DAY GAME ALERT!
Good evening gentle ladies and sirs, and welcome to the Queen City, the pride of Ontario, Toronto the Good. After stumbling through 3-6 homestand, the Twins visit O, Canada for the first time since June of last year.
Minnesota's been historically lousy in Toronto, but they've played well against the AL East this year. As the Twins are only one game up on the Jays for the 2nd WC spots, this series has some significance. Taking the mound tonight will be the PEDestroyer, Ervin Santana, trying to bounce back from his first loss of the season. Facing off will be some schmo named David Price, who will be making his debut in the Blue Jays uniform. So, you know, no real point in the watching this game.
Minnesota Twins vs. Toronto Blue Jays
(54-50) (54-52)
Rogers Centre
1 Blue Jays Way
Toronto, Ontario
M5V 1J1
Canada
1:07 PM EDT
Game Previews
Minnesota Twins Official Game Notes
Baseball-Reference
MLB
Yahoo! Sports
Minnesota Twins Starting Lineup
1. Dozier, 2B
2. Nunez, 3B
3. Plouffe!, 1B
4. Sano, DH
5. Hunter, RF
6. Rosario, LF
7. Hicks, CF
8. Suzuki, C
9. Escobar, SS
Oakland Athletics Starting Lineup
1. Tulowitzki, SS
2. Donaldson, 3B
3. Bautista, RF
4. Encarnación, DH
5. Smoak, 1B
6. Martin, C
7. Goins, 2B
8. Pillar, CF
9. Revere, LF
Probable Starting Pitchers
Ervin Ramon Santana
2-1, 3.78
v.
David Taylor Price
9-4, 2.53
Go Twins!
Photo courtesy of Dave R
Photo courtesy of Michael Herrera
Just a half inning in and it already feels like it might be the series to break the Twins. I can't remember the last time I saw so many people at the SkyDome.
The game is on MLB Network for those that have it.
Canadians have a lot of holidays.
Well, that was a quick success for my Beat the Streak for the day (Donaldson).
I was about to mention that Torii's batting average was down to .248.
Batting average is a useless stat.
That's 1 more run than I thought the Twins would get off of Price.
Ben Revere walked 13 times in 626 plate appearances (one intentional!)
He is not a person you should walk, for so many reasons.
The key to that inning was popping up a bunt.
It was a poor bunt, and a poor attempt at a bunt. However, I also thought a bunt was a poor play there. I understand the thinking--we're not going to get many good chances to score off Price, so we need to get a run when we have the chance. But I look at it the other way--we're not going to get many good chances to score off Price, so when we get a chance to have a big inning, we need to go for it. Escobar has some pop in his bat--maybe he can trade places with Suzuki. Then we have the top of the order up and maybe we can score several runs. Besides, they always say that if you want to get to a pitcher like Price, you have to do it early. We weren't likely to win by scoring one run in lots of innings.
Good point Padre. When they don't score in the first three innings, things go downhill. Their offense slips significantly as the game progresses:*
to the tune of nearly 70 fewer Runs scored when comparing the first three innings (176 R's) with the last three innings (108 R's).
*to your point.
Also signs of a strong bench.
signs of something anyway...
Well, Plouffe! is on base, so DP chances are greatly reduced.
I hope Hicks drives in a run here, otherwise I might get fairly down on this offense.
I'm not feeling too good about the offense the rest of the way.
Gameday says that Hicks got hosed on strike 3.
What was Suzuki swinging at? That was awful. Rosario didn't have a good at-bat either.
Bases loaded, nobody out, and no runs. TWINS BASEBALL!!
#All Star Break(er of hearts)
Big picture, the fellas have been remarkably consistent - month-to-month - hitting .255/.306/.413 in May (hot) & June (not hot) combined and .255/.311/.420 in July.
On the season, they've hit .276/.346/.439 with RISP.
I think this was one of our biggest fears in April and May; it even spawned a WGOMeme - "Smoke&Mirrors" offense.
I just had a feeling that Suzuki's at bat was going to be one of those "foul off a lot of pitches before striking out to end a bases loaded/no out threat" ones.
Minnesota Twins w/ bases loaded, nobody out <<< David Price
Well....they've to have done a good job of not scoring runs the last three games, as well. They're not all David Price.
They just make 'em all look like David Price.
Donaldson proving why it's important to get runs with the bases loaded and nobody out.
Well, that and the impending need to use the bullpen.
96 pitches to get through 5 innings does not seem like a good use of resources.
[edit] With 96 pitches, they got 1 more inning out of Price...and 9 strikeouts vs. 2. At least the Toronto bullpen is only holding opponents to a .244 BA.
Nope. Not at all.
I mean, I get it. They have an incredibly good lineup. But the Twins have an awful bullpen and they're facing one of the best pitchers in the league.
...my bad. Make that a .224 BAA for their bullpen.
They'll probably get two more out of him. He routinely goes out there for 120-130 pitches. Wouldn't be shocked to see him have a CG if they keep hacking at the first pitch!
I know ... depressing isn't it?
Combining Price being really awesome and constantly vexing the Twins, with him being on the Blue Jays who seemingly always score 8 runs every time they play the Twins, makes for a terrible combination. Here's hoping he moves to the NL in the offseason.
He's a rental. I fully expect the Blue Jays to ride him like the Brewers did for Sabathia.
Ball 1 to Donaldson has a couple inches closer to the plate than strike 3 to Hicks with the bases loaded. Instead of 0-2 to Donaldson, it was 1-1, so instead of throwing a slider, Santana's best pitch, he throws a fastball which is hit for a home run.
A quality start, and a weak offensive showing. Post-AS break status quo
So, having strikeout pitchers doesn't guarantee team success.* But man, Price has 148 strikeouts this year and the Twin "best" strikeout pitcher is Gibson with 92 (in the same # of starts) ... oye.
*See Cleveland, with 4 starters with 125 or more K's on the year but last place in the AL Central.
Strikeouts aren't the end all, be all. This is why there are three components to FIP. That being said, the less strikeouts you have, the better you have to be at limiting walks and home runs/fly balls.
Gameday shows Boyer got hosed with 2 strikes on Encarnacion, so of course he then singles to drive in another run instead of the inning being over.
I mean, I can't stand how terrible HP umps are at calling games decently. But the Twins hose themselves by not only keeping Boyer on the active roster, but continually using him in high leverage situations. If that's the best you can do down two runs to one of the best pitchers in the league you're in trouble. He's an arsonist.
Not to pile on, but since June 30 (11 games) Boyer has given up 11 hits, 6 BB, 5 ER's and allowed an additional 6/7 inherited runners to score.
File under "Damning with faint praise" or "Backhanded compliments," but he was one of their best relievers for nearly 7 weeks ...
The Twins' bullpen flaming up as usual.
I know inter-divisional games are supposed to be more important and Provus talks about them that way, but at this point when we're concerned with holding the wild card slot, that's pretty much a fallacy
This was the fourth straight game with double-digit strikeouts for the Twins. They have a total of 14 hits in those games.
At least this time we got shut down by a legitimate ace.
And the post game it was stated he was something like 16-2 against the Blue Jays.