Pregame

Southpaw Dan Meyer appeared to be on the fast track to the majors at the age of  23.  After being drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the first round of the 2002 draft, he made his mark as a strikeout pitcher by sitting down more than one per inning on K's from '02 - '04.  Combined with an ERA that never topped 2.87, the Braves were impressed enough to call him up for a cup of coffee that fall.  He pitched two innings.  That winter he was part of the trade that saw the Athletics ship Tim Hudson to the Braves.

He hasn't been the same since.

After spending all of '05 and '06 in the Oakland farm system, he rebounded in triple-A Sacramento last summer at 26.  The strikeouts were back up, the home run rates were back down and the control had taken a big step in the right direction.  Three years after his MLB debut he returned to the majors, appearing in six games and starting three, and generally suffering at the hands of professional hitters.  This summer he was virtually replicating his triple-A numbers when Oakland called him up:

Since that recall Meyer has made two starts and five relief appearances, and before his last two stints was doing well.  But overall he's again struggling, getting strikeouts but at times struggling to hit the strikezone and put hitters away.  He's an extreme fly-ball pitcher (58.3%) who's susceptible to the long-ball, so hopefully tonight he'll hang a few sliders.

Trying to stem the tide will be Kevin Slowey, who's been huge for the Twins this month.  In his last four starts (25 innings) he's allowed just five earned runs and walked just one batter.  Kevin is good enough that if he can keep the A's on his game plan, he shouldn't have too much trouble.  Of course, the problem is that exact thing could have been said for the last four games...of which the Twins have won one.  And while we can bring up the White Sox, and how we hope Boston can take them out tonight, the bottom line is that Minnesota needs to start taking care of business, or this puppy will be over very, very soon.

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A brief examination of the rules to help us figure out who we could possibly expect.

There's a lot of debate, in certain circles, about the merits of the September roster expansion rules.  Detractors argue it favors big-market clubs because at the root of it all, the more players you call up the more money it costs, and also that it's unfair for a contender to lose (or win, for that matter) a game that goes to extra innings due to the advantage of additional pitcher.  But for my money, I enjoy the rule.  It allows us to see some potential impact players of the future, and for teams that are out of the running that can sometimes be the only draw they have at the end of the season.

Okay, let's get to the rules.

1.  You can call up as many players as you want as long as they're on the 40-man roster.  That's right, you can technically have 40 players, although most teams top off around 31.

2.  If you want to call up someone NOT on the 40-man roster and it's already full, in order to take that spot the team will need to pass a player through waivers.

3.  Service time rolls on anyone called up, just like at any other time of the year.

Based on those basics, these are the players currently available for the Twins to call up in September:

Pitchers:  Julio DePaula, Philip Humber, Bobby Korecky, Jose Mijares, Pat Neshek*, Oswaldo Sosa
Catchers:  Jose Morales
Infielders:  Matt Macri, Sergio Santos, Matt Tolbert*
Outfielders:  Michael Cuddyer*, Jason Pridie

* = On Disabled List

For those of you who haven't counted, the Twins have 37 players on the 40-man roster.  This means that if they want to call up somebody not on the list above (like Luke Hughes, Kevin Mulvey, Bobby Kielty or Garrett Jones for example), they have a bit of room to with which to work.  What we have to keep in mind is that anyone called up will not only see their service time start to tick (a bit of a touchy subject with the Twins for certain players over recent years), but also that filling up all forty spots restricts what kinds of roster alterations Minnesota can make without being forced to pass someone through waivers.

My predictions:

Philip Humber and Bobby Korecky for pitchers--we know the Twins are looking for a little pitching depth in the bullpen, due to both the current 'pen being a bit shaky and the starters not getting through seven innings often enough.

The Twins will definitely call up a third catcher, and unless they're willing to dip into their three open slots on the 40-man roster for somebody like Ryan Jorgensen or Drew Butera, it will be Jose Morales.  If he's available...which realistically he may not be, as he's listed on Rochester's 7-day disabled list.

For infielders, both Sergio Santos and Matt Macri will likey make appearances to provide infield depth, although the Twins may just go with Macri and wait for Matt Tolbert to get healthy.

Finally, in the outfield I can see Jason Pridie getting a call if the Twins don't believe Michael Cuddyer will be ready by the end of September.

Overall, I see the Twins adding two pitchers, a catcher, two infielders and one outfielder.

Pregame after the jump...

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Those sneaky Mariners...

Do you remember that episode of Star Trek:  The Next Generation where the Enterprise receives a distress call, and they find a ship of bumbling idiots asking for help to "fix our ship, it is broken"?  They're called Pakleds, these aliens, and they want help to repair their engines, in order to "make it go".  Always the good samaritans, the Enterprise sends over chief engineer Geordi LaForge to lend a hand.

Oops!  Turns out those sneaky Pakleds take advantage of good samaritans by kidnapping the help, and forcing them to make weapons and turn over some advanced technology in exchange for the prisoner.  Indeed, they have a habit of taking advantage of the generous by looking useless!  Yes, the Pakleds are more worthless than a box of rocks, but when you succumb to their sneakiness they're disturbingly dangerous because, hell, they've got weapons.  Like a caveman with a grenade.

That's what happened last night.  Those sneaky Mariners managed to get the better of the Twins, again, but this time there were no heroics by Commander Riker and the Enterprise and Minnesota lost to the third worst team in baseball.  Again.

Losers of four straight, the Twins are 2.5 back of the White Sox, who shockingly enough won a game they were supposed to win.  I have a hard time blaming Scott Baker for the defeat, because in spite of allowing 10 hits he did his job.  Six and two-thirds innings and just hree runs is going to count as a good start in my book.  Once again, the Minnesota offense was stymied by a less than imposing hurler, as former Twins farm hand (from December 13, 2004 - March 26, 2005) Ryan Rowland-Smith pinned down the lineup for seven innings, allowing just two runs.

