Monthly Archives: July 2019

2019 Twins Game Logs

Game 103: Duplicates at Bleached Footwear

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Apparently battling the White Sox is easier than battling the Yankees or A's, or... any good team, really. Apparently pitching Jose Berrios helps too.

Tonight Big Mike gets to keep the train rolling, and, more to the point, hopefully the batters do their part against Dylan Cease in his 4th big league start. So far he's faced the Tigers, Royals, and Tampa, none of whom are quite known for their offense in the same way, so... this should be a good test for the kid. Of course, these new guys often present their own kind of challenge, so hopefully the Twins can solve him early and thoroughly.

A few more HRs would be nice too. We haven't passed a previous year's HR total in almost 24 hours.

Also, I adore that the White Sox have a downward facing arrow in their signage. Someone really wasn't thinking there, were they?

Minnesota Twins

2019 Trade Deadline

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It’s been a while since Twins fans could look forward to the trade deadline with confidence the club was a full-on buyer, so it seems like we deserve a dedicated post to discuss rumors, share wish lists, and react to any deals the front office makes.

For convenience, here’s a hotlink to all MLBTR posts tagged for the Twins.

Bonus points to the Citizen who identifies the pitcher in this photo without cheating.

Friday Music Day

FMD 7/26/19: Slow Down, You Move To Fast

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Well, as of this week, we've made it through just about every major summer activity our family had planned. Baseball is done. Softball wrapped up. Other softball finished a little while ago. Vacation Bible School and other Vacation Bible School are completed. Summer Recreation has wound down. Family camping trip has been camped. Summer birthdays have been celebrated.

It's been a busy two months, and now we get to sit back and hopefully relax a little bit.

So let's talk relaxing songs today. Not just the slow ones, but the legitimate relaxing ones. Songs that seem to help your worries subside and increase the dopamine flowing to you brain, or however that biochemistry stuff works.

And drop a list if you got one.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–July 26

Sam Breadon (1876)
Brick Eldred (1892)
Sad Sam Jones (1892)
Larry Woodall (1894)
Paul Gallico (1897)
Alex Radcliffe (1905)
Sam Leslie (1905)
Ellis Kinder (1914)
Jimmy Bloodworth (1917)
Sibby Sisti (1920)
Hoyt Wilhelm (1922)
Norm Siebern (1933)
Pete Ward (1937)
Ken Kaiser (1945)
Jody Reed (1962)
Greg Colbrunn (1969)
Joaquin Benoit (1977)
Kevin Jepsen (1984)
Brandon Morrow (1984)
Alex Burnett (1987)

Sam Breadon owned the St. Louis Cardinals from 1917-1947.

Brick Eldred got over two thousand hits in the Pacific Coast League, playing there thirteen years.

Paul Gallico was a sportswriter from 1919-1936.  He went on to become a noted writer and is best known as the author of The Poseidon Adventure.

The brother of Double Duty Radcliffe, Alex Radcliffe played in the Negro Leagues from 1932-1946 and played in eleven all-star games.

Ken Kaiser was an American League umpire from 1977-1999.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–July 26 →

2019 Twins Game Logs

Game 102: Minnesota @ Chicago White Sox

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Berrios
-vs-
Giolito

Minnesota & Chicago have identical 3-7 records over their past 10 games and both have lost two in a row. The difference being, the Twins faced the Yankees, Athletics, Mets (derp) and Cleveland while Chicago managed that against the Marlins, Rays and Royals. On the season, Minnesota has scored 576 runs and given up 468 for a run differential of +108. The White Sox have plated 418 and given up 514 runs for a differential of -96.

So ... you're thinking this should be a bounce back game series after the heartbreaker on Tuesday and non-competitive start last night? We'll see - 24-year-old Chicago Ace and former 1st rounder Lucas Giolito has seemingly "figured it out" over 19 starts this year to the tune of 3.14 ERA, 1.092 WHIP, 134 K's in 112.2 innings pitched. He's leading his team in WAR at 3.8 (a full 'Win' ahead of their #2 player, catcher James McCann). All that said, 3 of his 4 losses have come in his past four starts (though the lone 'W' in there was against the Twins on June 30).

After watching Twins starters struggle mightily over the past 10 games (only Gibson secured a starter 'W'), it'd be nice to see José Berríos get the group back on more solid ground. Unfortunately, Berríos hasn't won a start since June 6 (1-3 w/ 4 no decisions) though he has had some nice games where the Ass Bats© did him no favors - he's had 5 or more runs of support only three times in that span. We can only hope that the seemingly awakened Bomba Squad continues to hit; José - and the club - could use a laugher.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–July 25

John Tener (1863)
Cy Williams (1913)
Whitey Lockman (1926)
Larry Sherry (1935)
Buddy Bradford (1944)
Fred Scherman (1944)
Mick Kelleher (1947)
Biff Pocoroba (1953)
Marc Sullivan (1958)
Doug Drabek (1962)
Torey Lovullo (1965)
Ed Sprague (1967)
Billy Wagner (1971)
Guillermo Mota (1973)
Javier Vazquez (1976)
Santiago Casilla (1980)
Alex Presley (1985)

Pitcher/outfielder John Tener was the president of the National League and also became governor of Pennsylvania.  For 1914-1915, he did both jobs at the same time.

Cy Williams was a long-time major league scout, working for the Detroit Tigers for thirty years.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–July 25 →