Twins third baseman Miguel Sano’s MRI on his right elbow came back clean today, tweets Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The 23-year-old slugger has been playing through some soreness in his elbow that has impacted his throwing in recent weeks, he revealed over the weekend, but the issue appears to be minor in nature. Sano told reporters that the elbow is feeling better today, and he’ll have the opportunity to rest it with an off-day in the schedule. Sano has struggled tremendously at third base since opening the year in right field and then being shifted back to the hot corner, but his bat has come to life lately. Over his past 18 games, Sano is hitting .297/.368/.622 with six home runs.
More from the AL Central…
- Fellow top young Twins talent Jose Berrios is receiving plenty of organizational attention as he struggles to complete his transition to the game’s highest level, as Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press reports. Even Hall-of-Famer and current TV analyst Bert Blyleven has chipped in as the team looks to get Berrios on track. Though he has long shown ample polish in the minors, the 22-year-old has uncharacteristically permitted 14 walks in his 28 big league frames, coughing up 29 earned runs on 39 hits — including seven long balls. On the positive side, he is still getting plenty of swings and misses with thirty punch-outs. Among the issues being explored are fastball command and tipping of offspeed pitches, per the report. Minnesota is relying heavily upon the development of players like Berrios, Sano, and Byron Buxton, and their current record reflects the uneven recent path of those hyped youngsters (among other players).
- The Indians plan for right-hander Danny Salazar to come off the disabled list on Thursday to start against the White Sox, manager Terry Francona told reporters, including MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian. Cleveland placed Salazar on the disabled list back on Aug. 2 due to inflammation in his right elbow, but the issues appears to have been minor in nature, as an Aug. 18 activation would represent a very minimal DL stint. Salazar has thrown all of his pitches to test his elbow and feels ready to get back onto a big league mound, though the Indians will be cautious with him. Francona and pitching coach Mickey Callaway said Salazar won’t be cleared to throw 100 pitches right out of the gate. Rather, he could be piggybacked, to some extent, with right-hander Mike Clevinger, who will move to the bullpen upon Salazar’s return.
- Even as the Tigers continue to push hard for a post-season berth, the club faces tough impending questions on rising young righty Michael Fulmer. As Lynn Henning of the Detroit News writes, the organization still hasn’t decided precisely how to manage his workload with both the present and future in mind. The 23-year-old has exceeded even the most optimistic expectations in his rookie campaign, spinning 120 innings of 2.25 ERA pitching. But with his minor league frames included, he is already moving past his previous single-season high of 124 2/3 total innings pitched. Though manager Brad Ausmus notes that Fulmer doesn’t tend to run high pitch counts and isn’t throwing many high-stress frames, it appears that several skipped starts will be required to keep him on the bump down the stretch — and that’s all before considering a potential playoff berth.
I still do not get the obsession with strikeouts when judging pitchers. I’d much rather have a pitcher that gives up 15 runs and gets 15 strikeouts in 28 innings than a pitcher that gives up 29 runs and gets 30 strikeouts in 28 innings. Pitchers need to stop obsessing over velocity and strikeouts and concentrate on location and not giving up runs. There is a reason that there is an 7 man defense behind the pitcher.
Yes, obviously you’d take the pitcher allowing fewer runs everything else being equal. However, the strike out is the most efficient type of out, minimizing the risk of error, advancing of runners, base hits etc. Its the reason relief pitchers at the end of the game tend to have higher strike out totals, as they are GENERALLY strike out specialists. If you can’t put the ball in play you can’t score runs.
I’m guessing strikeouts are viewed as the best out just because they can’t hurt you like the defense can with errors. And I don’t think it’s overrated, there’s a reason why kershaw, strasburg, scherzer and about every top reliever are the best, and strikeouts are a big part of their game
^^ exactly. Nothing wrong with a pitch to contact guy but with a worse defense behind him he’s much less effective
“But, but, he throws 97.”
“He has no second pitch, and might just hit the bull.”
“But he throws 97.”
I so enjoy pitchers who can have a six or seven pitch inning or two per start.
If you’re judging the past performance of a pitcher or the result, then run prevention is best but if you’re trying to gauge the future performance of a pitcher, strikeouts (relative to walks especially) are superior. A simplified reason for this is that Ks are independent of defense, which can change year to year, and a contact reliant pitcher is more likely to suffer from bad luck from balls finding the gaps in the defense or errors. Another thing is that Ks help get out of tough situations and good stuff can lead to weak contact. Obviously without control or command the results will be inconsistent even with the best stuff but you’d rather see a young pitcher show strikeout ability than not. At least it would show his stuff is ready while the rest of his game catches up.
the twins have been pitching to contact the last 6 years and they are the worst team in the majors in that time
The Twins have for years consistently failed to convert quality minor league talent into quality major league players. Sometimes guys just don’t pan out, but at some point it’s just that the organization has systemic problems. Terry Ryan was so old-school and he’s had his fingers ok the organization for so long that I don’t think anyone in the organization knows what they’re doing anymore.