LEN3 | It’s a matter of inches for Scott Baker

I first saw Scott Baker pitch in 2004 during Arizona Instructional League play…

While sitting with the former Twins brain trust of GM Terry Ryan and assistants Bill Smith and Wayne Krivsky, I watched Baker take the mound and show all the talent the Twins were raving about at the time. He could sink and cut his fastball and wasn’t afraid to use other pitches or throw inside.

But I was charting pitches, too. And I looked at my notebook and counted something like 22 foul balls off him early in the fifth inning. “Is that a concern?” I turned and asked Ryan. Ryan said Baker just needed to learn how to finish hitters off…

After the Chicago game, I pointed out to Baker how many foul balls he gave up.

“I believe it,” he said. “I don’t necessarily know what to do with it right now. You can look at it two ways. You can either throw a little more of a hittable pitch and maybe they will put the ball in play. Or a little more of a non-hittable and make them swing and miss. You try to consistent make good pitches, pitchers pitches. Especially when you are ahead in the count.”

LaVelle pointed out a lot of other cases where Baker in particular and Twins’ pitchers in general piled up lots of pitches too early in games.

So what do you tell a middling strikeout guy in this situation? Does the team’s emphasis on strikes make foul balls more likely and strikeouts less likely? (For what it’s worth, LEN3 writes “I think if he got the ball down just a little bit more, he would see a significant improvement.”)