The Minnesota Twins snapped their losing streak last night with a 4-0 victory against the Los Angeles Angels. A “report” came out during the game saying Minnesota Twins SS Carlos Correa was “likely” to opt out of his contract after the season. Excellent reporting since we’ve known that since the day he agreed to the contract almost 5 months ago.
Game Notes
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SS Carlos Correa “likely” to Opt Out of Contract
In what appears to be a note dump* from the New York Post, writer Jon Heyman says “Carlos Correa, barring injury, will likely opt out of his deal, adding to the free-agent list: Trea Turner, Dansby Swanson and Xander Bogaerts.” & CBS Sports made a whole article out of it because well, that’s what they do, take news then add stats and some narrative to it but…
*What kind of a dump? Digital Dookie!
IT’S NOT NEWS!!!
Ask Aaron Gleeman, Minnesota Twins staff writer for The Athletic:
Carlos Correa agreed to a 3-year contract with opt-outs after the 1st & 2nd years on March 19th and, as you can see by the picture above, we all knew that he would likely opt-out after the 1st year because why wouldn’t he? The only reason he wouldn’t is an injury or the very slim chance that a bad season may have hurt his chances of getting a better, longer, guaranteed deal with any team then he could fall back on that $35.3M 2nd year in Minnesota.
The funniest thing is he probably hasn’t even thought about it at this point because there’s no reason to think about it. He’s shown this season how much he cares about the team atmosphere and culture & being a leader in the clubhouse. He wants to win here right now.
Could that change when the season ends? Yes, obviously. That’s when he’ll have to think hard about what to do with $35.3M on the table here.
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Minnesota Twins C Sandy León sent home with 2 outs in the 3rd inning
Twins 3B Coach Tommy Watkins sent a 33-year-old, 235-lb catcher on a single to left field and Angels LF Jo Adell threw him out easily.
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Left fielder Jo Adell is already making the exchange from glove to hand for the throw as Sandy is touching 3rd base.
And, here’s Sandy being out by 10 feet.
So, obviously that seems like a weird time to send him or anyone. Would you even send a fast runner there? Was it just to challenge the Angels and Jo Adell to make a perfect throw? That’s really the only thing that makes sense but do you do that in a 2-0 game with Jorge Polanco coming to the plate?
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A Pitching Line the Twins Envisioned After the Trade Deadline
Tyler Mahle pitched relatively well in his first start as a Minnesota Twin. He allowed 3 HRs for the 1st time this season* and they all happened on hanging sliders. How much did he adjust from that for his 2nd start?
*He allowed 2 HRs in a game just twice in his previous 19 starts in 2022.
According to baseball savant, from his August 5th start to last night’s start, he threw the same amount of pitchers (86) but less fastballs/cutters (74 to 60) and more splitters/sliders (12 to 26) as you can see below:
That helped keep the Angels hitters more off balance at the plate but you probably should keep in mind the Blue Jays and the Angels are on different spectrums of team offense this season with Toronto ranked 2nd in team batting average (.264) and Los Angeles Angels ranked 27th (.227).
This helped Tyler Mahle shutout the Angels over 6 innings and the Minnesota Twins bullpen followed suit with RHPs Michael Fulmer (IP, K), Jhoan Duran (IP, BB, 2K) and Jorge López (IP, H, K) for a team shutout.
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How ‘bout some Minnesota Twins Minor-League Game Notes?
Minnesota Twins rookie and Minnesota native RHP Louie Varland was promoted to the Triple-A St. Paul Saints on August 8th but he made his Triple-A Debut last night and he shined.
He struck out the first batter he faced.
First batter, first strikeout.
Welcome home, Louuuuuuu. pic.twitter.com/M6tTfsJGBU
— St. Paul Saints (@StPaulSaints) August 13, 2022
In the 1st 3 innings, a player reached after 2 outs with a walk in each of the 1st 2 innings and a player reached on an error in the 3rd. In the 4th, Louie took care of it on his own by striking out the side. He set ‘em down 1-2-3 in the 5th and struckout the 1st batter he faced in the 6th for his 8th strikeout of the game and, if you can’t tell by this short summary, he had not allowed a hit up until this point but the next batter doubled and Toby Gardnhire took out his starting pitcher with 84 pitches thrown.
The bullpen took over and helped the St. Paul Saints to a 5 to 1 win.
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