About Last Night: Rangers-Twins Odds And Ends

Jefff Miller covers Vicente Padilla’s outing. I’ve got a few little scribbles left around here:

• RHP Vicente Padilla has really impressed me since the whole waiver incident in early June. He has approached his job in a way I can’t recall at any point in his firs three years in Texas. In short, he is handling adversity. In a past life, Padilla would have shut down after Jason Kubel’s homer made it 5-2 in the third inning. He would have been done before the fifth. The bullpen would have had to work extra hard on its first night back from the All-Star break. And he might have hit somebody on the way out of the game, just for good measure.

Speaking of hitting batters, Padilla has not hit any since being placed on waivers after hitting Mark Teixeira twice. He’s now gone a career long streak of seven starts without a plunking.

• Good: 2B Ian Kinsler’s liner up the middle to start the bottom of the first. Kinsler’s ground balls have been few and far between lately. Not so good: The pop up to end the game. Kinsler and Minnesota’s Joe Crede are tied for the fifth-lowest ground ball-to-fly ball ratio (0.59 grounders per fly) in the majors. Kinsler has always leaned more towards fly balls, but the percentage of fly balls is getting higher and higher with each year. In 2006, he average 0.82 grounders per fly. In 2007 it was 0.79. Last year: 0.71.

• On the other end, Kinsler has not gotten nearly enough credit for how much his defense has improved. He’s made only six errors in the first 88 games, compared to 16 at the All-Star break last year. And according to UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating), one of the more recently-developed defensive metrics, he’s improved dramatically. UZR, according to fangraphs.com, is “the number of runs above or below average a fielder is in both range runs and error runs combined.” In other words, it tries to account for how many runs above or below average a fielder may prevent. Last year, Kinsler’s UZR was -7.3 (meaning he was 7.3 runs below average). This year: +6, third best in the AL. That’s a pretty significant turnaround. And the last UZR definition I saw acknowledges that it doesn’t take into account the turning of double plays. The Rangers turned four last night and lead the league in double plays at 104. Manager Ron Washington says Kinsler and Elvis Andrus are the best he’s ever had at turning two.

• The Rangers took only one walk, and it came after a double steal by Ian Kinsler and Michael Young pushed the count on Andruw Jones to 3-and-1. One walk against Minnesota, however, should not be considered the Rangers failure. Twins pitchers, more than anybody else in the league understand the strike zone and don’t stray from it. The Twins have allowed 246 walks this season, fewest in baseball. By 20.

Since 2002, when Ron Gardenhire took over as manager, Minnesota has allowed the fewest walks in baseball by more than 500. The Twins have walked 3,048 in that time. The Rangers, who have allowed the fifth most in baseball, have allowed more than 4,425. Baltimore (4,627) has allowed the most.