All posts by cheaptoy

2014 Twins Game Logs

Game 56: The Minnesotas vs. The Milwaukies

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Whoa, I'm shocked I got this one in on time. I'm in Manchester for two weeks, so I likely can't follow the team. But, my rental car is a six speed diesel, so there's that.

Anyway:

Deduno (1-3, 3.86 ERA) vs. Gallardo (3-3,3.56 ERA)

Dedudes and his zoomy look to avenge Gibson from last night against the first place Brewers at the swampy confines of Miller Park.

I made it to England and I'm fairly surprised by how often I'm running across terminology differences that are giving me pause and making me have to think about communications. Truly two countries separated by a common language. I also did some driving around between the hotel and the airport (because the Apple maps gave me shoddy directions), and I'm struggling a bit to understand where the left side of the car is, so I've hit a couple of curves on left turns. I've also missed a couple of gears because my left hand refuses to do what my right hand does naturally. Starting today I should get to actually see some of this country instead of just the dumpster outside my hotel room window.

2014 Twins Game Logs

Game 49: The Texases vs. The Minnesotas

55 Comments

Welp, here's that losing streak we all feared. Maybe it won't be as bad now that some guys are back who actually have OF next to their name on their baseball cards.

Darvish (4-2, 2.35 ERA) vs. Hughes (5-1, 3.15 ERA)

Hmmm, not really the best guy to have to face to get out of this losing streak. Having Hughes starting this game combined with the Rangers injury woes should help give the Twins a fighting chance to avoid making it a 5 game streak. He's no Johan, but it's nice to have a guy that gives you the feeling that he can go out there while the team is struggling to win and give them a good chance at getting back on track.

I've used the featured image for a game log before, but I probably should have saved it for this game since its the Twins vs. the Rangers at the Bullseye. Hopefully this game goes as well as that one did.

2014 Twins Game Logs

Game 43: The Minnesotas vs. The San Diegos

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I'm going to run this naming convention into the ground, I think. Thanks, WGOM hall of fame voting process!

Kevin Correia (1-5, 6.80 ERA) vs. Ian Kennedy (2-5, 3.60 ERA)

On paper, this is not the best starting pitcher matchup for the Twins. Correia is about as ho-hum as it gets and has not been particularly good so far, although based on some percentages I think he's been at least a but unlucky. His HR/FB% and LD% are even a bit lower than career averages, so I'm thinking the lack of being able to strike anyone out is hurting him a bit.

Kennedy, on the other hand, has peripherals that look better than his ERA with a FIP of 2.55 and an xFIP of 2.80. He strikes guys out and Petco is probably keeping a lot of fly balls in the park. That 2-5 probably also has to do with pitching for a team with the suckiest of sucky offenses (dead last in OBP and runs scored in the entire MLB. But holy sh!t, the Astros have far and away the worst team batting WAR in the league. Man would it suck to be a Houston fan.). Of course, that suckiest of the sucky offenses should help cancel out that starting pitching mismatch and make this more of an even game.

Anyway, I expect this game log will be bS talking to himself (or possibly Spooky if he isn't working) for two hours once everyone else goes to bed.

2014 Twins Game Logs

Game 37: The Bostons at The Minnesotas

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Ricky Nolasco (2-3, 5.64 ERA) vs. Felix Doubront (1-3, 5.09 ERA)

The Twins return to the Bullseye after spending time in two crappy cities. This doesn't look like a matchup of guys who've gotten off to a good start this year. Doubront has been walking a bunch of guys and not lasting very long into games while Nolasco seems to be prone to the "In Play Run(s)" type of plays. The good news is that Nolsy's last couple of starts have been much better with some increased striking out of guys. Hopefully that trend can keep going tonight. Of course, as is the way of things, this will probably turn out like the last time I previewed an opposing pitcher who walked a lot of guys and hadn't been pitching well. Hopefully the Twin's band of merry infielders can keep the good feelings rolling after the Detroit series win.

For the brewers out there, I recently tried out a new hopping technique, first wort hopping. Flavor/aroma hops are added prior to the boil during the sparging process (could also be done during the grain steeping if doing extract with specialty grains). I made an IPA using this and kegged it on Saturday and wow, the hops really asserted themselves on my initial taste during the kegging process. I will report back once the batch is carbonated if anyone is interested. It better utilizes the hop acids meaning fewer hops could be used to get a similar effect. Plus, it simplified the boil quite a bit. Its always fun to try new things after all these years. Next thing I boldly try might be decoction mashing.

