2019 Game 34: Minnesota Twins at Toronto Blue Jays

So the Twins once again showed some resiliency by stomping on the Blue Jays 8-0 last night after a disappointing weekend at Yankee Stadium. This a characteristic that was in short supply of previous Twins teams and a nice switch. More please.

Jose Berrios up for the Twins tonight and has pitched about as well as advertised and as we all hoped: 5-1 record, 0.97 WHIP, a strikeout an inning, and an 8-46 walks to SO ratio. He’s establishing himself as easily the staff ace and a legitimate MLB #1 pitcher. Blue Jays have Aaron Sanchez who’s been pretty average this year. He got rocked last game he pitched which contributed mightily to his 1.49 WHIP. My hope is that these trends continue for tonight.

Vlad Jr. has been up to the bigs for about a week now and Blue Jays fans finding out that it’s not easy for a 20-year old to walk right into a MLB lineup and start mashing. An .152 average with no HRs and 1 RBI is pretty humbling no doubt, but the guy will eventually rake. Let’s just hope that it’s not for a couple more days.

Game time at 6:07p Central. C’mon Twins smoke the Jays, but wait until after you defeat Toronto on the field.

Lineup:
RF Kepler
SS Polanco
DH Cruz
LF Rosario
C Garver
1B Gonzalez
2B Schoop
3B Adrianza
CF Buxton

43 thoughts on “2019 Game 34: Minnesota Twins at Toronto Blue Jays”

  1. Dick makes a really good point about the "warning track" in Toronto. Why it's not dirt I don't know.

  2. I love that we have a Gardy special 3 catchers on the roster and all of them can mash

    1. Indeed. I feel like I may have been a hair harsh on Castro earlier. But man, hard to argue with what he's done the past couple weeks.

  3. Dick said "automatic double" rather than ground-based. Being around Morneau makes him smarter

      1. Seriously. He totally neutralizes all of Dick's worst tendencies and this current conversation about sticky bat stuff is really great.

        1. Honestly he does for Dick, to a large extent, what Corey did for Dazzle. I hope they give him an extended look once Bert phases out.

  4. The tables have turned in my house the last couple days. The new kitten is now chasing the older one around.

    1. I was kind of hoping to see Berrios out again, but I'm not entirely upset about it.

  5. The uncharacteristically prolific Twins offense has apparently overshadowed our uncharacteristically stingy starting pitching of late.

    1. In previous years, I've noted that this roster lives on the edge of a knife. If a couple guys underperformed or were injured, you'd have 90 losses, but if everyone was healthy and played near projections, you'd have 90 wins.

      This year, though, the holdovers are the guys you'd expect to do damage and the new guys were brought in for a reason, and are meeting those expectations. In other words, I'm very impressed with what the new regime is doing.

        1. I don't disagree with that. Some better bench options would be nice. So far, Baldelli has shown himself to be a very capable manager and he should be given every opportunity to manage.

            1. I like that there's pretty much no pressure as the rest of the team is mashing. Then again, maybe that will be pressure of its own.

  6. Just read that this is the first time the Twins have shut out opponents twice in a row since 2013. Is that possible? And against the Jays?! For real?

    1. The last time the Twins had held opponents scoreless in consecutive games had been June 2-4, 2013, when Scott Diamond and Sam Deduno led them to a pair of shutout wins over the Mariners and Royals.

      There are some names from dark times

  7. Best 34 game start in Twins history were 2001 and 1970, they were at 24-10. This year's record of 22-12 ties them with 1972 and 2010. The 1977 season's start of 23-11 separates the two groups. Two of those teams won the division and the other two finished third ('72) or fourth ('77).

    1. Twins did not win the division in 2001. They came in 2nd behind Cleveland.

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