Joe Nathan Topic Page

Since Joe Nathan's 9th inning meltdown last night, I've seen numerous claims of Nathan being bad under pressure, or bad in the postseason. I'm not convinced there's enough evidence to support such a claim.

I feel like calling Nathan a postseason choker is about as valid as when Alex Rodriguez was criticized for not being clutch (look at him now). The postseason is a small sample size that's intensely magnified.

Looking at Nathan's postseason record, I see just 2 games out of 5 since he's become a Twins that couldn't be considered good outings. In 2004 he allowed 2 runs through 2 1/3 innings in a game the Twins lost by 1. That outing, however was surrounded by a perfect inning of pitching in a 2-0 Twins victory and a scoreless 1 2/3 inning in the game 4 loss. In 2006 he through a wild pitch allowing Juan Rincon's baserunner to score, but completed the inning without further damage in a game the Twins lost by 3.

Joe Nathan blew his first save of the season by giving up a leadoff home run to Ben Zobrist in the ninth inning. Gleeman suggested that perhaps Nathan isn't getting enough work. It's hard to disagree. Nathan has pitched just 7.0 innings all season. The only player that's been on the active roster all season and pitched fewer innings is Craig Breslow. Nathan is the highest paid member of the bullpen, and should be used more often.

Although Francisco Liriano couldn't get his first save of the season, he had his best outing of the season, allowing 2 runs through 6.2 innings.

Finally, we reach the final of the pitchers for the 2008 projectsions—Joe Nathan. It should come as no surprise that he's projected to be great again in 2008.

The Twins put together a 9-2 lead after five innings of baseball on Sunday, but Kevin Slowey and Juan Rincon allowed them to creep back into things which set up an interesting ninth inning. Slowey struggled with his control early and manged to work out of some jams in the first two innings. He settled in a little bit, but allowed 3 home runs and left after pitching 5 1/3 and giving up 4 runs.

The Twins gave Julian Tavarez the best start of his season on Saturday night, but still managed to win the low-scoring game 2-1. Johan Santana allowed 1 run, but was forced out after just five innings due to hight pitch count. Matt Guerrier, Jesse Crain, Pat Neshek and Joe Nathan didn't allow a hit in four innings of relief to hold on to the game and give Santana his fourth win of the season.

This was a game I only saw bits and pieces of, and I missed the 9th and 10th innings, so I'll definitely have to go back and watch the archived game from MLB.tv.

It was, for the most part, a disappointing series for the Twins against a team that they should be able to defeat easily. Not only did they lose on Friday night with ace Johan Santana on the mound, but Joe Nathan took the loss in the ninth inning on Sunday. With the exception of Saturday night, the Twins bats were weak all series long largely due to the ineffectiveness of the "piranhas".

The Twins finally won a game at Comerica Park after 7 straight losses there this season. Brad Radke held the Tigers to 2 runs through seven innings despite giving up 9 hits while Rincon and Nathan sealed the victory with scoreless 8th and 9th innings. The win put the Twins in a three way tie for the wildcard lead, pending the outcome of the White Sox and Yankees game. If the White Sox lose they'll fall a half game behind the Twins and Red Sox, but a win would put them alone in the lead.

Where would the Twins be in this series without their abundance of homeruns? 10 of the 11 runs scored in the last two games are from the five homeruns they’ve hit. While Chicago has matched the Twins in the number of homeruns, the Twins’ homers have been more damaging in terms of runs. Jason Bartlett and his 3-run homer were the difference in Tuesday night’s game.

The Indians scored 5 runs off Johan Santana and the Twins were forced to go 10 innings to pick up the win. The Twins jumped out to an early 4-0 lead with 2 runs in each of the first two innings. The Indians scored two runs in the 5th and three runs in the 6th. Batista made a throwing error resulting in 1 of the 5 runs to be unearned. The Twins tied the game in the bottom of the 6th on a Tony Batista GIDP that scored Justin Morneau from third.