TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Sunday, July 18, 2004

Which Is Better, Part II

I suppose I have a little unfinished business from my weekend of baseball last week. I did catch the Twins' last game before the break, which had the all-mascot game before the main attraction, featuring Johan Santana for the Twins against Jason Johnson for the Tigers.

The pre-game festivities are another example of the question of which gimmick is better, a gimmicky game or a gimmicky home run contest. I think in the case when mascots are involved, I'll take the home run contest. Not that the game was without its merits, but it was pretty much pure camp. I guess that's more or less guaranteed when you've got a bunch of people dressed up as various fowl, aquatic lifeforms, checkbooks, pizza slices, etc.

My favorites were The Spam Turkey, and a pair of Air Force "mascots" named Flight Suit Fanny and Airman Andy. I trust that The Spam Turkey needs no further explanation. The AF mascots were basically like the auto-pilot in the movie Airplane but with oversized bobbleheads attached at the top of the costumes. More on Airman Andy in a bit. The local minor league teams, the St. Paul Saints and StP River Bats, were also represented. Madonna, the Saints' mascot, looked like a giant pink Care Bear from my Upper Club seats.

The mascots were split into teams headed by T.C. and Thor, the mascot for the local soccer team, the Minnesota Thunder. Each side batted once through the order, and hit from a batting tee. This would ultimately leave pride of place for T.C., who would be hitting last for the home team. T.C. actually caught a ball hit to him and doubled someone off first, the only two outs recorded in the entire affair. Batting in the final position of the visitor's lineup, Thor, as befitting his soccer mascot status, kicks the ball from the ground for an infield single, stranding himself and a couple of other runners.

By the time T.C. comes up, the home team is already ahead, but they're going to let him hit anyways. Airman Andy stands on first. The costume, which is inflated, restricts the motion of the legs, so Airman Andy has a waddling run. T.C. uncorks a bomb off of the tee. Andy waddles his way to third and then stops. No one has retrieved the ball at this point. T.C. runs up to third and tells Andy to run home. By this time the ball starts making its way toward the infield.

Andy starts his waddle home, and T.C. gives him some encouragement with some taps on the shoulder. Anyone who remembers the Randall Simon incident in Milwaukee last year can see what's coming down Hennepin Ave. Eventually overexuberance by T.C. topples Andy a few feet from home. It takes some fairly heroic efforts in the bubble suit for Andy to crawl across home just in front of T.C. At first I thought it was a strategic error to put the guy in the inflated suit in front of T.C., but after a few seconds' thought I concluded it was probably planned that way. So ends the fourth annual Mascot All-Star Game.

Come On, Quit Messing Around!

Johan Santana had some struggles out of the box. It took him a couple of innings to get a handle on his change. There was a guy sitting near to me who pleaded with Santana to quit messing around and just throw the ball with every change that missed. I have news for that fellow -- Santana needs to be able to throw his change for a strike to pitch at the dominant level he's exhibited in his past eight starts, and he can't do that if he doesn't throw it in the early innings. Those past eight starts have seen him go 6-2 with a 1.43 ERA, with 84 K's, 26 H, and 12 BB in 63 IP. The two L's were 2-1 vs. Chicago and 2-0 in the game I'm telling you about now.

Santana has a shaky second, giving up a walk and a double to start the inning. A 7-5-2 pegs the runner at home on the double, with the hitter moving to third on the throw home. Then a 5-2 erases that guy. Santana is almost out of the inning, when Eric Munson of broken-bat homerun fame tattoos one over the big baggy for a 2-0 lead. Though it doesn't seem like it at the time, that's the ball game.

It was too bad for Santana, as by the third he has command of all three of his pitches. It took him 39 pitches to get through the first two innings. By the fourth his pitch count is 65. By the end of the day, Santana throws 103 pitches in eight innings, striking out 11, and still having given up only the two second-inning hits. The Tigers are pretty much throttled after the second.

But the Twins are equally ineffectual. Torii Hunter and Corey Koskie led off the bottom of the second with hits, but Matthew LeCroy serves up a GIDP and Johnson gets out of the inning. There are some hard-hit balls directly to outfielders, but the Twins don't get anything going again until Cristian Guzman gets a Baltimore Chop-double to put runners on second and third with two outs in the 8th. No dice on a game-tying hit, however.

Santana is starting to emerge as a Cy Young darkhorse. He's still a ways behind Mark Mulder, but starting to gain. He'll need to turn out some pretty goofy numbers the rest of the way to get serious consideration, though. He's 8-6 with a 3.55 ERA (#6 in the AL), and in addition to leading the AL in K's, he's tops in the league amongst starters with a .212 BAA and a WHIP of 1.04. The record will hold him back unless he uncorks a stretch run along the lines of Mark Prior's stretch run of a year ago. He's got 14, maybe 15 starts left, so something crazy like 12-1 would get Santana to 20 wins, which is doubtful but not inconceivable if he can keep up the way he's been going in his last eight starts.

The other thing to consider is that Santana has never thrown more than about 170 innings in a season. He's at 131.2 right now, and a crazy stretch run to an improbable CYA would probably push Santana into the 230 IP range. That's a pretty big jump. I'm looking for Santana to maintain something close to the level he's been at recently through the remainder of July and August, but I'm expecting fatigue to set in in September, barring some sort of mini-break of the sort Prior had last year, and that of course would cut into Santana's starts.

Of course, given that Santana has only given up 2 hits and 1 hit in his last two starts (both 8 innings of work), it's not that much of a stretch to say that he's got no-hitter stuff. I look for Santana to take a no-hitter into the seventh or later in one of his upcoming starts, one in which he has command of his change coming out of the bullpen. An actual no-no (as opposed to a near-miss) would jump-start his CYA candidacy.

posted by Tom Renbarger 2:02 PM