The Twins Are So Screwed Without Good Jose Berrios…

Photo: Adam Bettcher - Getty Images

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I know the Tigers Twitter account has probably had this caption queued up for weeks. They probably have a whole list of them because Detroit is terrible at baseball so they don’t get very many chances to tweet witty captions to go with great plays, like this grand slam from Ronny Rodriguez last night in the 6th inning.

But the caption didn’t really fit this narrative because, up until the final pitch of this at-bat that sailed 400+ feet between the Budweiser porch and the left field 2nd deck, Berrios’ slurve was definitely NOT Ronny’s pitch. In fact, he looked downright afraid of it. Unfortunately for Twins fans everywhere, Berrios threw his favorite pitch of the night (31 slurves Friday in total) one too many times OR one could certainly argue he just missed his spot. Either way the result was the same.

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Really, he could have done either. Another one of those nasty fucking slurves, that folds a foot beyond the low-outside corner, would have folded Rodriguez right along with it. I almost like the idea though, of making him look like an idiot for thinking he can now sit on my inside slurve because I’ve thrown the pitch three times in a row. Berrios dialed it back up to 94-95 multiple times last night and another one of those bad boys, about 2 inches inside and up on the hands, would have locked Ronny up faster than R. Kelly in a just world…

No matter how he chose to do it, the Jose Berrios that we have come to grow so fond of would have made Rodriguez question his place in the MLB, by the time he was finished off. But, that hasn’t been the Jose Berrios we’ve seen of late. I read a lot of articles and hang out a lot on Twitter so I’m just going to steal some of the numbers I’ve already seen from others, to prove my point:

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August has been subpar for Berrios in the past, but this has been terrible. In four starts, he has pitched 21⅓ innings, allowed 32 hits, 24 runs (20 earned), six home runs, walked 10 and struck out 22.

The earned run average for this month is 8.44, but he hasn’t pitched that well. His total runs average per appearance is 10.14, with one Sano error accounting for four unearned runs. (via Patrick Reusse – Star Tribune)

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The pitching problem goes so much deeper for the Twins and that is one of the most concerning things about Berrios’ recent issues, when thinking short-term. Even 75% Berrios is the Twins best pitcher, right now. If I had to pick someone to take the mound next week for a winner-take-all game, I’m probably picking La MaKina… With the stats you just saw from Gleeman and Reusse, that’s a sad fucking reality to live in for Twins fans who want to believe they have a real shot at a World Series run…

Sure, we’re going to see Brusdar Graterol soon but even if he is the Jesus of the Twins pitching staff, he can’t pitch every inning once he comes up… or even more than a handful weekly. Too bad we never got the chance to trade or pick up pitching help earlier this season when we saw that our pitching staff wasn’t deep enough for a deep playoff run.

It’s just too damn bad…

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

**NOTE: Berrios didn’t hang out in the locker room for reporters after the game and some people are bitching. The guy is frustrated and didn’t want to say something he shouldn’t. I don’t really care. It doesn’t look good and he should have stuck around but there are bigger things to worry about… like how we can get our entire team can pitch better.

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