19-11: Death by A Thousand Paper Cuts

(via Fangraphs)

Remember when the Twins used to annoy the entire league by stringing together a bunch of bloop hits and scoring a crapload of runs? Well, today the Orioles gave them a taste of their own medicine, scoring 7 runs on 12 hits, only a couple of which were sharply hit. Francisco Liriano wasn’t exactly sharp, but he pitched a lot better than his 5 R, 10 H, 3/1 K/BB line suggests. Conversely, the Twins’ offense struggled to do much of anything against Jeremy Guthrie, well, except hit a couple of home runs. Oh well, better luck next time.

Sheep go to heaven:

1) Orlando Hudson: 0.064 WPA

2) Justin Morneau: 0.058 WPA Morny put the Twins ahead with his first home run at Target Field. That lead lasted all of one half-inning.

3) Ron Mahay: 0.010 WPA Yep, Ron Mahay was the Twins’ best pitcher in this game, at least according to win probability added. He was also the only Twins’ pitcher to not give up any hits.

Goats go to hell:

1) Francisco Liriano: -221 WPA. Yeah, the Orioles got kind of lucky with a bunch of bloop hits, but F-bomb also struggled to spot his fastball all game long.

2) Brendan Harris: -0.80 WPA. Harris went 0-4. He also sucks in the field. His poor positioning allowed a couple of routine ground balls to bleed through for hits in the third, giving Baltimore the lead. God, I want J.J. Hardy back.

Most important play of the game: For the Twins, it was Morneau’s homer (.157 WPA). For the Orioles, it was Nick Markakis’ bloop single to center in the second inning, scoring a pair of runs and tying the game (.173 WPA). Baltimore never trailed again the rest of the game.