These are excerpts from an hour-long piece, it's a really cool experience of rhythm.
JACK quartet always finds interesting projects. I enjoy some of them, some are pretty out there.
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Loading... Twenty games remain. The Twins have to go 10-10 to avoid 90 losses. Considering the non-locomotive-related disaster of the first month and a half and the trading away of Cruz and Berrios, avoiding 90 losses would be notable for this team.
Jorge Polanco might hit his 30th homer today!
Bailey Ober might have his 10th start in a row allowing 3 or fewer earned runs!
The Twins might even the season series against KC at 8-8 and move up to a tie for fourth in the AL central standings!
So many reasons to tune in.
Christmas 2019 - we collaborated with the grandparents who live in Tampa to get tickets for the Twins trip to Tampa in the upcoming 2020 season. It would be the little guy's 8th lifetime MLB ballpark in his eighth year. We were kind of unofficially doing our own little 30 in 30 thing.
Well, the Twins never went to Tampa in 2020. We rescheduled for this series, hoping travel would be prudent and attending a game would be an acceptable risk. It turns out that isn't the case either, so we are watching from home and rescheduling the trip again for 2022 (the Twins visit Tampa in April - can't wait to find out what will postpone it this time). We're still sitting on 7 ballparks and we've kind of lost our momentum. A tentative plan to knock out both LA ballparks next year is in the works, I'll let you all know.
Jorge Polanco is playing against the Rays today. He's got an .808 slugging percentage in his last 7 games and he is currently on pace to finish the season with 31 HR/98 RBI.
Also there's the rest of the Twins. Griffin Jax takes the mound.
The Twins seem to have the Brewers' number this year, if it wasn't for the combined efforts of Bad Colomé and Bad Dobnak on opening day, we'd be looking at the possibility of a season sweep. Instead, as the saying goes, we'll have to settle for 5-1 if they get a win today.
Josh Donaldson is doing well. In the last 5 series he's played 14 games in a row while hitting .309/.377/.582 which is in the rarified air that we call "a higher OPS than Jorge Polanco" for that time.
Luis Arraez has 365 plate appearances in 129 team games. If he goes 17 for 38 today, he would qualify for, and take the lead in, the AL batting race. His .303 average is 5th best in the league among those with more than 175 PA.
Griffin Jax is pitching today, bouncing back from a rough start against Boston. He had strung together a few good starts before that, and he won't be facing the Red Sox today so I choose optimism.
Over the next 12 days, the best women hockey players in the world will convene in Calgary and play a 10-team tournament that will set the stage for the 2022 Winter Olympics. In a fractured professional women's hockey landscape, this is a pretty rare opportunity to see the best in the world face off against each other in a way they don't often get to do.
Continue reading Women’s Hockey Whangdoodle: IIHF World Championships
First team to 10 runs wins! That's been the series so far, with blowouts going both ways in the first two games.
Brent Rooker sure likes hitting against the Rays, huh? 6 for 9 in the first two games, with 2 homers, a double, and not a single strikeout. This after going 0 for 11 with 9 strikeouts in the previous series against the White Sox.
Luis Arraez just likes hitting against anyone. I feel like he's the one in the lineup that I watch and think "but how does he do that?" the most often. After hitting only .304 in June, Arraez hit .373 in July and .417 so far in August.
Charlie Barnes starts for the Twins. That hasn't gone great so far this year, but maybe this time will be different.
Luis Patiño goes for the Rays and he's had one good start out of four since joining the rotation about a month ago.
Looking at the most recent starts for these pitchers, it just might end up being another race to 10 runs this afternoon.
Pineda yesterday means Maeda today.
It is oddly satisfying to me that the Twins kept two rhyming starters in their rotation after the trade deadline. I tried to come up with a fun couplet to describe the rotation, but I have been informed that Twins pitching and fun aren't allowed to go together.
We get another start from Big Mike! That's not something a lot of people thought would happen, but with Berrios and Happ gone, Pineda gets to be the veteran starter for the rest of this season. He's had two good starts since the All- Star break, classic Pineda starts of 5 or 6 innings, allowing 1 or 2 runs. You know, the kind of starts that apparently have no trade value.
Let's all take a minute to appreciate Jorge Polanco's July: .327/.366/.548, 6 HR
And there was Luis Arraez in July as well: .373/.415/.458
Alright, those are the positive vibes I got. Go Twins!
Huge week in the NHL offseason with the Seattle Kraken expansion draft on Wednesday and the entry draft on Friday/Saturday.
Continue reading Wild Whangdoodle: Drafting
That last game 82 didn't really go like the previous 6 or 7. Time to move on to game 92 today with J.A. Happ taking on Wily Peralta.
Jorge Polanco in July - .269/.304/.462
He's doing the whole "no walks, but more power" thing that he does sometimes, this right after drawing 6 walks and having two extra base hits in the last 10 games in June.
Max Kepler in July - .297/.350/.703
Any split that has Kepler hitting almost .300 is pretty remarkable. This is including his 0 for 5 yesterday.
