Minnesota Twins Daily Clips Tuesday, June 19, 2018 Young

Minnesota Twins Daily Clips Tuesday, June 19, 2018

 Young Twins' struggles leave organization at a crossroads. Star Tribune (Scoggins) p. 1  Major league pitchers of today ditch full windup for simpler approach. Star Tribune (Miller) p.2  Twins' Brian Dozier knows he has heated up from slumps in past. Star Tribune (Miller) p.3  Twins-Boston series preview. Star Tribune (Miller) p.4  Eddie Rosario rides pregame routine to breakout season for Twins. Pioneer Press (Berardino) p.5  Preview: Twins vs. Red Sox. Fox Sports North (AP) p.6  Power Rankings: A new No. 1 and NL contenders make their moves. ESPN (Staff) p.7  TA30: The Astros are up, Red Sox are down and the Orioles? Well… The Athletic (Kory) p.8 Young Twins' struggles leave organization at a crossroads Chip Scoggins | Star Tribune | June 19, 2018

The visit took place around this time three years ago. The picture looked different back then, blissful and overflowing with optimism. Failure wasn’t even really part of the discussion because the narrative was too narrowly focused to consider worst-case scenarios.

In early summer 2015, I traveled to the Twins Class AA affiliate in Chattanooga, Tenn., to chronicle the organization’s bumper crop of blue-chip prospects. They were all together on a relatively similar trajectory.

Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton were there, along with Jose Berrios, Jorge Polanco and Max Kepler.

They were labeled a “Dream Team.”

“We have expectations from each other,” then-Lookouts manager Doug Mientkiewicz told his players at the start of that season. “Expectations from Baseball America, expectations from the fans of the Minnesota Twins and the Twin Cities. Now we’ll see what you’re made of.”

Three years later, we’re still waiting. And wondering.

The situation isn’t worst-case scenario, yet. But those who gazed into the Twins future and saw rainbows and puppy kisses received another blunt reminder that baseball development cannot be scripted or predicted with ironclad certainty.

The Twins begin an important three-game series Tuesday against the Boston Red Sox. Berrios is scheduled to start the opener. His career arc is trending in the direction of him becoming staff ace. As predicted.

Elsewhere Tuesday, Buxton is expected to begin what sounds like an extended rehab assignment at Class AAA Rochester while Sano is starting from scratch in Florida and Polanco continues to serve his 80-game suspension stemming from a positive test for performance-enhancing drugs.

To further illustrate how Murphy’s Law has engulfed this season, Polanco’s minor league assignment was delayed after he suffered a cut on his finger when his hand got jammed in a door.

Of course.

By some minor miracle the Twins continue to tread water as a sub-.500 team yet trail division-leading Cleveland by only 5½ games. They have avoided being buried despite getting limited contributions (or nothing at all) from Buxton, Sano, Polanco, Brian Dozier, Joe Mauer, Logan Morrison and Ervin Santana.

With the exception of Eddie Rosario in left and Kepler in right, major questions loom at every position in evaluating future plans.

Jason Castro’s knee problems could force the team to start over at catcher. Mauer is in the final season of his mega-contract and there’s been no indication either way about his future. Dozier is mired in a prolonged slump, and given the organization hasn’t approached him about a contract extension, his tenure with the team looks tenuous. It’s not a stretch to suggest their positions will be manned by someone else next season.

The organization desperately needs the young guys to fulfill their promise. Anything less will be the equivalent of hitting reset. Nobody wants to go there.

The Twins hope Polanco picks up where he left off once his suspension ends — a capable hitter who showed improvement defensively at shortstop last season. A steroid suspension is far from ideal for a young player trying to establish his foothold in the big leagues, but this should be a hard lesson learned.

Buxton remains a defensive marvel, but he still must prove he can hit big-league pitching beyond an occasional hot streak. The team has blamed his struggles at the plate this season on a broken toe. Maybe that will be proven true. But Buxton also made changes (again) to his swing during his DL stint, so his toe wasn’t the only culprit.

