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I might be wrong here but I am pretty sure that Francisco Liriano, when starting on Tuesdays in 2011, only throws no-hitters.
Sorry for the shortness of this preview but I am going to be spending most of the week in Rochester this week. I will come back with scouting reports on Ray Chang, Chase Lambin, and Toby Gardenhire to make up for it.
So, about that winning streak. It was nice, wasn't it? The last two games, not so much.
Tonight, Our Boys make an appearance on Monday Night Baseball on the 4ltr. I'm sure we are all excited to have the nation see our AAAA (AAA?) squad take the field. Will Cuddyer play shortstop?? Go team!
Game time: 6:10 p.m. Central.
Pitching matchup:
Nick Blackburn (4.41 ERA, 5.53 FIP, 4.47 xFIP, 6.18 tRA, 15:13 K:BB, 6 HR, 34 2/3 innings)
Josh Beckett (2.35 ERA, 3.14 FIP, 3.26 xFIP, 3.07 tRA, 35:12 K:BB, 3 HR, 38 1/3 innings)
On paper, this one does not look good. We get Blackie instead of F-Bomb, who has been suffering from "Flu-like symptoms." Mebbe next year, the team can set up a flu shot clinic, please?
Blackburn has been awful in three of his six starts so far, having given up five runs each on April 15 and April 20, then seven in 3 1/3 horrible innings at home on April 28. But there are glimmers of hope, as his other three starts have been quite good, including a solid 6 2/3 inning outing to beat the Bitch Sox on May 4. When things are going well, Blackburn is a league-average pitcher who doesn't miss many bats, but who generates a lot of ground balls. In his three good outings, he induced 35 ground balls against only 17 fly balls and 9 line drives. In his three bad outings -- 27:19:16.
For his part, Beckett has been good-not-great so far. I see some hope in that he gave up 7 fly balls and 3 walks in a rain-abbreviated 4 1/3 innings against LAAAAAA on May 4th in his last start, and got hit hard by the Orioles (4 runs on 2 HR, 10 fly balls and 5 LDs in 6 innings) the start before that.
Fenway Bandbox isn't the sort of place you want to be giving up a lot of fly balls in, so let's hope the Good Blackie shows his beard tonight, and Beckett pipes a few to the Dude and Mountie.
Pavanostache (2-3, 5.84 ERA, 1.35 WHIP) vs. Dice-K (2-3, 4.33, 1.33)
Happy Mother's Day, all! MLB marks the day with breast cancer awareness. Any batters who want can use a pink bat. Plus, you'll see pink armbands and cleats, and possibly even gloves. This subject is near and dear to my family as both of my boys' grandmothers have had breast cancer. Fortunately, both were caught early and both are in remission.
Still, this is a worthy cause and not one to be taken lightly. Plus, it's a good reminder to make sure to give your mom a hug (or a call if like me you can't be with her today).
As for the game, Carl Pavano needs to get rid of the beard. He needs to return to the Pavanostache that intimidated hitters into submission last year.
The Twins need to show patience at the plate. Dice-K alwayshas been prone to control problems in the major leagues and the Twins need to take advantage of that. Maybe this can be a breakout game for Justin Morneau. He's 6-for-12 with a home run and two doubles against Dice-K.
This game would have been a media circus if Nishi hadn't gotten hurt. Oh well. At the very least, the Twins can improve to .500 in their last 14 games with a win today. Plus, it would guarantee a split in the series with a chance to win it tomorrow. Let's get er done. Go Twins!!!!
Well, hey! I'm able to post a game log from my phone. Good times.
Last night's game was a lot of fun. In fact, the last few games have been. I'm under no illusions that everything's gotten better, but as long as they can fake it until a couple folks get off the DL, we could turn this thing around.
Time to give one of baseball's more annoying fanbases just a little more to bitch about.
Knuckleball pitchers may be ageless, but Wakefield's time machine finally broke. Nonetheless, I think he will have a long leash in today's game. Knowing the Twins' offense, they might not be able to score enough runs in a single inning to knock him out of the game and expose the tired bullpen. Instead, they will have time to perfect the single/walk, steal, sacrifice, sacrifice (fly) strategy.
The Red Sox used their entire bullpen for Wednesday's game, including Wakefield, for a 13 inning game in which the starter lasted 4.1 innings. Naturally, the starter in yesterday's game also lasted a mere four innings, but it was mop-up time after that and anyone important was saved for today's game. The Sox have yet to top .500 after failing two previous times. Hopefully the Twins don't notice the "Red" part and treat these Sox like their bleached brethren.
What a difference a day makes.
