2016 Twins Game Logs

2016 Game 124: Minnesota Twins at Kansas City Royals

30 Comments

First pitch 1:15 p.m. CDT

Ervin Santana (6-9, 3.43 ERA, 99 K, 1.212 WHIP)
Danny Duffy (10-1, 2.73 ERA, 143 K, 0.985 WHIP)

We could be in for a low-scoring pitchers' duel today as Santana and Danny Duffy square off on the circular mound. At the moment, Duffy is the only pitcher in the American League with a WHIP under 1.00 (and sporting an ERA+ of 162), while Santana checks in at 16th with a 1.21 WHIP. As long as he stays the course, Duffy has a legit shot at the AL Cy Young award this year. I'd like to see this game be a latter day hiccup in that eventuality, but on the advice of my physician and bookmaker I'm not holding my breath.

Play ball!

30 thoughts on “2016 Game 124: Minnesota Twins at Kansas City Royals”

  1. The twitters machine tells me the Twins are calling up Pat Light and Adalberto Mejia is being optioned.

    I honestly have no clue about these players.

    1. We seem to just be randomly calling up groundskeepers. We use one for a couple of innings, send him out, bring up another, use him for a couple of innings, send him out, lather, rinse, repeat.

      But Light looks like he might actually be able to pitch. He's the guy we got when we traded Fernando Abad to Boston.

      1. And Adalberto Mejia was just picked up from the Giants a few weeks ago. He made three starts for Rochester before coming up. You can be excused for not knowing anything about him.

          1. He wasn't with the major league club. He started in AA this year and was promoted to AAA, where he made seven starts before the Twins acquired him. As they say, he's only twenty-three.

  2. I'm kind of disappointed that Danny Duffy didn't pitch against Tyler Duffey, just for the entertainment value when Dazzle does play-by-play.

  5. Contra Cory and Dazzle, I think "momentum" has very little to do with it. The Royals are playing well and the Twins are not.

  9. wait, what? Plouffe is playing 1b and Sano is DHing rather than playing 3B??? How does this make sense?

    1. Some time ago, I stopped expecting the Twins to make moves that make sense. But Sano has had an elbow problem or something, so maybe he's not able to play third today.

      1. The elbow could also explain why Sano is on an 0-for-16 streak, if the Twins believed that injuries can affect performance.

  10. Joe vs LHP this year: 238/306/347
    Escobar vs LHP: 250/269/406

    I dunno. does Joe really need a day off?

  12. I'm gone the rest of the afternoon (worship service at the nursing home), so somebody bring home a win today!

  13. At the moment, Duffy is the only pitcher in the American League with a WHIP under 1.00

    I must be really old, because I thought the 1.0 WHIP mark was pretty much the dividing line between really good pitchers and meh.

    2. It used to be the difference between Johan Santana and everybody else. From 2004 to 2006, Johan was the only qualified AL pitcher to have a WHIP less than 1.00, and he did it all 3 seasons. He led the AL in WHIP in 2007, but it was slightly greater than 1.00. Since then, only 1 season did more than 1 pitcher have a WHIP less than 1.00 (2014: Sale, 0.966 & King Felix, 0.915 - Wow!) and a number of seasons had no AL pitchers less than 1.00.

Comments are closed.