For this very special day of August 31st, and to celebrate the Minnesota victory, I thought I would let you in on some of the greatest stuff I have read in the last day or so. Please be sure to check everything out, nothing is worth skipping!
- Nino Colla of Bleacher Report has a great post up about the division and wild card races in MLB. He says that they are not over, and openly laughs when someone predicts that “the Rays have pretty much locked up the AL East.”
- Leslie Monteiro of Twins Killings on Joe Nathan. He says that Nathan is the one reliever that can’t turn in poor results. He needs to continue to dominate if the Twins want a shot at the division.
- Driveline Mechanics recently put a post together on Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano. While it doesn’t directly relate to the Twins, every true baseball fan should find it as fascinating as I did. Be sure not to skip the comment section, there is a great conversation about different slider/sinker grips.
- Adam Peterson of Twinkie Town has some nice research about the quality start. He says that Minnesota has a great rotation, and that it’s the “suspect bullpen” that is holding the rest of the team back.
- R.J. Anderson of Beyond the BoxScore has some research about BaseRuns and Winning percentage. He compares the two to find which is more accurate in predicting success.
- For more sabermetric stuff, head on over to Cybermetrics. He has an excellent post up detailing why he thinks that pitchers today are more aggressive and throw inside more than pitchers years ago. His research is impeccable and his conclusion very interesting! Check it out!
- Union: The Most Collaborative Sports Blog on the Internet has a post up about something I saw a few days ago. Nine year-old pitcher Jericho Scott is being prohibited from playing with his little-league baseball team anymore. Why? Because he’s too good.
- Joshua Taylor of MNTwinsTalk has the list of September call-ups and his opinions of them up on his site. Be sure to check them out, and chime in with your own opinions!
- In case you haven’t heard, CC Sabathia nearly tossed a no-hitter today against the Pirates, but ended up giving a controversial single to Andy LaRoche. Granted, if anyone is to break up a no-no, I would want it to be LaRoche, but there is lots of debate regarding whether or not it was a real single. The ball rolled to Sabathia, but he had trouble fielding it, which allowed LaRoche to make it to first. A pitcher making an error to save his own no-hitter? Has that ever happened before?
It wasn’t ruled as such, and ESPN’s Rob Neyer has his take. In case you don’t have Insider, here is an excerpt:
When Sabathia first touched the ball, LaRoche was roughly 40 feet down the line; not even halfway yet. So Yost is right about one thing, at least: if Sabathia does pick up the ball cleanly, LaRoche is out. Maybe even by 10 feet. But it’s terribly unfair for Yost to unload on scorekeeper Bob Webb like this, and I think he should be fined.
Have a great day, Twins fans!