Sano’s issues are more far-reaching. He’s out of shape and his swing and plate discipline have gone haywire. Now he’s essentially starting over at the team’s headquarters in Florida. This won’t be a quick fix.

If Sano truly is committed to fixing his problems, his career will get back on track. If not, shame on him. His choice.

The Twins start a big series Tuesday with one of baseball’s best teams in town. Berrios will take the mound and in a perfect world, the first three hitters in the lineup would be Buxton, Polanco and Sano. That was the vision three years ago when anything seemed possible.

Instead, this pause feels like a crossroads. For the players and the organization.

Major league pitchers of today ditch full windup for simpler approach Phil Miller | Star Tribune | June 19, 2018

Garvin Alston was a star prep pitcher in the late 1980s, at a high school about 10 miles from the Mets’ Shea Stadium, so his pitching mechanics weren’t really his own.

“I tried to mimic Doc Gooden,” the Twins pitching coach said, smiling. “We all did.”

But there was only one Doc, and once Alston got to college, he ditched Gooden’s signature move, the slight turn away from the plate with his hands above the bill of his cap and right knee to his chest. Alston adopted a simpler rock-back-and-throw windup, and in doing so, became an early adapter to a movement that is slowly making the full, dramatic, over-the-head windup extinct.

Decades ago, most major league starting pitchers routinely whirled their arms and pivoted their torsos and coiled their bodies in a theatrical ballet before striding toward the plate and unleashing the ball.

“You mean, the Whitey Ford?” said Twins righthander Lance Lynn, choosing a classic example. “That’s a long time ago.”

So it seems. Today, only a few bother to do more than shift their weight and cock their arm. Kyle Gibson’s toe tap, a timing mechanism barely noticeable unless you look for it, passes for histrionics these days.

“I’m all for conserving energy and reducing motion,” Gibson said. “If anything, pitching is going the other way. Now you see some relievers out there throwing out of the [windup-free] slidestep on every pitch.”

There was an interim step in this evolution. And a few proponents of that look — the quick hands-behind-the-head checkpoint that Nolan Ryan and Greg Maddux, for instance, used to establish a rhythm and momentum — still survive today. Two-time Cy Young winner Max Scherzer still executes that move with nobody on base, as does Houston’s Lance McCullers.

McCullers, in fact, is a curveball specialist that Jose Berrios, with a similar repertoire, cites as a model for his own motion. Berrios began going behind his head during his windup, starting in 2017, for a couple of reasons.

“For me, it’s good to make your rhythm — back, forward, up, down,” he said. “But I did it especially because they showed me I was tipping my pitches. It helps me stay the same on every pitch.” 2

Funny thing is, those are the arguments — easily repeated delivery, less likely to give away what’s coming — that most pitchers mention for dropping something more elaborate.

Lynn actually reached the majors with an over-the-head motion, but abandoned it after two seasons.

“It was harder to repeat my delivery, and there is more danger of tipping pitches” with extra movement, Lynn said. But the biggest factor in the switch?

“I pitched better when I stopped going over my head,” he said. “That made the decision easy.”

Same with Zach Duke, who added more pre-pitch motion to his delivery for two games during his career as a starter.

“I was searching for more rhythm to my delivery. It’s good for getting your body together before you move forward,” Duke said. “I was just trying to get back on track, but it didn’t work for me.”

The Twins have no policy regarding a windup, Alston said, and don’t try to force anyone into a certain style.

“We want them to be comfortable, first and foremost. If [a windup] is what a guy prefers, that’s what we want him to do,” said Alston, in his first season as pitching coach. “It’s all about timing, making sure your hands are in proper position when it’s time to go. To me, it’s extra movement that you probably don’t need, but it does present a lot of movement to the hitter, which adds a little deception.”

