All posts by nibbish

Game 107: Twins @ Red Sox

Time is running out for Ben Revere. If he's going to hit an honest-to-God over the fence homerun, you'd have to figure it'd be here or New Yankee bandbox. The problem, of course, is that in his entire career, he's only hit four balls in the air out of the infield. Things look grim, but this is the ballpark that has walls just over 300 feet from the plate (seems gimmicky, but I've been assured that it's not) If he really got into one, and the wind was blowing out at about 30 miles an hour, and the fielder Canseco'd it, he might have a shot.

Cole DeVries takes the ball for the good guys today. I've mentioned it before, but I really thought that when DeVries was sent back down that first time that he was gone for good. Instead, he's pretty much become our second best starter. I like his strikeouts, such as they are*, I love his walk rate, if he can figure out how to avoid throwing two or three BP fastballs every single game, I'd be good with him the rest of the way. Good Lord, though, those home runs... he gets grounders on fewer than a third of the balls hit in play, and a full 15.8% of those fly balls leave the playing field. If he keeps this up, I don't know how we're going to be able to rely on him come playoffs.

Clay Buchholz is also pitching, but he's a thoroughly mediocre pitcher, and no one cares about him.

* Fun Fact: At 6.2 k/9, DeVries has the highest rate of any of our starters (including injured ones), and the third highest strikeout rate of any pitchers who are still with the team who have pitched more than 15 innings this year. How is that even possible??

Game 94: Twins @ Royals

Diamond (8-3, 2.96 ERA) vs. Mendoza (3-6, 4.32 ERA)

The sparkle has faded ever so slightly from Diamond, but he's still been far and away the best starter we've had. Even a slightly scuffed up Diamond is worth more than a Blackburn.

Besides. The Royals only managed one run in seven innings against the guy who was on pace to have the worst ERA+ ever. Diamond has to pitch a good 8 hitless innings, right?