All posts by sean

2024 Game 23: Chicago White Sox at Minnesota Twins

Garret Crochet
vs
Joe Ryan

The 2023 Oakland Athletics got their fourth win on game 20 and by game 23 were 5-18. They scored 81 runs in their first 22 games (3.7 runs/G) while the White Sox have scored 50 (2.3 R/G). If the 2024 White Sox have one thing going for them compared to last season's Athletics, it's the 129 runs allowed through 22 games compared to the 178 runs allowed for the Athletics.

Crochet strikes out a lot of batters, doesn't walk many, and gives up a few too many home runs but everything else is good enough for his 3.86 FIP. His current ERA of 5.61 comes from being shelled in his last two games. The Twins need to study the Phillies game and repeat that for today.

2024 Game 5: Minnesota Twins at Milwaukee Brewers

Chris Paddack
vs
Joe Ross

Paddack gets his first start after his second Tommy John and Joe Ross gets his first start since his second Tommy John. I'm wondering how often this has happened.

Announced attendance was 41,659. Pretty good for an early season, Tuesday afternoon game. MLB increased the difficulty for the getaway game: a Wednesday day game. This has long been my suspected reason why these games are scheduled for the middle of the week: guaranteed attendance boosts on hard to draw dates.

Lineup:
Julien 2B
Kiriloff LF
Buxton DH
Kepler RF
Correa SS
Santana 1B
Castro CF
Jeffers C
Farmer 3B

2024 Game 1: Minnesota Twins at Kansas City Royals

Pablo López
vs
Cole Ragans

Opening Day Lineup:
Buxton CF
Jeffers C
Lewis 3B
Correa SS
Santana 1B
Kepler RF
Farmer 2B
Castro LF
Margot DH

It's Opening Day. This winter may not have been too active but it was less dark than many previous offseasons of postseason failure. Buxton mans center, Lewis and Correa are on the left side of the infield, and a great pitcher opens the season for the Twins. Here's to the first win of 162.

2023 LCS Games 3 and more

Game log for the LCS games if anyone wants to talk about this baseball thing.

Wednesday:
Astros vs Rangers, in progress.

Thursday:
Phillies vs Diamondbacks, 4:07 p.m., TBS

Astros vs Rangers, 7:03 p.m., FS1

Friday:
Astros vs Rangers, 4:07 p.m., FS1

Phillies vs Diamondbacks, 7:07 p.m., TBS

2023 Game 168: Houston Astros at Minnesota Twins (and NLDS Games 3)

José Urquidy
vs
Joe Ryan
FS1 at 6:07 p.m. CDT

NLDS games:
TBD vs Aaron Nola, TBS at 4:07 p.m.

Lance Lynn vs Brandon Pfaady, TBS at 8:07 p.m.

Urquidy's strikeout rate is down compared to last year (6.4 K/9 compared to 7.3 K/9 last year), his walk rate is up (+1.5 BB/9) and his home run rate is steady yet high (1.6 HR/9). All of these things match up well with what Twins batters can feast on. The rest of the league already has with his 5.39 ERA this year in 61 innings. I doubt Houston will let him pitch deep so Twins need to get their scoring in early and often.