Alston said he has coached only a couple of pitchers who prefer the added motion; some believe they achieve better balance by going over their heads, some not so much.

“If the timing is not there, your body can get forward and your hands can be late,” he said. “A quick rock back, it’s enough to get your weight back, and then you balance. That gives you momentum when you go forward. Some guys get that balance with their hands over their heads. I know some say they get more momentum that way.”

Still, the stripped-down windup feels like the more logical approach, given that the advantages of a windup aren’t obvious, Derek Falvey said. But the Twins chief baseball officer said he knows of no documented basis for preferring one windup over another.

“We haven’t studied it,” he said. “Guys copy what they see working. You see [Cleveland ace Corey] Kluber use a simple windup, and you imitate it.”

And success breeds imitators. “As rare as it’s getting, I assume the numbers say there’s no advantage” to the full windup, Gibson said. “If you threw 2 or 3 miles per hour harder out of a windup, I guarantee you everybody would do it.”

Twins' Brian Dozier knows he has heated up from slumps in past Phil Miller | Star Tribune | June 19, 2018

An epic slump like the one that has engulfed Brian Dozier for nearly two months might seem like a real-life horror movie to a lot of players. But the second baseman is the same determined, optimistic, affable teammate as ever, the Twins say, and there’s probably a reason for it: Dozier believes he knows how this movie ends.

“He has learned that his game … it can be a little hot and cold,” manager Paul Molitor said of the six-year veteran. “We always say, by the end of the year, the body of work always seems to be really good. So he trusts that it’s going to work out at the end.”

Of course, that doesn’t make the cold part any less annoying. In his past 50 games, Dozier is batting .191, and his on-base percentage is .272.

“Sometimes it can be something really small, what you’re looking for. You’re a tick late or you expand a little more than you should,” Molitor said. “Everybody knows that he’s been getting some pitches that he’s either fouling back or missing, that we were accustomed to seeing him do some damage.”

Molitor recently moved Dozier out of his normal leadoff spot, in hopes hitting with runners on might get him going.

Maybe it will. Or maybe the calendar will take care of it. 3

Dozier woke up Monday hitting .223 with 12 doubles and 10 homers. His OPS: .694. Exactly two years ago, his stats on the morning of June 18 were remarkably similar: a .227 average, 12 doubles and seven homers. His OPS: .694.

“My numbers are where they were before,” Dozier said. “It’s sort of been that way for three years.”

In 2016, Dozier turned his season around to an incredible extent. From June 18 on, he hit .293 with a record-setting 35 home runs, plus 23 doubles and five triples. His OPS: 1.004.

“I don’t let it affect me, because it’s not who I am. I’m not [just] a baseball player, that’s not my identity,” he said. “I’m just saying, I’m not too worried.”

This time, though, a contract might be at stake, since Dozier’s runs out in November, making him a free agent. But if that weighs on him, Molitor said, it doesn’t show.

“He’s still trying to be a leader out there,’’ Molitor said. ‘‘Your consistency, even if you’re not producing, is noticed by other players.”

Too many pitches

Jake Odorizzi knows he shouldn’t have to work this hard. Odorizzi threw 106 pitches Sunday, the fifth time in 2018 he has been in triple digits. He’s not completed six innings in any of those games.

“It’s not what you want. You want 1-2-3 innings as quick as possible,” he said. “It’s a lot of work.”

And it’s getting sort of routine. The righthander has thrown 90 or more pitches while completing five innings or fewer in seven of his 15 starts for the Twins; the rest of the staff has just 10 of those high-energy-low-results games.

The reason is obvious, Odorizzi said. He is on pace to walk 83 batters this year, a 36 percent rise over his previous career high.

“Three-ball counts, then four or five foul balls, it really adds up. You might as well just walk him on four after that,” he said.

Midwest All-Stars

Royce Lewis and Alex Kirilloff, the Twins’ No. 1 picks the past two years, will represent Cedar Rapids in the Midwest League All-Star Game in Lansing, Mich., on Tuesday, along with righthander Jared Finkel.

