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!