyways, we’ve been talking about some vague journalistic plans for my coverage of the team for a while now, and they’ve sort of materialized: we’re hoping, subject to executive approval, to run an insert in the programs given out at games with a feature piece (written by me, of course!) about the success of opening day/the arrival of the Twins in Mississauga/the results thus far/some kind of encouraging spin on the future and a feature player profile on Ryan Assis. I’ve always liked his story – because he left the BayCats specifically to play for his hometown team – and I finally got to talk to him after the Saturday game. The hope (at least on my end) is to turn that insert into a regularly changing feature – probably more general pieces about the overall direction of the team, organizational news and so on, and then one or two player profiles per issue.
I think that’s all I have to say. I’m not sure when I’ll be back on the beat – two weeks, maybe? I’ll see about contacting coach C to get enough material to do game pieces for the away ones I miss. I’ll probably blog mid-week or something with some Blue Jays material and misc. Twins news/comments!
The big story – I think – was that the Twins were a hell of a lot more aggressive on the basepaths than I have ever seen them be. By any standard, they were very aggressive. A couple of double steals; a straight steal of third; a steal of second to put the tying run in scoring position with two out in the bottom of the eighth. Matt Calcagni – who just joined the team after being released by a Northern League squad – had a really great at-bat in I think the fifth or so. He wound up striking out, but he fouled off about four or five pitches with a full count. Funny thing is, there were guys on first and second and they ran on each full count pitch, so they got their work in. And despite the strike out, the double steal was successful!
Coach Calcagni told us afterwards that as a team they want to be a bit more aggressive on the basepaths, and that the steals were called by him. I don’t think they lost any baserunners to over-aggression last night, so he certainly picked his spots. There will be some more precise comments from him about that part of the game in my story, whenever it is eventually written.
In terms of pitching, this time Brian Speck came out of the’ pen to do some long-relief work – he picked up Benson Merritt, who was pretty mediocre. As I remember it, both guys walked far too many batters. Anyways, this was a case of Speck being sent to the ‘pen to work out whatever issues kept him from being dominant as a starter. On the balance, he was fine – he certainly kept the Twins in the game, but the Panthers put up a crooked number on him late in the game to give themselves some breathing room, and obviously that wound up being the difference.
Another pitcher who really impressed me was Adam Zorzit – he worked a single inning of relief, and he has great stuff. It doesn’t break ten to twelve inches the way Mike McGilvray’s stuff does, but it buzzes and is pretty electric. He picked up the save in their first ever game in Hamilton, and even though I haven’t seen a lot of the Twins’ pen, I have to think I would be pretty comfortable putting him in for most save opportunities. When it’s up, I’ll take a look at tonight’s boxscore and see if he was put in to protect the one run lead, and now that I think of it I may as well check some of their previous wins and see what his role has been. If he isn’t the closer, the closer is pretty good – I’ll say that much!
To look at some long-term prognosis stuff: the Twins, having won a make-up game tonight in Oshawa by a count of 3-2, sit at 5-6. Not ideal, but far above anything that could have reasonably been expected of an expansion club. A few people have told me that they think the record is what it is because it’s a really young team that just needs to grow into hanging with some of the teams that have been together for years and years, and I think that theory may have some truth to it, as far as accounting for the actual wins and losses goes. Coach C said – and this will be in either the game piece or something else (more on that later) – he’s thrilled with where the team is, and if I were in his position I would probably feel the same. Baseball being baseball, as long as you know you can hang with anyone in the league – and the Twins now know that – it’s all about executing once you get into a short playoff series.
Anyways, we’ve been talking about some vague journalistic plans for my coverage of the team for a while now, and they’ve sort of materialized: we’re hoping, subject to executive approval, to run an insert in the programs given out at games with a feature piece (written by me, of course!) about the success of opening day/the arrival of the Twins in Mississauga/the results thus far/some kind of encouraging spin on the future and a feature player profile on Ryan Assis. I’ve always liked his story – because he left the BayCats specifically to play for his hometown team – and I finally got to talk to him after the Saturday game. The hope (at least on my end) is to turn that insert into a regularly changing feature – probably more general pieces about the overall direction of the team, organizational news and so on, and then one or two player profiles per issue.