2014 Twins Game Logs

Game 31: Twins vs. The Clevelands

19 Comments

Starters: Samuel Deduno (and his Magical Zoomball) (0-1, 2.89 ERA) vs. Josh "Probably a Jeremy" Tomlin (Stats-less)

Dedsy returns to the starting rotation from his spot letting inherited runners in to score in place of Big Pelf, so regardless what happens tonight it'll almost surely be better than it could have been.

I wasn't able to follow last night's game at all. When I got home and checked the score, seeing Escobar as the guy who hit the home run was about as far from what I had expected as possible. At this point, I really don't see why Florimon is on the big club when the bench could really use someone who could actually provide some pop in those late inning situations. But, I suppose I don't control those things and the Twins are at .500, so there is that.

Anywho, tonights opponent is making his first start of the season, so this would seem like a really good game for Twin's hitters to get their walking mojo working. Tomlin's stats make him look a lot like a lot of the starters the Twins have trotted out over the past few years, striking out few and giving up runs. I have a good feeling their new organizational edict at the plate will prevent this from being a typical Jeremy game.

2014 Twins Game Logs

Game 19: Ace Matchup

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Gibson (3-0, 0.93) vs. Price (2-1, 4.39)

I think its safe to call Gibson the ace of this "staff" at the 11% point of the season after three good outings, with that last one being pretty stupendous. It may have been somewhat smoke and mirrors, since he's not striking out a whole lot of guys at 4.7/9, so hopefully we aren't looking at a Blackburn type of situation. I don't think that is the case, but I'm not the most optimistic of sports fans. I mentioned it last night in the CoC, but if Gibson can keep this going the starters for next year might be halfway competent, which would be nice.

His poor opponent is David Price, who recently got knocked around by the punchless Yankees, who are just 22nd in runs scored, but, like, top 5 in dollars per run scored (possibly as high as #2 behind the Dodgers). He's striking a bunch of guys out, though, and has had a couple good outings with a couple bad outings. Hopefully today is one of the bad outings.

On an unrelated topic, I used a new hoppinh technique on Saturday that was kind of fun called first wort hopping. Making an IPA, I took the hops I was going to use near the end of the boil (where flavor/aroma hops are added) and put them in the kettle during the sparge before the boil. This is said to increase the utilization of the flavor/aroma acids in the hops. It simplified things, for sure, and I'm excited to see how it turns out.

2014 Twins Game Logs

Game 13: Blue Jays at the Bullseye

39 Comments

Well, its time for the first Tuesday game of the season. This should be a good time with an expected game time temperature of 36º F. (goodness, could you imagine the Pelf pitching in this stuff? brrr) This seems like a good time for some birds to come into town (not that Toronto is any warmer), so the Twins will have that going for them.

Anyway, your starting pitchers for tonight:

Morrow (1-1, 5.73) vs. Hughes (0-0, 7.20)

I would expect a decent amount of strikeouts this game as both pitchers are striking out 1+/inning. Hughes has only gone five innings in each start, though against Oakland he had that bad first inning, then four good innings. Hopefully he keeps those good innings going and continues this trend of the starters eating some innings. It would warm my heart if, by the end of the year, Hughes showed that it was that awful place in NY that was the problem.

Taking a quick look at Morrow's game logs for his first two starts shows him pitching well at the beginning of games, but losing it a bit later on. It'd be great if Twins hitters could continue this trend of taking a lot of pitches. They lead the league in that stat, taking 4.14 PPA which has also put them atop the leaderboard in walks.

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Winter Storm – Wasted Feelings

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo2QI4EWC98

After agreeing to do this, I remembered I have only heard one new thing from 2013. I picked up Within the Frozen Design by Winter Storm because it sounded interesting and I have entirely too few albums and bands based around winter. Also, this is pretty good stuff and a change of pace within the symphonic metal realm from bands like Epica and Nightwish. (sorry about the lack of live-ness of this video. It was the only video from the band I could find. Also, that is the drummiest looking drummer I have ever seen.)

Continue reading Winter Storm – Wasted Feelings →

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