Can Cleveland change its name already? The Cleveland Rocks! or Cleveland Awesomesauce or Cleveland Our River Is Not On Fire Anymore.
Anyway, Pelfrey for the Twins. Bauer for the Rocks!
Go Twins Go!
All posts by davidwatts
Game 28. Twins hosting A’s
Game in progress
Game 23 recap: Twins 1 White Sox 0
Has Kyle Gibson turned a corner, or did he look good against a White Sox lineup that cant score runs? Its probably a little of both but it resulted in another Twins win over the White Sox . Gibson had his sinker working, of his 24 outs recorded 13 were ground ball outs, 2 by fly ball and 4 by strikeout. Perhaps the Nick Blackburn comparisons/ceiling projections are not that far off base. The Twins led 1-0 after 8, but Paul Molitor decided that was enough and sent Glen Perkins in for the 9th to get the save and preserve the shut out.
Jose Quintana had himself a nice game too, going 7 innings and giving up 1 run. The run was scored by the speedster Kennys Vargas. While on second, Vargas tagged up on a ball to medium deep CF and scampered home on a wild pitch. The Twins have run at will on center fielder Adam Eaton's arm. And really, he has shown no accuracy and his throws so I think that trend will continue.
The Twins will try to win another one Saturday. Game time is 1:10pm.
NOTES
- After a 1-6 start, the Twins are 10-6 and are only 1 game below .500
-Torii Hunter collected two hits. Its his 3rd game of 20 played where he has 2 or more hits.
-Brian Dozier did NOT score a run, breaking a 5 game run scoring streak (plating 8 times in those 5 games). Dozier has scored at least 1 run in nine of the last eleven games.
-This is the third time in Gibson's career he has recorded 24 outs. He has not pitched a complete game.
-This is the third team shutout for Twins pitching. It took until May 21 last year to reach that mark.
- Roster Moves: Twins will activate Ricky Nolasco & Brian Duensing & have optioned Tommy Milone & Caleb Thielbar to AAA.
Game 23: White Sox at Twins. 7:10 pm
Go Twins Go!
Game 18: Twins at Seattle
Game in progress
Game 16 recap. Seattle 2 Minnesota 0
Phil Hughes was awesome. 8 innings, 9 strikeouts, 0 walks (natch), but two solo home runs as all King Felix needed as the Seattle Mariners beat the Twins 2-0 in a game played in a little over two hours.
Hernadez was dominant early, taking a perfect game into the 5th inning before Trevor Plouffe hit a solid single. The Twins made some waves in the later innings of the game but could not plate the run. The best chance was in the 6th. Suzuki reached 2nd on a hit/error combo. Moved over to 3rd on an infield single by Jordan Schafer (he made one bunt attempt but whiffed), but Hernandez slammed the door.
One is supposed to cheer for the home team, and perhaps I am underselling how awesome Phil Hughes pitched tonight, but I appreciate good baseball and watching King Felix is pretty darned good. I dont have a MLB package and the Mariners are never on national TV, so I dont get to watch him as often as I would like. Perhaps the M's will be half way good this year and get some national love.
NOTES
- Phil Hughes has 2 complete games as a Twin. Both are 8 inning losses.
-This is Hughes' 4th career complete game. His first complete game was a shutout. But only 6 innings in a rain shortened game.
-Other pitchers with 2 CGs as a Twin: Brian Duensing, LaTroy Hawkins, Livan Hernandez, Les Straker, Luis Tiant, Bill Campbell, and more.
-Schafer's 6th inning infield single broke a 0-21 slump. Perhaps his time as a Twin is done at the end of April.
-This was Hernadez's 24th career complete game and 10th shutout. CC Sabathia lead active players with 38 CGs and Tim Hudson leads with 13 SHO
-The Twins had 5 hits, all singles. This is the third time this year they have been extra baseless.
-The is the third time the Twins have been shutout. The first two happened in Detroit in games 1 and 2.
Game 15: Twins at Seattle. 9:10 central time.
West coast baseball for a short spell. The beginning of this game will compete with the Wild game so make sure you give your thumb a warm up before you furiously flip back and forth between the two games.
On paper, this is a good pitching matchup. Phil Hughes throws for the Twins, King Felix for Seattle. I hope the Twins win 2 out of 3 this weekend.