I think that’s all I have to say. I’m not sure when I’ll be back on the beat – two weeks, maybe? I’ll see about contacting coach C to get enough material to do game pieces for the away ones I miss. I’ll probably blog mid-week or something with some Blue Jays material and misc. Twins news/comments!
Friday, June 5, 2009
As Uneventful As Uneventful Gets
I’m late blogging tonight, but I doubt anyone noticed. I just hammered out my Jays piece for U of T’s paper – which should be out early next week, if I had to guess – and I’m delighted to see that my piece on the Rogers Centre has been published today, in conjunction with the stadium’s 20th anniversary this past week & current weekend.
The article, for your reading enjoyment and my self-satisfaction, is here:
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090606/SPORT/706059848/1062
The title is the editor’s, and he made my paragraphs a bit smaller than I like them, and a bit of extra stuff about the recent renovations to the RC were taken out, as was a blurb about how it hosted the WBC (I guess that’s what you get when you turn stuff in 200 words over count).
Other than that, they’re all my words, and I’m quite happy with it. It’s cool to see myself in print (well, online – a copy of the actual thing would be fabulous but unlikely) halfway around the world in a big paper with journalists from the NYT and the like. Here’s to a lot more of that in the near future, dear blogosphere :)
Tonight the Twins were thoroughly unspectacular, with the exception of Shane Cole, who I’ll get to in a second, and they dropped a game that really should have been more competitive to the Oshawa Dodgers by a count of 6-3.
There’s truthfully not too much to say about the game – the scoring details will go in my game story, which’ll be up on MississaugaTwins.ca early in the week alongside whatever I write about tomorrow. The only real angles, as far as I’m concerned – but I’m kind of narrow minded, right? – were the pitchers tonight. All three who entered the game were noteworthy for different reasons.
Greg Byron went the distance for Oshawa. His line pretty much reflects what came up in the media scrum with coach Calcagni after the game – Byron was far from overpowering, but he had good control and was unassumingly very effective. He gave up a total of three runs, only two of which were earned, in the process of scattering seven hits. Notably, he struck out two without walking any – I think that’s the most telling stat, as it shows that he both was far from overpowering and had very good control.
On the Twins side, it was a story of polar opposites – Matt Martinow only managed three and a third, allowing a total of three earned runs (four total) while giving up eight hits. He both struck out and walked two Dodgers.
Shane Cole came in in relief and shut Oshawa down – he went the rest of the game, good for a measly two earned runs over five and two thirds, striking out five. Worryingly, he also walked four – but it’s tough to complain, given the net result.
Tonight was the second time I’ve seen Cole come in and pick up a starter that turned in a mediocre effort by giving the Twins a chance. He also did it for Brian Speck in the home opener against Brantford. I’m very, very certain that you’ll be seeing Cole get a start sometime soon – infer what you will of my reasons for thinking so, but if I were a betting man I would feel fine with a lot riding on that. If Cole performs anything like he has out of the ‘pen as a starter, he could well find himself part of the eventual rotation.
That’s about all I have to say as far as the actual game goes. I was a bit surprised to learn that tomorrow’s game is at 7 – no more afternoon home games for the Twins – but that’s alright with me, I’ll watch the Jays in the afternoon!
I met some friendly people in the Boston Pizza Beer Garden – who should be commenting on here, I think – that are just Mississaugans (I hope that’s the term – MS Word says it isn’t) following the team. Cool that those people exist. We were having some fun with the fact that the Dodgers’ pen was playing some strange game involving trying to throw a ball into a glove about twenty feet away – it looked just a bit silly, but I have to think that far worse goes on in major league pens.
Speaking of that Beer Garden, tonight they were giving out coupons for a BP individual sized pizza with the purchase of a beer – with two beers at $9 and an individual pizza $8-10 or so, you can drink at a profit! Sounds good to me, and I don’t think I’ll have any problem racking up those coupons over the summer.
