Rinconless Recap

Like Juan Rincon, I was absent for a time but am now back. Thinking about the Rincon suspension, I got to thinking if it actually cost the Twins any games. Sure it wore on the other guys' arms and could possibly cost us later indirectly, but to find out if Rincon's absence cost us any wins I thought a recap of the games he missed would give a good idea of how much the suspension hurt the Twins in the W-L column.

Of the nine games he missed, here are the games where Rincon could not have made a difference.

1. Game 1: Cleveland 4, Minnesota 2 With only runs scored by the Indians coming with 2 in both the first and second innings, the Rincon factor was zero.
2. Game 3: Cleveland 0, Minnesota 9 Radke went a complete game. They could have had me in the pen and won this one.
3. Game 4: Minnesota 7, Tampa 1 Santana did his best Radke impersonation, going for a complete game.
4. Game 5: Minnesota 8, Tampa 1 Lohse only went for five innings forcing us to use Baker, Crain, Romero, and Nathan. Each did a modest amount of pitching at best.
5. Game 6: Minnesota 9, Tampa 6 Mays threw a good game until the seventh inning when he gave up five runs. Mulholland came in for some work, followed by the right-handed duo of Crain and Nathan who worked for a second straight day.
6. Game 7: Minnesota 0, Baltimore 3 We couldn't score a run and the only person out of the bullpen was Matt Guerrier, who didnt give up only a hit in his inning of work.
7. Game 8: Minnesota 6, Baltimore 4 This one went into extra innings. I remember thinking that this might be the time for the Rincon void to be felt. I was wrong. Romero, Crain, and Nathan gave us enough to win in the 10th inning. Crain threw 21 pitches, the most of the three.

That makes seven games where we got away without having Rincon. That leaves two games to analyze.

1. Game 2: Cleveland 5, Minnesota 4In the ninth inning, switch-hitting catcher Jason Bard stepped up to the plate and hit a game winning homer off of soutpaw JC Romero. Rincon threw only 17 pitches that inning and Bard was only the second hitter he faced. What is interesting is that Bard has hit better against lefties in his career. The same goes for the next two hitters. Belliard and Crisp are better hitters against lefties. It is possible that Romero could have been pulled after facing one batter. While this is an interesting thought, there are three things that seem to outweigh the possibility that Romero would have been pulled before that homer was given up. First, Romero is effective against righties for a left. Second, Crain could have been brought in if we wanted a righty to pitch. Thirdly, Bard, Belliard, and Crisp are anything but threats to go yard. This is especially true for Bard. While the Rincon void might have hurt us, I tend to think that it did not.
2. Game 9: Minnesota 4, Baltimore 7 Johan Santana vs. Sidney Ponson looked like a gimme but somehow we lost. We were tied in the bottom of the eighth inning until we managed to give up three runs. Guerrier gave up two and Romero gave up one. You may look at that and see that the wear on the bullpen finally came to a head but that is not necessarily true. Only one run was earned. A pair of errors by Terry Tiffee gave the Orioles a couple of runs. With that said, one run was earned and it only took one run to beat us that game. Matt Guerrier wouldn't usually come into a game that was tied in the eighth inning normally. That would be Rincon time. He would have probably been used a couple of innings. Crain had been worked a lot, so Guerrier had to come into a tight game. Not having Rincon may have cost us a win in this one. It at least would have given us a better chance for us to score in extra innings.

So there you have it. Juan Rincon's suspension may have cost the Twins two games at most. Perhaps we would have lost neither. From my amatuer handicapping skills I estimate that there is about a 10% chance it cost us the win in game two and about a 60% that it cost us the win in game nine. Adding that up I find that the suspension cost us .7 games. Of course, we cannot get 7/10ths of a loss so rounding up the Twins lost one game due to the suspension of Juan Rincon. That isn't too bad. The bullpen held together quite well and proved why they are baseball's best. Now hopefully we don't miss the playoffs by one game.