Game 10 recap: Twins 3 Cleveland 2 (11 innings)
This game started with the current Cy Young Award winner pitching like one and ended with Blaine Boyer getting more outs than base runners allowed and a Trevor Plouffe HR to win the game. Baseball is fun!
Mike Pelfrey. He was a pretty poor sport about being sent to the bullpen during Spring Training. But, he just can't get past 5 innings. Does he not realize this? I know Im not breakingHe pitched OK today (5 innings, 1 run) but seemed to peter out by the 4th inning.
Corey Kluber had perfect game material. By the end of the 3rd inning, I thought it was going to happen. He got through the first 15 batter before Arcia got a solid single. Then TWINS BASEBALL happened. Wild pitch, then a single with a throwing error scoring Arcia, then a fielders choice, then a sac bunt (with Herrmann breaking for home, then going back to third when he realized he was going to be out Santana was safe at 1st) , then a wild pitch on strike 3 scores a run, then a IBB, then a double play to end the inning.
Things were pretty quiet after that, with a couple of situations arising but fires put out.
This game seemed destined to go about 15 innings and Chris Herrmann pitching his second inning and Torii Hunter catching but Trevor Plouffe ended it with a mammoth HR to left field and the locals win 3-2.
NOTES
-According to b-r HR Tracker, this is Plouffe's first walk of HR.
- Plouffe has 9 career HR's against Cleveland. Only Kansas City (11) has given up more
-Plouffe has 37 career HRs at Target Field. That is the most. Shockingly, Jose Bautista does not have 52
-Joe Mauer was intentionally walked twice tonight. That gives him 117 for his career, which is 8th most active and tied for 86th all time (Larry Walker and Ron Cey)
-Blaine Boyer got a win today, his first as a Twin. Other notable Twins pitcher with 1 win include Vance Worley, Kyle Waldrop, Luis Ayala, RA Dickey, Jim Hoey, and a host of others.
Game 10: Twins hosting Cleveland 7:10 pm.
The Twins are on a winning streak! Only two games but I'll take it.
Cy Young Award winning Corey Kluber throws for Cleveland. Since this years lineup is mostly the same as last year, lets go back and look what Kluber did against the Twins.
2014-09-21 @MIN W 8.0 7 2 2 1 14 0
2014-09-11 MIN W 8.1 8 2 2 0 7 0
2014-08-21 @MIN L 7.0 6 3 3 4 8 1
That jumbled mass of number says Kluber was very good against the locals. Mike Pelfrey goes for Minnesota. Lets hope he makes it at least 6 innings and keeps the run total low.
Game 4 recap : Twins 6 Bad Guys 0.
Its always nice to get a win. To me, its always better when that win comes against the Southsiders. The sun shines brighter, the birds sing happier, the Twins Twittersphere has less angst.
The Twins wasted no time to get on the scoreboard as Joe Mauer knocked in Eddie Escobar and the score was 1-0 after a half inning. That is all Tommy Milone needed. Milone allowed only 2 hits and walked 2 in 7.2 of work, the longest a Twins starter has pitched this season. At one point, Milone had retired 16 straight White Sox batters. Its weird seeing a Twins pitcher be that stingy with base runners. Lets hope its a trend and not a mirage.
Back to the offense, The Twins walked 9 times today (3 IBB's), got a few extra base hits, and its resulted in 6 runs. I am not expecting 6 every night, but loved seeing the batting order churn over and over.
Get your rest, the Twins next game is in a few hours. 1pm central.
NOTES
-Paul Molitor notched his first win as manager. He needs 34 more to pass Johnny Goryl
-Brian Duensing got a save. He came in the 8th inning after Milone gave up a double to Tyler Flowers. Then the Twins erupted for 3 runs in the 9th. Molitor decided to keep Duensing in, even though Perkins was warming in the pen during the 9th. Its Brian's 2nd career save.
- WGOM.org's favorite player Torii Hunter stole a base in the 9th. Its his 127th as a Twin. There are only 4 players who have stolen more bases as Twin than Hunter: Kirby (134), Cesar Tovar (186), Rod Carew (271), and Chuck Knobluach (276)
- The Twins shut out opponents 7 times last year, with the earliest being April 17 against Toronto