In the coming week, I’m going to look at writing some fresh content for the team’s weekly e-newsletters (probably a week in review/preview of the upcoming week kind of thing) and we’ll probably be doing an insert for the only-printed-once-a-season team program. I’m still not sure what’ll go there – it might well be a player feature kind of thing as well as team/organization news. I have a good feature I haven’t yet written on opening day, and that might be a cool place to show it off.
Now that I’m starting to distribute the blog URL to people around the team, if you guys have any thoughts on stuff you think should go into my coverage, please let me know in the comments section!
The article, for your reading enjoyment and my self-satisfaction, is here:
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090606/SPORT/706059848/1062
The title is the editor’s, and he made my paragraphs a bit smaller than I like them, and a bit of extra stuff about the recent renovations to the RC were taken out, as was a blurb about how it hosted the WBC (I guess that’s what you get when you turn stuff in 200 words over count).
Other than that, they’re all my words, and I’m quite happy with it. It’s cool to see myself in print (well, online – a copy of the actual thing would be fabulous but unlikely) halfway around the world in a big paper with journalists from the NYT and the like. Here’s to a lot more of that in the near future, dear blogosphere :)
Tonight the Twins were thoroughly unspectacular, with the exception of Shane Cole, who I’ll get to in a second, and they dropped a game that really should have been more competitive to the Oshawa Dodgers by a count of 6-3.
There’s truthfully not too much to say about the game – the scoring details will go in my game story, which’ll be up on MississaugaTwins.ca early in the week alongside whatever I write about tomorrow. The only real angles, as far as I’m concerned – but I’m kind of narrow minded, right? – were the pitchers tonight. All three who entered the game were noteworthy for different reasons.
Greg Byron went the distance for Oshawa. His line pretty much reflects what came up in the media scrum with coach Calcagni after the game – Byron was far from overpowering, but he had good control and was unassumingly very effective. He gave up a total of three runs, only two of which were earned, in the process of scattering seven hits. Notably, he struck out two without walking any – I think that’s the most telling stat, as it shows that he both was far from overpowering and had very good control.
On the Twins side, it was a story of polar opposites – Matt Martinow only managed three and a third, allowing a total of three earned runs (four total) while giving up eight hits. He both struck out and walked two Dodgers.
Shane Cole came in in relief and shut Oshawa down – he went the rest of the game, good for a measly two earned runs over five and two thirds, striking out five. Worryingly, he also walked four – but it’s tough to complain, given the net result.
Tonight was the second time I’ve seen Cole come in and pick up a starter that turned in a mediocre effort by giving the Twins a chance. He also did it for Brian Speck in the home opener against Brantford. I’m very, very certain that you’ll be seeing Cole get a start sometime soon – infer what you will of my reasons for thinking so, but if I were a betting man I would feel fine with a lot riding on that. If Cole performs anything like he has out of the ‘pen as a starter, he could well find himself part of the eventual rotation.
That’s about all I have to say as far as the actual game goes. I was a bit surprised to learn that tomorrow’s game is at 7 – no more afternoon home games for the Twins – but that’s alright with me, I’ll watch the Jays in the afternoon!
I met some friendly people in the Boston Pizza Beer Garden – who should be commenting on here, I think – that are just Mississaugans (I hope that’s the term – MS Word says it isn’t) following the team. Cool that those people exist. We were having some fun with the fact that the Dodgers’ pen was playing some strange game involving trying to throw a ball into a glove about twenty feet away – it looked just a bit silly, but I have to think that far worse goes on in major league pens.
Speaking of that Beer Garden, tonight they were giving out coupons for a BP individual sized pizza with the purchase of a beer – with two beers at $9 and an individual pizza $8-10 or so, you can drink at a profit! Sounds good to me, and I don’t think I’ll have any problem racking up those coupons over the summer.
