Kevin Correia takes the hill for the Twins, Masahiro Tanaka does the same for the Yankees. Tanaka's been pretty fearsome so far (2.61 FIP, 10.1 K/9 against only 1.3 BB/8, league leading ERA, if you're into that sort of thing). Correia....has definitely pitched baseball games for the Twins.
Gotta say, this pitching matchup doesn't look particularly promising.
Deduderino (1-2, 3.14 FIP) takes on Ryan Vogelsong (2-2, 4.12 FIP)
Vogelsong was out of the big leagues for four years. I did not know that. Either way, I think this game depnds on the coin flip that is Sam Deduno. If he's on, I think the Twins can make it work. If he's not... man, I dunno.
I'll probably catch up with the tail end of this one. If anyone drops by, I hope they save a seat for me.
...the quest to rise above .500 continues.
I think it happens tonight. Deduno is going to have one of his terrifyingly beautiful games, and Dozier's going to hit a home run on a pitch that was intended to be an intentional ball.
It's been a nice, busy day, full of golf and lawn mowing. Now it's time for a brat, some beer, some bird watching, and a Twins win.
Wei-Yin Chen takes the mound for the orangebirds today. He's been serviceableish this year. Part of that has been the fact that he's been getting absurdly lucky on fly balls (3.4 FB/HR Rate, which makes up a huge part of the fact that he's cut his HR/9 ratio in almost a third). Let's see if the Twins can't shake that up a bit.
Kevin Correia tries to defend our honor today. He's also been fairly lucky with the homerun ball. xFIP thinks he should be pretty bad, though maybe not quite as bad as the 7.33 ERA suggests. I, having seen him pitch this year, call it an overly optimistic flaw of the statistic. If he keeps allowing everyone to slap the ball silly AND some of the many fly balls he's allowing start flying over the fence? We could be in for some Pelfreyesque times.
I'm expecting a 30+ run game. Hopefully all of those runs don't go to one team (because if they do, I can't imagine that they'll go to the right one).
Go Twins!
Can I just state for the record how incredibly tired I am of the awful starting pitching? That's been covered? In depth? Good.
I probably won't see much of this one, because I'll be raking and planting grass in the front yard (had a sewer line put in last fall). I expect to come back and see that Hughes struck out 12 in 5 innings before giving up 4 home runs in the 6th. We'll still win, though, because the offense voted "least likely to amount to anything" has turned out to be chock full of overachievers.
Go Twins!
Also, it's time for "Twins on Leaderboards", because that's fun.
rWAR (position players) - Dozier, 8th (1.0)
rWAR (position players) - Plouffe, 9th (1.0)
Batting Average - Kubel, 10th (.319)
OBP - Plouffe, 8th (.412)
Plate Appearances - Dozier, 3rd (109)
Plate Appearances - Mauer, t-6th (107)
Runs - Dozier, 1st (23)
Runs - Mauer, t-2nd (19)
Runs - Plouffe, t-4th (18)
Hits - Colabello, t-6th (28)
Total Bases - Colabello, 10th (46)
Doubles - Plouffe, 1st (10)
Doubles - Colabello, t-2nd (9)
Triples - Fuld, t-1st (2)
Triples - Arcia, Florimon, Plouffe and Kubel t-10th (1)
Home Runs - Dozier, t-3rd (7)
RBI - Colabello, t-1st (27)
RBI - Suzuki, t-6th (19)
Walks - Dozier, 4th (17)
Walks - Pinto, 5th (16)
Walks - Mauer and Plouffe, t-6th (15)
Strikeouts - Mauer, t-7th (26)
Stolen Bases - Dozier, t-5th (6)
Stolen Bases - Florimon, t-9th (4)
Singles - Mauer, t-4th (22)
Extra Bases Hits - Plouffe and Colabello, t-6th (12)
Times on Base - Plouffe, t-3rd (42)
Times on Base - Mauer, t-6th (40)
Times on Base - Dozier, t-10th (38)
Times on Base - Plouffe, t-3rd (42)
Sacrifice Bunts - Florimon, t-3rd (2)
Sacrifice Flies - Suzuki, t-3rd (3)
Intentional Walks - Mauer, t-3rd (3)
Caught Stealing - Colabello, t-4th (2)
Power/Speed - Dozier, 1st (6.5)
AB per SO - Suzuki, 10th (9.8)
AB per HR - Dozier, 4th (12.9)
AB per HR - Pinto, 8th (14.5)
Outs Made - Dozier, 8th (72)
WPA - Colabello, 3rd (1.0)
Well, gee, that was pretty fun...
...now on to the painful side of things
Wins - Fien and Gibson, t-3rd (3)
W/L% - Fien, t-1st (1.000)
W/L% - Gibson, t-10th (.750)
Saves - Perkins, t-4th (5)
Games Started - Nolasco and Correia, t-1st (5)
Home Runs Allowed - Nolasco and Pelfrey, t-6th (5)
Walks - Pelfrey, t-5th (15)
Hits - Nolasco, 1st (43)
Hits - Correia, t-3rd (37)
Losses - Correia, t-3rd (3)
Earned Runs - Nolasco and Correia, t-2nd (22)
Wild Pitches - Gibson, t-2nd (3)
Games Finished - Perkins, t-4th (8)
Well, at least Fien is having fun vulturing some wins.
Twins have Correia.
Royals have Chen.
My father-in-law's computer has a virus.
Go Twins.
I bought my yearly pack of baseball cards yesterday. I acquiesced to Lindsey and bought a pack from last year, just on the offhand chance that I'd get a Morneau as a Twin. I told her that the odds were ridiculously low.
So, of course I pulled a Morneau.
I also pulled this.
It's got to be a sign. Of what, I don't know. Maybe it's a sign that he'll get traded for an outfielder that will later be waived so that the Twins can keep a washed up infielder as a fourth outfielder. I'm assuming reality itself wpuld collapse at that point.
What I'm trying to say is that Florimon has a .080 average that seems unlikely to improve at all. I'm guessing it will go down further by year's end.
Nolasco on the mound. Speaking of dire predictions, I'm guessi g Nolasco finishes the yesr with a 9 ERA.
GO TWINS.
Kyle Gibson and the Twins take on Carlos Carrasco and the Clevelanders. Carrasco has, to this point, seemed like the type of pitcher that the Twins could have success against (a righty who doesn't strike out a ton of people and a ground ball pitcher who seems let the ball find the seats with regularity). Meanwhile, Kyle Gibson's had a rough start to his major league career, but that all ends now, I'm sure.
Your starting lineups:
Twins
Dozier, 2B
Mauer, 1B
Willingham, LF
Colabello, DH
Plouffe, 3B
Kubel, RF
Pinto, C
Hicks, CF
Florimon, SS
Clevelanders
Morgan, CF
Swisher, 1B
Kipnis, 2B
Santana, DH
Brantly, LF
Cabrera, SS
Murphy, RF
Gomes, C
Chisenhall, 3B
Go Twins!
Spooky asked me to put this up yesterday, since he was going to be on the road.
I should've scheduled it, but that'd be too easy, so I'm putting it up on the fly while I get ready for work.
I got out to the lake at 7 for an ice fishing tournament that starts at noon. Yaaay?
