Good morning from Target Field.
Glen Perkins got hit harder than he has all season last night, allowing four runs in the ninth to turn a 5-4 lead into an 8-5 loss.
Blown saves happen. His previous blown save, in Oakland, was a function of baseball's flukiness - bloops falling in instead of being caught.
Last night was different. Perkins didn't have command of his pitches, and didn't have enough velocity and bite to get away with missing his spots.
If it's a one-game occurence, it won't mean much more than one loss. The two things to watch today:
1. Did Perkins just have a bad day, or has he become fatigued in a way that could damage the Twins' playoff chase? He's pitched 40 innings and appeared in 41 games so far, plus his All-Star appearance.
Three of the last four seasons he finished with about 62 innings pitched. In 2012, he pitched 70.1. He's not on pace to pitch an exorbitant amount compared to previous seasons, but he has been used in save situations involving more than one inning three times. He earned saves each time.
That wouldn't seem to prompt a dead-arm period all by itself. Most likely, Perkins is just having a dead-arm period that most pitchers go through at some point.