In the coming week, I’m going to look at writing some fresh content for the team’s weekly e-newsletters (probably a week in review/preview of the upcoming week kind of thing) and we’ll probably be doing an insert for the only-printed-once-a-season team program. I’m still not sure what’ll go there – it might well be a player feature kind of thing as well as team/organization news. I have a good feature I haven’t yet written on opening day, and that might be a cool place to show it off.
Now that I’m starting to distribute the blog URL to people around the team, if you guys have any thoughts on stuff you think should go into my coverage, please let me know in the comments section!
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Back on the Saddle
I’ve fallen off the beat badly of late – no new material ever since the Barrie game eight days ago was rained out, if memory serves. Since then, the Twins have gone 2-2 – the high-water mark of which was beating the defending champion Brantford Red Sox 4-3 on Wednesday (on the road, to boot), and the low point a 9-0 drubbing at the hands of the Guelph Royals. In between, they dropped a 9-6 road decision to the Kitchener Panthers, and picked up their first ever home win by a count of 7-5 against the perennially awful Hamilton Thunderbirds.
(as an aside, I wrote some time ago that the Thunderbirds were ‘perennially competitive to the best of my knowledge’, but the best of my knowledge wound up not being good enough – the T-Birds have been easy pickings at the ICBL level for the past several years; apparently, that part of their program has been neglected in favour of their elite youth teams)
They’re back at home tonight (Friday) against Oshawa, and I’ll get some input from coach Calcagni about the four games I missed. I’m guessing that my line of questioning will be something like ‘how did you beat Brantford, get killed by Guelph and only barely beat Hamilton?’ and hopefully that will lead to some great insight. On Saturday, they host Kitchener to make it back-to-back home games, and then they get a rare Sunday off.
I’ll be at both home games, but after that I think I’ll be off the beat for another ten to fourteen days. It circles back to the whole pay grade variable – always! I’ll probably make an effort to contact coach Calcagni and the other principals for those games I miss and do game stories, something which I did not bother to do for the past several games I’ve missed due to being busy with some other stuff.
Supposedly I have a couple of Blue Jays pieces running in a daily paper in the United Arab Emirates fairly soon – once those are up, I’ll post the links right here! I also need to do a Jays piece for The Varsity (U of T’s newspaper) in the next 48 hours, and once that’s up I’m sure I’ll provide ya’ll with a link.
I know there’s (at least a few) readers, and there’s every reason to comment! I promise I’ll reply to all of them – feel free to provide opinions on anything Twins, Blue Jays or general baseball, and I’ll be happy to respond and debate you if necessary. Casual observations will be treated more kindly. ;)
Look for something up tomorrow night after the Oshawa game!
(as an aside, I wrote some time ago that the Thunderbirds were ‘perennially competitive to the best of my knowledge’, but the best of my knowledge wound up not being good enough – the T-Birds have been easy pickings at the ICBL level for the past several years; apparently, that part of their program has been neglected in favour of their elite youth teams)
They’re back at home tonight (Friday) against Oshawa, and I’ll get some input from coach Calcagni about the four games I missed. I’m guessing that my line of questioning will be something like ‘how did you beat Brantford, get killed by Guelph and only barely beat Hamilton?’ and hopefully that will lead to some great insight. On Saturday, they host Kitchener to make it back-to-back home games, and then they get a rare Sunday off.
I’ll be at both home games, but after that I think I’ll be off the beat for another ten to fourteen days. It circles back to the whole pay grade variable – always! I’ll probably make an effort to contact coach Calcagni and the other principals for those games I miss and do game stories, something which I did not bother to do for the past several games I’ve missed due to being busy with some other stuff.
Supposedly I have a couple of Blue Jays pieces running in a daily paper in the United Arab Emirates fairly soon – once those are up, I’ll post the links right here! I also need to do a Jays piece for The Varsity (U of T’s newspaper) in the next 48 hours, and once that’s up I’m sure I’ll provide ya’ll with a link.