Lewis will play despite being bothered by tendinitis in his left knee, according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Righthander Brusdar Graterol, chosen to the Western All-Stars as well, will skip the game to rest his arm.

Twins-Boston series preview Phil Miller | Star Tribune | June 19, 2018

Three-game series at Target Field

Tuesday, 7:10 p.m. • FSN, 830-AM: RHP Jose Berrios (7-5, 3.51 ERA) vs. LHP Chris Sale (6-4, 2.75 ERA)

Wednesday, 7:10 p.m. • FSN, 830-AM: RHP Lance Lynn (4-5, 4.98) vs. LHP David Price (8-4, 3.76 ERA)

Thursday, 12:10 p.m. • FSN, 830-AM: RHP Kyle Gibson (2-4, 3.27) vs. RHP Rick Porcello (8-3, 3.70 ERA)

Twins update

The Twins have lost the season series with the Red Sox in 10 of the past 11 years, including going 2-5 last year. They are 10-14 vs. Boston at Target Field. Each team has one player remaining who took part in the first regular-season game in the ballpark’s history, a 5-2 Twins victory on April 12, 2010: 1B Joe Mauer for the Twins and 2B Dustin Pedroia for the Red Sox. … Of the Twins’ three starters, only Gibson (1-2, 3.08) has ever beaten Boston, though Lynn owns a 1.89 ERA in three career starts against the Red Sox. Lynn also was charged with the loss against Boston in Game 4 of the 2013 World Series. … RHP Ryan Pressly was drafted by the Red Sox in 2007. RHP Addison Reed played for Boston for the final two months of 2017, and OF Ryan LaMarre played five games for Boston in 2015. … The Twins rank 11th in the AL in runs with 290, but 4 the 298 runs scored against them are sixth fewest. … RHP Fernando Rodney, who has converted 13 consecutive saves this season, owns 14 in 17 career opportunities against Boston, but has not faced the Red Sox since 2015.

Red Sox update

A 17-2 start has given the Red Sox the majors’ best record for much of 2018. Now 49-24, they now sit a half-game behind the Yankees. … Their 371 runs scored are second most in MLB, and their 263 runs against are third fewest in the AL. … RF Mookie Betts leads the AL in slugging percentage (.699) and ranks second in batting average (.340), fourth in on-base percentage (.419), second in OPS (1.118), second in runs scored (55), and sixth in home runs (18). … J.D. Martinez is second in home runs (22) and third in slugging (.635). … Pedroia is on the disabled list, having played only three games this year because of a knee injury. Former Twins All-Star Eduardo Nunez plays second base in his absence. … All three starters own 10 or more career victories against the Twins: Sale (10-6, 4.21), Price (10-3, 2.52) and Porcello (10-10, 3.90). Porcello’s six victories at Target Field trail only Justin Verlander’s seven for most by a visiting pitcher. … Closer Craig Kimbrel has converted 22 of 24 save opportunities, including 13 in a row.

Eddie Rosario rides pregame routine to breakout season for Twins Mike Berardino | Pioneer Press | June 18, 2018

For Eddie Rosario, the routine is always the same.

Ten minutes before the game’s first pitch, you will find him in the nearest indoor batting cage, working feverishly on his left-handed swing with Twins assistant hitting coach Rudy Hernandez.

“I’ll throw to him: Short toss, overhand, hard,” Hernandez said. “Then he’s got to do a lot of breaking balls on the machine. That’s helping him track the pitch. If he doesn’t do that, he doesn’t feel comfortable.”

This has been their routine the past two or three seasons, Hernandez said, adding that the sweet-swinging left fielder is unique in his willingness to face the breaking-ball machine so close to game time.

