2023 Twins Game Logs

2023 Game 1 – MN Twins vs. KC Royals

67 Comments

Opening Day greetings from Minnesota, the land that spring forgot. Outside there are still two feet of snow on the ground and there's a winter storm watch until 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning. Game time conditions in Kansas City, though, should be more pleasant, about 68 degrees and breezy. There's a reason our home opener is never on actual Opening Day.

To say last season was disappointing for Twins fans would be an exercise in understatement. So many things that could have gone right went wrong, and it far too often involved severe bodily harm to key players. By most accounting, if not for a plethora of injuries late in the season the Twins would have won the division. But those are the vagaries of the game that make it so maddening and endearing, and keep us coming back for more year after year.

You generally put your ace starting pitcher on the mound for Opening Day. For Kansas City, that means Donald Zachary Greinke and his 223 career wins, 2882 strikeouts, and 3.42 ERA. It will be the seventh Opening Day start of his career. The Twins, I believe, selected their Opening Day starter by draw and Pablo Lopez pulled the short straw. He'll go to the mound for his first ever Opening Day start with 28 career wins, 489 strikeouts, and a lifetime 3.94 ERA under his belt.

I have no prognostications to offer for how this season will go for the Twins, my crystal ball is perpetually hazy these days. Conventional wisdom says don't be surprised to see the Twins and Guardians battling it out for the division title again come September, but every season starts with a big old question mark. If we're lucky along the way and enough things go right, we get to end it with a giant exclamation point.

Play ball!

 

 

 

67 thoughts on “2023 Game 1 – MN Twins vs. KC Royals”

  1. I'm hoping Greinke can reach 3000 strikeouts. His 70 strikeouts last season says he will end up short.

  8. Missed the start of the game, had to deal with the squirrel that Marty and/or Lily just killed.

    1. Yeah, it's great. I see it like baseball is the stuffing in an Oreo cookie, and now we get 5 double-stuff Oreos instead of 6 regular Oreos.

      We basically just rewound the clock to a time before Nomar and Knoblauch and other time-wasting pioneers started doing all kinds of fidgety shit between innings.

    2. Watched the last 5 innings at the local brewery. The pitch clock was a little unsettling to me as I was out of my rhythm. It will take a while to adjust to when viewing somewhere in which I am easily distracted.

      1. I suspect that we all had adjusted to the languid pace. We will adjust again as the pace gets back closer to the historical norms of yore.

    1. I think this Gameday is an improvement. I could do with less whitespace, but being able to see both rosters, the play-by-play, and the pitch location all at once is better.

      Looks like the page is responsive too so that's nice.

      1. True. I don't know about you, though, but I have the score blocking out most of the portion of the strike zone that isn't covered up by the top white space.

        1. I have the page full screen and nothing is covered up. I edit live edit the HTML to get rid of the ad bar at the top. I can't replicate the score blocking the zone however. I can get close at very narrow widths to block out the head of the batter but never down to the zone.

          Okay, at 240 pixels I can get the pitch identification to block part of the zone. Plays fully cover the zone.

  13. I'm appreciating the new uniforms in action. Looking forward to getting myself a new M hat this summer.

      1. Disagree. I hated the old M. For this one, the fact that another team has a similarly awesome M isn't reason to dislike this one. Royals having baby blue wasn't a reason to dislike our baby blues, was jt?

          1. I don't find it hard to like multiple great options. Beatles and Rolling Stones? Yes please.

        2. The new M sucks. The new M looks like the Marlins.

          And the old M was great. Two world championships. Bring back the old M!

          1. Now you're just trolling. And re-asserting the very point I was responding to, which, I'd point out, is not a rebuttal. Flow that point across, I win the debate.

            Also, by this logic, Target Field sucks. So... I think I win this point too.

            1. No. I'm saying the new M sucks AND it looks like the Marlins. It doesn't suck just because it looks like the Marlins.

              And the old M was great.

              (And I'll admit the Metrodome had much more to do about those championships than the hats.)

                1. I can tolerate this more than the other... That old script M was just ugly and unbalanced.

                  1. I agree compared to the old m, the star makes sure of that. But I'll still only ever get TC hats

                    1. Same here. I always go for the TC hats. Hated the old M. Holding off on an opinion on the new M for a few more weeks.

  24. Watched the first 5 innings with the Poissonnière while introducing her to play Iota. I’m not sure how much she will retain; I caught her sneaking a lot of looks at the broadcast.

      1. The crowd in KC last summer was noticeably more annoyed that I didn't stand than anyone ever has been at Target Field

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