I know there’s (at least a few) readers, and there’s every reason to comment! I promise I’ll reply to all of them – feel free to provide opinions on anything Twins, Blue Jays or general baseball, and I’ll be happy to respond and debate you if necessary. Casual observations will be treated more kindly. ;)
Look for something up tomorrow night after the Oshawa game!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Washed Out
The Twins’ home game against the Barrie Baycats was rained out tonight – it was called over an hour before first pitch, so I’m going to guess it was really bad at the ballpark. They’re off until they host Hamilton at 2 on Saturday, and I fall off the beat until the first weekend in June when Oshawa comes to Meadowvale. There are four games in between then, so I’ll likely get in touch with coach Calcagni by email or phone and do pieces on those games, as well as some supplementary blog material.
They continue to sit at .500, at 2-2. By rights, they should be 3-1 and it wouldn’t be altogether unfair if they were 4-0. But such is the way of baseball – it should even out over the course of the season, and at least know that they’re no Stratford Nationals.
The pieces I’ve done so far are up on the Twins’ site – www.mississaugatwins.ca – and I’m going to write up a short newswire-type thing on the rain-out, and do a feature on the home opener hoopla/the general arrival of the Twins to the ICBL.
This Blue Jays’ losing streak is painful – unless they can beat the Red Sox Friday, it’ll hit double digits. It was never that bad under John Gibbons. With them now sitting only four games over .500, we can say with certainty that this losing streak has hurt them dearly. It will absolutely be one of the first things to point at if they miss the playoffs by anywhere from one to three or four games.
That said, it’s yet to mortally wound them, and there’s a good chance they’ll still play above-.500 ball for the rest of the season – after all, they always have. It’s just unfathomable to imagine a team that showed it can play as well as they did prior to this losing streak flopping for the next four months, and it probably won’t happen.
Because the Yankees and Red Sox have scuffled a bit – the Red Sox more so – of late, they’re only a game and a half out, and with a ton of games left against the Yankees and Red Sox they firmly control their own destiny.
I can probably say a lot more about a few situations – the bullpen and Wells/Rios, notably – but I’m going to hold off until the week, when the Twins beat dies down a bit and all I have to report on are boxscores.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
If the Bats Were as Hot as the Weather...
Today’s game at Christie Pits (which I was absolutely stunned to learn is spelt with only one T – maybe that’s why I can’t find information anywhere about the race riots!) was a long, hot one, and I can prove it on both fronts: about two more pages of in-game notes than I’d planned on taking, and killer, killer sunburns on both my arms.
The game itself was a jewel – it was tight, well pitched (if not well defended), full of a lot of opportunities for both teams that definitely gave it a dramatic flair, and a fun (although very partisan) hometown crowd that obviously knew the Leafs inside out.
All of the scoring came on one-run homers – a bomb to dead centre by Wes O’Neill in the top of the third for the good guys, and two Leafs’ homers – each by Rob Gillis, one a first-pitch rocket to lead off the bottom of the ninth and tie the game, and the other to lead off the bottom of the 15th and send (most of) everyone home happy.
The Twins, though, had far more than their fair share of chances to put the game away before Gillis’ ninth inning rocket, and I’m sure they’re all plenty aware that they have no one but themselves to blame for this loss. The one that jumps out at me as most damning came in the top of the ninth, when they had runners on first and second with no one out, and Sean Pisarski popped up a bunt attempt to the pitcher – who then came oh-so-close to doubling off the runner on first, which would have been devastating. As it was, the next two hitters couldn’t get the job done, and clearly it cost the Twins.
The problem with botching that ninth inning bunt attempt is two-fold: screwing up fundamentals (that badly, no less) late in the game will get you in any coach’s doghouse very quickly, and, perhaps even more importantly, if not a bit abstractly, it let the Leafs off the hook big time. Pitcher Mark Sequarski (whose last name I can’t spell and whom I can’t find on the statistics page of the ICBL’s website, which has me a bit confused/alarmed – help in the comments, anyone?) fielded a chopper back to the mound with Derek Gordon on first, and pivoted to go to second to cut down the lead runner... and tossed the ball right into centre field. It put runners at first and second with no one out rather than a runner on first with one down. Needless to say, it isn’t the kind of mistake you can let someone get away with in competitive baseball – but again, I’m sure that the Twins know that as well as anyone.
