First Pitch 12:07 p.m. CDT
Kyle Gibson (5-8, 5.09 ERA, 75 K, 1.538 WHIP)
R.A. Dickey (9-13, 4.43 ERA, 111 K, 1.314 WHIP)
Now in his third full season as a starting pitcher for the Minnesota Twins, Kyle Gibson is thoroughly eroding any hopes I had that he would ever be more than a journeyman hurler in the back end of a rotation. Nobody doubts his stuff, except Gibson himself, it often seems. Mrs. Twayn shares my frustration with Gibson. She's coined a term for pitchers who consistently get ahead in the count only to end up walking the batter because they try to be too fine. They're Gibbynibblers, and that term is generally preceded by an Anglo-Saxon expletive.
The Twins are trying to keep their current losing streak, a match for their first one this year, from going to double digits. I thought Santana had a good shot yesterday, even against this Toronto murderers' row, but things fall apart. I do know one thing -- if the Twins don't acquire some better pitching before next year, we're going to see this season all over again next year. And I'm not so sure I'll be willing sign up for that.
Play ball!
The pitching would look a lot better without the worst fielding in MLB.
On the plus side, the pitchers don't have the fewest strikeouts in MLB!
Woo! Progress!
Again not feeling great about a now one-run lead.
Maybe I need to do the prediction thing in reverse. The way they've been playing, it seems like they may not win another game the rest of the season.
It took a Grossman bad route* to get Danny Santana out of CF.
*aren't all his routes bad routes?
Unfortunately, Danny Santana's routes don't tend to be all that great, either. I didn't see the play, but in my mind they're smacking into each other and the ball is landing about forty feet away from them.
Santana had a good route, such as it was, but no one communicated anything -- season in a nutshell
Josh Donaldson has hit more HRs against the Twins (13) than any other team. Pretty crazy since he does not play within the division where they play 19 times a year.