2014 Twins Game Logs

Game 14: Toronto Blue Jays vs. Minnesota Twins (Game 1)

66 Comments

The locals lucked out with their fantastic weather and gave us to a two-spot today. Our young gun squares off against their veteran Dickey.

Toronto Blue Jays vs. Minnesota Twins
(8-6)                                                      (6-7)
Target Field
1 Twins Way
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55403
1:10 PM CT

Game Previews
Baseball-Reference
MLB
Yahoo! Sports

Probable Starting Pitchers
Robert Allen Dickey
1-2, 5.30
v.
Kyle Benjamin Gibson
2-0, 1.59

66 thoughts on “Game 14: Toronto Blue Jays vs. Minnesota Twins (Game 1)”

  1. Oh hey, misread the time and the game actually starts at noon not 1 PM. *fixes the evidence otherwise*

  5. Not that I think it will make any difference, but it makes no sense to me that the 26th player can be used only in the second game and not in the first game.

    2. It kind of makes sense to me. I think it just looks weird because of the way the Twins have constructed their roster. The only reason I can see for a 26th player for the second game of a double-header is that you'd need an extra pitcher. If I was in charge of the world, I'd probably require the 26th player to be a pitcher, to further encourage teams to carry more position players.

        1. Another thing that bothers me about the 13-man staff is that with all these off days, Hughes and Big Pelf are pitching 5 innings once every 6 days. They could easily skip the fifth starter all the time in April (the fact that he's the only starter pitching well, notwithstanding).

      2. I could see requiring it to be a pitcher. I just don't see why you shouldn't be able to use that pitcher in the first game if you want to.

        1. According to DicknBert, it's because it could be difficult to get a player to the first game for one of the teams, so it would be an unfair advantage to a team who had a player in close proximity to activate.

  9. I know the rules say a pitcher can't go warm up when his team has a long inning, but why? If Gibson had gone out to the bullpen and thrown a few pitches during that inning, what harm would it have done?

        1. I always just assumed that they were more worried about fatigue than they were about keeping the pitcher from going cold.

  10. I know everyone makes an error once in a while, but given the way he hits, Florimon had better not make very many of them.

    1. How often do you see it? A guy lets another guy on base with an error, then leads off the next half inning by reaching base on an error.

    2. That's his first of the season. I'll give him a pass on that, especially considering the situation. Don't like it before Bautista, but not a huge deal with a five-run lead.

    1. It'd be nice to see more strikeouts, but if smoke and mirrors is the best we can do, I'll take smoke and mirrors until it stops working.

      1. agreed, but when you're a GB pitcher and you actually get GBs, well, that's better than most of what the Twins have thrown out there the past few seasons. *rubs a couple smudges off of mirrors*

        1. I'm not saying it's bad, it's just that this is a sort of "Good Carlos Silva" start. Pitching like this, every now and then you get an inning where all the ground balls find holes and you find yourself in a hole. Overall, a really positive start, though. Low walks, ground balls, I'll take it.

          1. No, I was agreeing with you, just thankful that we're seeing "Good Carlos Silva Anyone" for now. More K's would make for more sustainability though

          3. The difference was that Silva was a one-pitch pitcher. I'm thinking Gibson reminds me more of Scott Erickson. Hopefully, Gibson can channel 1991 without the arm injury.

      2. You asked, Gibson answered. Four now! A 5.1 K/9 is pretty bad* and yet still an improvement over last year's rotation.

        * Unless the pitcher has a low enough walk rate.

        1. Gibson's minor league numbers are close enough to Scott Baker's that I'm willing to give him a SSS caveat. If I'm optimistic, I'd say that Gibson seems like he could be a Bradke lite or a Scott Baker without the long balls.

          1. Baker had a 34% groundball rate and Radke was at 41% for the last five years, though likely lower earlier in his career based on the progression. With Gibson's 50+%, matching Radke's strikeout and walk rates, really the differences between the two, would make him a pretty good pitcher.

    1. If the first baseman touched it fair, if not foul. It looks like he probably touched it.

    2. Definitely foul, they're saying Encarcion hit the ball with his glove. Hard to tell from the replay.

  20. 0.95 ERA for Gibson. FanGraphs says 56.5% groundball rate for today's game, and 58.8% for previous two games. The highest last year was Masterson's 58% and A.J. Burnett was second at 56.5%.

  22. Maybe it doesn't make a lot of difference, but it seems to me that there are managers who would try to figure out which pitcher does better in day games and which does better in night games, rather than just letting the more veteran pitcher decide which game he wanted to work.

    1. They didn't want Pelfrey pitching the first game today, because they wanted to make sure the first game finished in time to start the night game on time.

  23. It feels good to see Swarzak celebrate the win. He always has to do the Charlie work for this team.

  24. If you want something to listen to between games, Pawtucket and Rochester are headed to extra innings, tied at one after nine.

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