“He’s the only guy,” Hernandez said. “I mean, a lot of guys like to do the breaking-ball machine, but not real close to the game. But he’s in there tracking a few pitches, and then he starts swinging. It works for him. It’s amazing.”

It’s easier on the road, where Rosario can go straight from the cage to the batter’s box, and it’s best when he’s hitting second or third in the lineup, guaranteeing him a plate appearance in the first inning.

In 52 first-inning plate appearances this season, Rosario is hitting .333 with a .385 on-base percentage and a .625 slugging mark. He has two of his 16 home runs in the first inning along with four walks and six strikeouts.

This is a marked improvement over his first-inning numbers through the first three seasons of his career. From 2015-17, he hit just .205 with a .231 OBP and four homers in 78 trips.

The real tell, however, was a strikeout/walk ratio of 21/3. That has narrowed considerably this year.

“For me, my first at-bat is the most important,” Rosario said. “I try to have a good at-bat in my first at-bat. A base hit or a walk, maybe your day goes better. Every time in the first at-bat, I’m going to try to do the most I can do.”

When Rosario worked a first-inning walk off Indians right-hander Carlos Carrasco on Saturday in Cleveland, taking a full-count changeup that just missed, it seemed to lock Rosario in for the rest of the afternoon. He ripped the first pitch he saw for a hit in each of his next four trips, going single, double, single, homer to complete a 4-for-4 afternoon.

“I think I was swinging at strikes,” Rosario said. “When you swing at strikes, (it means) you feel comfortable. The first at-bat was a good one for me: 3-2 walk. Changeup facing Carrasco. Everything is going good.”

So much so that Rosario kept bounding up the dugout steps each time he crossed the plate to confer with Hernandez in the clubhouse video room. After homering on a letter-high fastball in the eighth, Rosario could hardly contain his excitement.

“He came up and said, ‘Rudy, we got another one!’ ” Hernandez said with a smile. “Oh, that was great. What he’s doing right now, it’s 5 unbelievable.”

MVP CANDIDATE Entering a three-game home series with the Boston Red Sox, percentage points behind the New York Yankees for best record in the majors, Rosario isn’t just on the verge of locking up his first All-Star selection for this year’s game in Washington, D.C., he’s putting up the numbers of a potential American League MVP candidate.

Through 68 games he is fifth in batting average (.321), tied for fifth in slugging (.579) with teammate Eduardo Escobar; and eighth in Wins Above Replacement (2.9). With 16 homers, 50 runs and 46 runs batted in, Rosario is on pace to obliterate his career highs in each of those counting stats as well.

‘We always target guys we don’t want to beat us on a given day,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said. “When a guy is swinging like Eddie is, if I was on any club, I’d be particularly careful with how I went about trying to get Rosario out.”

And it’s not like this is just a six-week hot streak. Go back to the middle of last June and you will find Rosario’s production up there with the best in the game.

Over the last calendar year, he is hitting .310 with 34 homers, 102 RBIs, 44 doubles and 101 runs. His OBP is .348 in that span of 648 plate appearances, thanks in part to 39 walks, and he’s slugging .557.

Since last June 13, Rosario ranks sixth among all big leaguers with a .573 slugging percentage. He trails only Boston’s J.D. Martinez, Jose Ramirez, Mike Trout, Giancarlo Stanton and Nolan Arenado.

He is tied for seventh with 197 hits, tied for 13th with 109 RBIs; and his 38 homers rank 11th in the majors, just behind the likes of Manny Machado (39), Trout (40), Nelson Cruz (42) and Ramirez (42).

CROSSROADS MOMENT After missing out on salary arbitration by just three service days, Rosario, 26, is blossoming into one of the game’s most energetic young stars. Notoriously streaky in his first three seasons, he has turned into one of the few constants in the Twins lineup and one of the game’s top bargains at $602,500.

“A year is better than a month,” Molitor said. “There were times with Rosie where there was a crossroads on which way he might go. I think we’re getting a glimpse.”

