Series Preview: Angels vs. Twins vs. Time

Last week, after the Angels were punished by the Dodgers at home for the second straight night, I noted that the team would likely have to play .700 baseball down the stretch—i.e. go 17–7 in their final 24 games—in order to have a realistic shot at a wild card berth. The Halos might have been able to play mediocre ball and bank on a rival’s collapse if there was just one team ahead of them, but with three clubs standing in the way the Angels had to put their best foot forward.

And so of course they haven’t, instead engaging in the same infuriatingly inconsistent baseball they’ve played throughout 2015.  They’re now 4–3 since last Tuesday, meaning they will have to equal their best 17-game stretch of the season in order to get to the 87 wins that are probably the bare minimum for an A.L. postseason club this year.

The Angels have an incredible number of chances to turn things around in the last month or so, but now they’ve finally hit the wall. If they want to remain relevant into the final week of the regular season, they’re going to have to step up their game against a Twins team chock-full of exciting young players¹. With so few games left even a series split at this point could be a death knell for the Halos, depending on whether the Astros continue to fall off the face of the earth or not. As it’s best not to tempt fate, winning the series is really the team’s only viable course of action. The club has won just two of eight road series in the second half, so it should be a piece of cake…

Game 1: Hector Santiago vs. Tommy Milone

Hector Santiago was good(?), maybe, his last time out? It’s really impossible to know anymore. He mostly held runs off the board for the second straight start, but it was still impossible to shake the feeling he was one or two pitches away from completely losing the plot. Probably because Santiago’s K:BB ratio over his last six starts is nearly 1:1, and probably because he gave up two massive dingers. Who knows what’s in store in Minnesota.

You may remember Tommy Milone from such moves as the Gio Gonzalez trade and the Sam Fuld-to-Oakland swap. These days, Tommy is pitching more or less like a replacement-level starter, posting mediocre peripherals and surrendering a few too many dingers. The lefty was lit up in his last start by the White Sox, a team that’s struggled mightily against southpaws this season, so it’s not a foregone conclusion that the Angels will roll over like they have against other lefties.

Game 2: Andrew Heaney vs. Mike Pelfrey

Heaney put together an outing last week that Tim McCarver would only describe as “gritty and gutty.” And it certainly was, to a degree, but it was mostly just uncharacteristically inefficient. Shutting out a team for five innings is a good thing; needing 94 pitches to do it is considerably less so. That Heaney seemed to channel Hector Santiago for a start isn’t that big a deal. Should he continue to do so, though, the Angels might want to think about giving him some extra rest. He’s in uncharted territory, innings-wise, after all.

How Mike Pelfrey is still a major league starter is one of life’s great mysteries. I mean, obviously part of it is the two-year, $11 million contract the Twins gave him after 2013, but, like, where the hell did that even come from? The right-hander owns a 4.88 ERA over the last three seasons (328.1 IP) and is currently sporting a strikeout rate (11.7%) that even Jered Weaver can laugh at. Twins gonna Twin.

Game 3: Garrett Richards vs. Kyle Gibson

Bad Richards took the mound in Seattle, so that means good Richards should be back in Minnesota. Even some hybrid version of the two would be fine so long as it doesn’t involve walking a batter an inning. The 12 free passes Richards has surrendered in his last three outings matches his career worst for a three-start span, and have made his penchant for wild pitches all the more damning.

I’m trying and failing to come up with anything interesting to say about Kyle Gibson, which in a way says a lot. There doesn’t seem to be any one thing he does really well, but he’s still managed to accrue a team-best 3.5 WAR this season (BRef), and he leads the team in strikeouts despite a below-average K rate. No, I don’t get it either. I guess that’s the Twins pitching staff for ya.

Game 4: Matt Shoemaker* vs. Tyler Duffey

Matt Shoemaker’s presence in the rubber match of the series is still TBD officially, but it seems pretty likely he’ll get the call. Shoe pitched six shutout innings and struck out 10 Twinkies in his only start against them this season, but that was at home. He’s been a completely different pitcher on the road for much of the year (4.81 ERA). Let’s hope he can hold it together.

I don’t know how to look this up, but it seems like Tyler Duffey is first pitcher under 25 the Twins have trusted with a rotation spot since Francisco Liriano nearly a decade ago. Minnesota’s had young guys on the fringe of the big-league rotation for years–guys like Trevor May, Alex Meyer, and current wunderkind Jose Berrios—but there always seems to be some excuse not to put them in the rotation. That Duffey’s managed to break through Terry Ryan’s threshold would seem to say a lot, only he’s never really been highly touted and he doesn’t have overpowering stuff. All of which is to say I have no idea what the Twins are doing.

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¹ Seriously, though. Miguel Sano, Eddie Rosario, Aaron Hicks, Byron Buxton, Kennys Vargas, Trevor May, and Oswaldo Arcia are all 25 or younger. If they can find some actual pitching, they’re going to be very good for quite a while.