Category Archives: 2016 Twins Game Logs

Twins Game 139: Royals at Twins

Big Erv Santana back on the mound for the Twins in the proverbial first game of Fall.  Kids back in school, kinda rainy forecast, home town nine 3,567 games out of first place.  I'm guessing you could get a ticket for cheap if so inclined.  Things to watch for:  Can Brian Dozier keep up his Home Run assault on the Royals? Can Byron Buxton keep his nice little batting approach going?  Now with the roster expanded what fun line-ups will we see?  It's all we got folks, cherish it.  Four weeks from now we won't have any Twins baseball.

2016 Game 137: Hosers at Twinkies

First pitch 1:10 p.m. CDT

Anthony Ranaudo (1-1, 8.76 ERA, 13 K, 1.476 WHIP)
Andrew Albers (0-0, 6.97 ERA, 8 K, 2.129 WHIP)

I remember Andrew Albers debut a few years ago when Gardy ended a complete game bid by pulling him in the 9th inning of shutout due to pitch count. I bitched about it for almost a week, right up until Albers' next start when he pitched a complete game shutout. This will be Albers' first major league start since 2013. I hope it goes as well for him as his first two major league debuts. On another note, Byron Buxton has man muscles and runs like a cheetah chasing dinner.

Play ball!

Game 134: White Sox At Twins

Tonight's game features the Twins best starter* of 2016 - Ervin Santana (6-10, 3.54 ERA, 118 ERA+, 1.201 WHIP) who, in pitching for a bad team, is 4-3 in his past 7 starts (49 IP, 13 ER's, 11BB:40K, 2.39 ERA, with an average of 4 runs of support) including a 2-0 loss to Atlanta on July 26, and a 2-1 loss to Kansas City on Aug 21.

The Twins offense will see Jose Quintana, quietly(?) having the best year of his career (11-9, 2.77 ERA, 147 ERA+, 1.103 WHIP). Quintana, also pitching for a (pretty) bad team, is also 4-3 in his past 7 starts (48.2 IP's, 10 ER's, 8BB:38K, 1.85 ERA, also with an average of 4 runs of support).

Based on the remarkable similarity of their results over their past 7 starts, tonight could be a very fun game if you like pitching.

The Twins are 2-2 against Quintana this season, losing their first two meetings, but beating him on June 28th & July 29th (though he recorded 8 & 9 SO's in those games respectively).

RECAP
-The Twins are 49-84 (6 wins behind their Pythagorean projected 55-79) and are on pace for 102 losses.
-60-102 would tie their worst W-L% since moving to Minnesota - their 1982 record.**
-A loss tonight ties the Twins longest losing streak of 14 games, set between May 19 - June 2, 1982. (The Senators lost 18 consecutive games at least four times: 1903, '04, '48 & '59.)
-Thankfully, they've got a ways to go to catch the '88 Orioles at 21 games lost in a row, or the modern-era-leading 1961 Phillies with a 23 game losing streak.

On a more positive note, highlighted by dw early this morning, Dozier has accumulated 5.4 WAR*** this year, and at 2.5 WAR so far, Joe Mauer is only .6 WAR behind Kirby Puckett on the Twins career WAR list at 50.3, good for 6th all time.

*No other Twins starter has an ERA below 5, though reliever Ryan Pressly is 6-6 with a 3.65 ERA in 62 games
**There are 9 Senators teams with worse W-L%'s
***A career best. Maybe it goes without saying that 32 HR's and 81 RBI's (so far) are also career bests