This afternoon the Twins have a chance to avoid complete embarassment, as well as a five-game losing streak.  If we're lucky, timing a win with a Chicago loss would help off-set the disappointments of the last four days.

Here's our roll call for the first two games of the Seattle series.  All hail 33MorneauMVP and his vice president caseintheface, whose campaign based on economic growth with a focus on green energy inspired the populous.

Stars of the Game

#3  Denard Span  (0-for-2, 2 BB, good defense)
#2  Randy Ruiz  (1-for-4, HR, RBI, R)
#1  Scott Baker  (6.2 IP, 10 H, 0 HR, 3 R, 3 K, 3 BB)

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"The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated."  -Mark Twain

My eyebrows raised in a skeptical nature when I'd read that the Twins had promoted Anthony Swarzak to triple-A Rochester in late July.  Because for most of the season in New Britain, whoever was taking the mound on most of Swarzak's starts certainly didn't look like Swarzak.  Rather, the results didn't look like Swarzak's.  When I voiced my confusion to the promotion, Dianna was quick to point out something I was more or less unaware of, which was the sad state of the Rock Cats' defense.  But after 20 starts and more than 100 innings, the 5.67 ERA and .304 opponent average couldn't all be pinned on the defense.  Could it?

According to fangraphs, Swarzak's FIP (which we actually think is xFIP thanks to how they calculated Perkins' "FIP" increasing after his start against the Angels last week) was 4.42; a full run shorter than that 5.67 ERA we mentioned a second ago.  FirstInning.com lists his double-A FIP as 4.46.  This tells me that Swarzak was actually pitching better than his numbers indicate, and also that he likely would have seen his numbers sway back toward the mean...which in his case was a good thing.  Also, he was still striking out two batters for every one he walked, so while the strikeout rates weren't as high as we've been used to seeing over the last four years he wasn't putting himself in dire jeopardy with the additional free passes.  Indeed, with his spiked home run rate combined with a weak defense behind him, I'm ready to buy the fact that I may have under-estimated how good Swarzak had been in New Britain.

Last night in Syracuse, Swarzak made his sixth start for the Rochester Red Wings.  It was his best night yet, as he logged eight strong innings, striking out six and walking a pair en route to another win.  He's now 5-0, and proving my skeptical ass dead wrong.

Strangely enough, some of those same peripherals we've been discussing, the ones that insisted he was better than his numbers in double-A, are hinting at cracks beneath the surface of his mind-numbing start with in triple-A.  His strikeout rates (5.69 K/9), down.  Walk rates (3.31 BB/9), holding steady.  Additionally, while fangraphs hasn't updated their stats from yesterday, going into his eight-inning stomp on Syracuse his (x)FIP was an incredible 5.23.  Firstinning.com HAS updated their stats, and their FIP for Swarzak sits at 4.77.  But he's still getting amazing results.

But one thing I've come to realize...okay, two things I've come to realize...is that first, I'm wrong about a lot of stuff, partially due to the fact that my knowledge of advanced metrics is relatively limited in some aspects.  And also because sometimes I'm just wrong.  Second, while there's nothing better than stats to predict future performance, when you're talking about how good or how effective someone has already been, it's okay to throw some things out the window.

Swarzak is one of those cases.  No matter what's to come, he's been remarkably effective in his six starts for the Red Wings, and he's put himself back on the radar.  He's earned his promotion. 

Oh yeah, and he doesn't turn 23 for two weeks.

Pregame

For the second time as a starter this year, the Twins are running up against right-hander Miguel Batista.  On August 4, Minnesota lit up the 37-year old for six runs over three innings, and if I'm honest I'll be disappointed if they don't repeat that performance tonight in Seattle.  He seems to have an affinity for walking hitters to the point that if he doesn't do it, there's something wrong; he's STILL walking more batters than he strikes out.  The Mariners aren't oblivious of this fact, trying to keep him out of the rotation, but with Erik Bedard and Carlos Silva on the disabled list they're struggling to find four competent starters much less five.  When your 3-4-5 starters are R.A. Dickey, Ryan Rowland-Smith and Ryan Feierabend, your season clearly isn't going the way you hoped it would.  Opponents are throwing up a .920 OPS this season against Batista.  Yikes.

To put a halt to their two-game skid the Twins launch Francisco Liriano, who's 4-0 in four starts since his return.  Over 23.2 innings he's struck out 20, walked 10, given up 16 hits (just one homer) and allowed six runs (three earned).  On the season opposing hitters are hitting .242/.355/.320, and that's about right as they still aren't squaring up well against Cisco with just a 14.7 line-drive percentage.  Overall, his xFIP is 3.90, which is marginally better than his 4.24 traditional ERA.  I recognize that the Twins may have set him up to succeed by lining him up against weaker opponents for the rest of the season, but A) there's nothing wrong with that and B) he's still getting good results.  Tonight it'd be nice to see more of the same, but hopefully he can start getting ahead of more hitters more often, and can therefore start getting stretched into the seventh inning and beyond.  He's completed six innings in only two of his four most recent starts, and right now this team needs its starters to be efficient.

For the Twins against a righty I'll wager:  Span (RF), Casilla (2B), Mauer (C), Morneau (1B), Kubel (DH), Young (LF), Buscher (3B), Everett (SS), Gomez (CF)

And on the Seattle side of the coin I'm guessing:  Suzuki (RF), Betancourt (SS), Ibanez (LF), Beltre (3B), Lopez (2B), Balentien (CF), Johjima (C) LaHair (DH), Cairo (1B)