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.
The Wild have bought out Parise and Suter.
They will be paying them $833,333 each for the next 8 years, and their hit against the salary cap will be as follows.
2021-22: $2.37M
2022-23: $6.37M
2023-24: $7.37M
2024-25: $7.37M
2025-26: $0.833M
2026-27: $0.833M
2027-28: $0.833M
2028-29: $0.833M
If they hadn't been bought out it would have been $7.54M for the next four years.
Bill Guerin apparently didn't buy into the short season's success against weak competition in California and is building for 4-5 years down the line?
I don't know how else to interpret this one.
Jose Berrios v. Wily Peralta
Last game before the All-Star break, and the Twins have a chance to get to a tie for third place in the division with a win.
Twins haven't had a lot of luck getting wins in Berrios starts of late, losing the last three games despite Berrios allowing only 5 earned runs in 18.1 innings in those three games. Surely that will even out today and we'll get to see good pitching and good hitting combine for a Twins win.
Lucy Ellmann - author of the fantastic Ducks, Newburyport has an essay collection coming out.
Her publisher live-tweeted one of her essays in which she lists things which are "crap". 257 tweets, and it's fun to find the thing that makes you say "now, hold on."
144/ Mindlessness ditto. #LucyEllmann #ThingsAreAgainstUs
— Galley Beggar Press (@GalleyBeggars) July 5, 2021
Anyway, that's as much as I got for reading intro this month. Half-baked crap I tell ya.
What are you reading?
Maybe Kenta Maeda will give us a reason to watch?
I am kind of annoyed that the Royals used 5 relief pitchers yesterday and not a single one of them blew the lead. It's some weird new definition of "relief pitching" that seems particularly unfair when deployed against the Twins.
Happy 4th of July everyone! I hope your weather is nice and your neighbors fireworks last only until bedtime and no longer.
J. A. Happ v. Hentges
My rudimentary weather prediction skills say this game will probably be played.
Remember in 2019 how the Twins would get rained out and then hit like 10 homers the next day? I feel like that happened a couple of times (LA and Baltimore?).
Let's channel that energy today and turn it into a series victory.
Kenta Maeda goes for the Twins as they pursue their second sweep of the season.
Let's talk series wins this season shall we?
* There were those first two series, when the beat the Brewers and the Tigers. Followed by 5 series without a series win
* Then they won a series against the Royals at the end of April. Followed by 6 series without a series win
* Then they beat Cleveland two out of three and swept the Orioles. Followed by 6 series without a series win before arriving in Texas.
Enough of that. Yuck.
Amazingly, the Twins have managed to split enough Friday-Saturday games (they've done that 10 times while never winning both days or losing both days until this weekend) that they could end this weekend with .500 or better records on all the weekend days.
Friday 6-5
Saturday 5-5
Sunday 4-5
It's weird to be excited about .500 records, but here we are.
