Mendoza
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Duensing
Next Wednesday, the Twins will have completed half of the season. One of the things I love about baseball is the sheer number of games. It's more fun when the number of losses stops climbing so quickly, but with so many games we can ignore all of the crappy games and have plenty of great ones to remember.
With so many games however, it soon becomes expected that there's a game tomorrow. We still have 87 games left, but the day that ends is in sight.
Nick Blackburn
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Homer Bailey
Unfortunately, as is the case with bad teams, the hot streaks are short lived. The Twins are below .400 again, ensuring Seattle remains easily in 13th place. They are ahead of Colorado now though, so they've fallen out of a top-three draft pick.
Yovani Gallardo
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Francisco Liriano
Time to start another series winning streak. The Royals just swept the Brewers, so surely the Twins can take at least two out of three, right? The Pirates are next and although they have a winning record, B-R's SRS system rates them a -0.5, so there's another winnable series. Just burst the bubble that needs to be burst before something drastic happens, like the Pirates making it to the postseason. Finally, uh, let me check the master schedule I have saved to keep the sidebar updated... Right, Cincinnati is next and they're actually kind of good. That's okay, just take things one game at a time and work your way up to a bit of a challenge. Because then it's the White Sox next and it's always fun to beat them.
Kyle Kendrick
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Nick Blackburn
As already explained by Gleeman earlier, today's matchup is going to involve a lot of balls in play.
Samardzija
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Diamond
The Twins are 8-2 in their last ten games, which is the best in the majors. Plus, they're only a game and a half behind the Royals. Time to beat up on some more NL teams and move firmly into "mediocre".
Travis Wood
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P.J. Walters
Finally a game where the Twins have the superior record.
Carl Pavano
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Derek Lowe
Lowe shutout the Twins last time. Pavano was rumored to be quite jealous, as Lowe did it without a single strikeout. Lowe then did okay against Miami and followed that by giving up eight runs in 2.1 innings against the White Sox. He did strike out three that time though, giving him his highest K/9 for a game ever (probably).
However, that was then. Today, I expect dead grass leading to the infielders and tired outfielders as each pitcher continues to one-down the other with fewer strikeouts in the quest to pitch to impact.
Drew Smyly
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Anthony Swarzak
The Twins are doing their best to keep the number of starters used this year to a minimum. For which I'm glad of course. Resist needing more than 11 starters!
Also, the answer is:
63-1481 0.04080
Jason Marquis
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Zack Greinke
[insert nibbish's flawless reasoning from yesterday here]
Scott Diamond
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Marco Estrada
You heard it here first: Scott Diamond is going to break shatter Hershiser's scoreless inning streak.