Another ninth inning problem for the Twins was Gordon’s base running – after the botched bunt attempt, Darryl Pui whiffed, and Gordon got caught napping off of second (I was told after the game it was a brain freeze on his part to not go back hard to the base when he saw the pitcher turn) and seemed to just give up on the run down, rather than trying to get himself out of it. I understand that it’s incredibly deflating to be caught between bases when the ball is on the infield, but I think under those circumstances you need to do everything you can to escape – and he didn’t.
You’ll be able to read my game story – which I’ve yet to write – on www.MississaugaTwins.ca , along with the other 4 or 5 pieces that have yet to go up, as soon as the guys running the site get them on there – which I’m told will be tomorrow (Monday), so keep an eye. The site also has a map of the Twins’ home park, for all of the friendly people who asked today.
I liked my first trip to the Pits – the huge, steep hill that surrounded the backstop was like nothing I have ever seen, and you can just tell that the place is rocking in August when the Leafs play in the play offs and there’s more people out. The neighbourhood was nice; the fans knowledgeable; the lockerrooms existent, unlike at Meadowvale; and, the hot dogs were bigger than at Meadowvale. Cool stuff. I'll be back for non-Twins games if the ICBL is paying me. ;)
I asked coach Calcagni about several things after the game – a few of which I promised some fans the answers to would go up on this blog – and even though I’m still not sure I would have done what he did in those situations, I was pretty satisfied with his answers. Chiefly, I wanted him to explain his thinking when he walked Kern Watts in the bottom of the tenth with a runner on third, even though Watts had been having a dreadful game. Calcagni told me that he coached Watts for ten years in Brampton and knows he is a great hitter, and he didn’t want to get beat by a guy who he knew was capable of beating him when he had other options. Watts, by the way, promptly stole second, which Calcagni told me he knew he would do – the IBB was still worth it, though, to avoid facing his bat. Obviously, the move worked out for the Twins, as the next two Leaf hitters struck out – Brian Ivan looking, and the eventual hero Gillis swinging.
The other intentional walk I wanted an explanation of was when Jeremy Walker was put on in the bottom of the 11th. Walker was just brutal at the plate today, striking out looking twice, as I remember it. I thought maybe Calcagni was being super-orthodox about wanting the righty-righty matchup that the next batter offered (Walker was a lefty facing a righty pitcher), but again, the reason was that Calcagni knew Walker could crush it and thought he was due with the weak showing he had put forth so far.
By the way, the only reason Walker had to be put on was because Dan Gibbons began the inning with a ROCKET off of the centre field wall – it looked like a walk off dinger off the bat. It was absolutely tremendous defense on the Twins’ part to hold him to a single, because he really did hit it to the deepest part of the park. He was bunted over to second, which set the table to put Walker on.
I think I would have been comfortable pitching to both of those guys in those situations, but Calcagni knows those players a ton better than I do, and his move worked out in both cases, so no complaints here.
Another thing Calcagni told me – which I found very surprising, but I don’t doubt the sincerity of at all – was that George Mensah was not benched today due to his GIDP with the bases loaded and no one out yesterday against Brantford. Instead, it was as simple as Calcagni wanting to see as many of his players as possible, which is absolutely fair.
I should have asked him if Mensah would have started today if he had ripped a doubled in that situation, and I forgot to ask him how he felt about Mensah being thrown out stealing second as a pinch runner today (in the 14th, I think). The consensus we came up with amongst the fans I was talking to was that Mensah had the base swiped, but he was tagged out because the catcher’s throw tailed right into him. I wanted Calcagni’s take on that play – if he saw the same thing we did, I don’t think you can be too upset with a guy being thrown out when the only reason he was thrown out is because the catcher made a bad throw and caught a lucky break.
Anyways, remember to keep checking the Twins’ site for my pieces this week, and tell your friends about the blog! I’m not too sure what I’ll put up between now and the Wednesday home game against Barrie – I think I’ll do a little Blue Jays post either tomorrow or on Tuesday, but no guarantees.
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