The turning point came June 13, 2017, upon the Twins’ return from a three-city West Coast road trip in which Rosario had been benched several times in favor of Robbie Grossman. It was during that trip that Molitor had a heart-to-heart with Rosario about potential and the parts of his game he needed to improve.

“Sometimes players get tunnel vision on how they see things,” Molitor said. “So, I just tried to get him to expand what his game looked like as I observed it and tried to help bring him along with our coaches. Tried to just make sure he saw a little bit bigger picture.”

Dropped to ninth in the order for the homestand opener against the Seattle Mariners, Rosario banged out four hits that night, including three homers, while driving in five and scoring three of the Twins’ 20 runs. He’s hardly slowed down since.

“Everybody is motivated a little bit differently,” Molitor said. “Some are more external than internal. I think he is one of those guys that is aware of all those things that are maybe a little bit more external. I’m sure somewhat subconsciously the potential to be an all-star is in there, too, which is not a bad thing.”

As Rosario said: “I feel good at home plate. Everything I’m swinging at, I’m hitting.”

Preview: Twins vs. Red Sox Associated Press | Fox Sports North | June 19, 2018

After splitting a four-game weekend set in Seattle, the Boston Red Sox return to work Tuesday night when they open a three-game series against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field.

The Red Sox went into their off day on Monday just a half-game behind the New York Yankees, but they have won six of their last nine games 6 thanks to a starting rotation that has been among the best in baseball during the last two weeks.

Chris Sale will look to keep that going Tuesday when he takes the mound for his 16th start of the season. The left-hander snapped a three-start losing streak his last time out, allowing just a run in six innings of a 5-1 victory over Baltimore.

Sale had allowed 10 runs in 10 1/3 innings against the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros on May 27 and June 1, respectively. He rebounded by holding the Chicago White Sox to a run in eight innings while striking out two on June 8 in a 1-0 Red Sox loss before getting back in the win column against the Orioles.

“I have a good rhythm and tempo going for me right now,” said Sale, who has held opponents to no more than a run in nine starts this season. “I’m feeling good. That’s the way I like it.”

He’s 10-6 with a 4.21 ERA in 26 career appearances (18 starts) against the Twins, who also had Monday off after a 3-3 road trip that saw them drop two of three to the Detroit Tigers and take two of three from the AL Central-leading Cleveland Indians.

They’ll begin the day third in the division, five games behind Cleveland and 2 1/2 behind Detroit.

“It was a good series win (in Cleveland),” third baseman Eduardo Escobar said. “We’ll be ready Tuesday for another series at home. This team will be OK. We go out there and play hard every day, but sometimes you have to give credit to the other pitchers.”

The Twins will turn to their own budding ace for the series opener.

Right-hander Jose Berrios is 4-1 with a 2.47 ERA in his last six starts. He has allowed more than two runs just once during that stretch and has struck out 51 while walking only 12 in 43 2/3 innings, including 24 strikeouts with two walks in his last three outings.

Berrios took no-decision his last time out. He held the Tigers to a run, seven hits and a walk while striking out seven in six innings, but the Twins’ offense and bullpen couldn’t get the job done in a 5-2 loss.

“He threw a hell of a game,” reliever Addison Reed said afterward. “That was fun to watch. He works his tail off, and it shows when he’s out there. The thing that I’m most (upset) about tonight is not getting him the ‘W.'”

Berrios has one previous career start against the Red Sox. He allowed four runs and struck out seven in 6 1/3 innings of a 4-1 loss at Fenway Park last season.

Power Rankings: A new No. 1 and NL contenders make their moves Staff Writer | ESPN | June 18, 2018

It might be like this all season among baseball's power trio. Riding the strength of their 11-game win streak, the Astros reclaimed the top spot in our rankings in the latest reshuffling of the top three teams. Houston's stretch of dominance was enough to convince four voters to put them No. 1, with the Yankees retaining the remaining first-place vote.