Are The Twins 4 Real?

Well, the Twins just finished off their 4 game series with the mighty Boston Red Sox with a 7-3 victory and I am on cloud 9. They took three games from the World Champions and currently stand atop the AL Central with a record of 20-17. That's 1.5 games better than the Indians and the White Sox. I am completely surprised by this and wonder if they can actually keep this up for the entire season. Luckily, the kind folks at Baseball Prospectus keep track of this sort of thing so I decided to see if the Twins are actually good or merely just an early season fluke (or some of both).

The first thing I did was look at the standings. Wouldn't you know it, the Twins are 19-17 (as of yesterday) and atop the AL Central. So far, BPs projections are right on. Well, what the heck are these numbers to the right of those!!! They don't matter, the Twins record is what it is!!! Except, I think that they do matter and are actually an indicator of what the rest of the season will have in store. As you can see the Twins records gets worse on the right side of the table. This is because their expected record, based on their current offensive and defensive output and strength of schedule, is significantly worse than the actual standings. They should be a below .500 team, but due to some luck, aggressive baserunning, timely hitting and an effective handling of the pitching staff, the Twins are outplaying their current projections. I just hope they can keep this up.

I do see a lot of reason for optimism, aside from what these numbers predict. First of all, the season is very young. The sample size may simply be too small to make accurate projections. Secondly, the Twins started out the season on a down note. They weren't scoring runs and their pitching was erratic. Once the calendar turned to May, the Twins really started to play better, particularly offensively. Over the last 12 days the Twins are 2nd in the AL in runs (in only 9 games), 3rd in batting average, 4th in OBP, 3rd in SLG, 3rd in OPS (behind the Yankees and Red Sox), and 5th in stolen bases. Is this just a hot stretch or is the team actually playing to its potential? I tend to side with the latter out of blind loyalty. The Twins pitching has continued to be erratic, but this has been due in part to injuries (Scott Baker, Pat Neshek, Kevin Slowey). Hopefully the rotation gains some stability, because if it does there is no reason for the Twins to stop winning. I just hope my optimism isn't misguided because I love the sound of "Your first place, Minnesota Twins"!!!

*Some other observations from the expected standings.
1. The Tigers pitching is bad.
2. The White Sox might be better than I want them to be.
3. The Royals suck!
4. Beware of the Cleveland Indians. They are probably the best team in the division.

Home is where the catcher is

***This post originally was to appear on the blog at around 10:00 pm CST, but due to some technical difficulties on our server (i.e. too many girls with too many laptops) it has been delayed until the wee hours of the morning. Sorry for the inconvenience, I hope that in the future we can keep this sort of thing to a minimum (girls love wine more than the internet). Now onto the post.

Rule 7.06 of Major League Baseball's Official Rule Book states:

The catcher, without the ball in his possession, has no right to block the pathway of the runner attempting to score. The base line belongs to the runner and the catcher should be there only when he is fielding a ball or when he already has the ball in his hand.

I bring this up because I recently attended a Minnesota Twins game in which this very rule was ignored or at least misinterpreted. In the bottom of the fourth inning during Wednesday's game against the Chicago White Sox, Joe Mauer was batting and Carlos Gomez was on second base. There were two outs and Mauer had a 3-1 count. Of course Gomez, not realizing that Mauer had worked the count in his favor, broke for third. He was safe as the ball trickled away from Joe Crede. Gomez jumped to his feet and scampered home. He easily beat the throw, but was called out to the dismay of the 15,000 seniors, elementary school children and businessmen who decided to take the afternoon off (nooner!). Gomez was called out because the White Sox catcher, Toby Hall, blocked the plate and then caught the ball and tagged him out.

Almost everyone would see this play and commend the catcher for doing a perfect job of one of the basic fundamentals of baseball and they would be right. I just see it a different way. Why the hell is the catcher allowed to stand in the base path and set up in front of the plate. This puts the runner at a tremendous disadvantage because their choices are either to slide and be called out or attempt to run the catcher over, while risking injury and probably being out anyways. That's just not fair. How in the fuck is the 120 pound Gomez supposed to run over the 255 pound Toby Hall, plus equipment. I would argue that Hall should have been called for obstruction and Gomez should have been awarded home because his pathway was clearly blocked as he was attempting to score.

It can be argued that Hall is allowed to do this because he is in the act of fielding the throw from Joe Crede. However, he wasn't fielding the ball when he saw it roll towards the Twins' dugout. He was positioning himself in front of the plate so that Gomez could not score and while waiting for the ball to be retrieved. That is obstruction. A counter to this is that Hall was not in Gomez's pathway when Crede was picking up the ball, as Gomez had not reached that point of the baseline yet. I call this bull shit, because the pathway has to be considered the point from where the runner currently is, to the base he is trying to get to. That is his path!!!

I have seen this happen in many games, and just don't understand the reasoning behind this rule. Aren't the point of rules to create an even playing field for all participants? This clearly gives the advantage to the catcher while presenting the runner with an unenviable choice. Lets pray that Bud Selig reads this blog and he changes this stupid rule once and for all.


End Rant