TWINS
1. Denard Span, CF
2. Matt Tolbert, SS
3. Justin Morneau, 1B
4. Jason Kubel, RF
5. Michael Cuddyer, DH
6. Rene Tosoni, LF
7. Danny Valencia, 3B
8. Drew Butera, C
9. Alexi Casilla, 2B
Pitcher: Blackburn
WHITE SUX
1. Juan Pierre, LF
2. Alexei Ramirez, SS
3. Adam Dunn, DH
4. Paul Konerko, 1B
5. Carlos Quentin, RF
6. A.J. Pierzynski, C
7. Alex Rios, CF
8. Mark Teahen, 3B
9. Omar Vizquel, 2B
Pitcher: Danks
Go Twins!
v
There is a saying here in Buffalo, New York about our football team, the Bills. It goes something like "I don't care if the Bills go 2-14 every year as long as the beat the Dolphins those two games". I am sure Vikings fans have a similar saying about the Packers or the Bears or whomever it is Vikings fans deem their biggest rivals. It's funny because I honestly believe that statement to be true. Well, maybe not every year, but if there were a season or two where the Bills only won two games I would be pleased to stick it to those south beach jerks who wear aqua and white.
Now, I know the Twins have been playing poorly. You can chalk it up to injures, ass-batting middle infielders, me giving my child the middle name of Mauer, or whatever else it is you want to blame. You could write off the team this season for all I care. But I will tell you what, if you can't get up for a Twins/White Sox game I don't know if there is any hope for you.
Sure, a baseball team going 18-144 would be embarrassing-- no question about it. But hell, wouldn't it be great it those 18 wins all came against the White Sox?
WARNING:
Watch this game at your own risk. The writer of this game log assumes no risk or responsibility to what may happen to you if you do watch this game. Watching Twins baseball in 2011 has been known to cause shortness of temper, stomach pain, nausea, violent fits of rage, depression, deep despair, uncontrollable weeping, extreme cravings for alcohol, convulsive arm muscle spasms, flying remotes, cracked television screens, uncontrollable shouting of expletives, incontinence and impotence. Some fans have even begun to believe that Bert Blyleven and Dan Gladden know what they are talking about.
Remember, you have been warned.
I'm pretty sure that this recent stretch is a loyalty test for Twins fans. The team has managed to look absolutely awful since that tiny hopeful stretch last weekend. I choose to handle this game log the same way I've handled all Twins conversation for the past week or so...
I'm going to change the subject.
Beer brewing has been going well. I'm actually brewing up a batch of Wisconsin Spring Porter right this very minute... hang on, let me check my temperature.... looking good.... Time to add in some maple syrup.
I do have one question for all the brewmasters that this place has accumulated. How does one achieve the balance between getting enough hops into the beer, without adding a ton of sediment? When I made my hopnog, it had fantastic hoppy flavor (like, really hoopy tasty flavor), but since I ended up tossing the hops directly into the wort, it ended up with a ton of sediment, which I'd prefer avoid, since the final product was good, and tasty, but also quite heavy and near opaque. Last time, we steeped the hops, rather than toss them directly in, and the finished product had less sediment, but also less hoppy flavor.
Regardless, beer brewing is becoming a very enjoyable hobby, and the compliments the finished product has received ar sort of addicting (most of my friends have never had homebrew before, so their reviews end up anywhere from "damn tasty brew" to "best beer I've ever tasted".) So I'm pretty happy with what's been going on thus far. It's a great hobby to get into.
Oh wait... this is a baseball-related site? Oh.
Duensing vs. O'Sullivan - I'm tired of impassioned entreaties, I'm tired of excuses, I'm tired of the reasons that we haven't been winning lately. Just win. Watching baseball is about a hundred times more fun when the cheered for team wins, so get on that. Go Twins!
Well that sucked. It does amuse me that the team most often picked to win the division is doing just as well as the Twins. I think only Detroit is doing roughly as expected, though the Royals are very quickly returning to their expected level.
This is an awful streak and it's magnified by starting the season with it. If only there was some way to look at streaks within previous, full seasons...
First, some notes about this season's streak to compare to previous miserable streaks. The Twins have scored 77 runs and given up 124 runs, which comes out to 3.2 scored versus 5.2 against.
In 2010, there was a period when the Twins didn't play particularly well in the middle of the season. Concerning, yes, but no hysterics about it. Taking a look at 2010, I note that from games 85 to 94, seven times were the Twins 9-15 over the previously played 24 games (e.g. games 62-85 the first time). They also were 8-16 once and 10-14 twice. During the 8-16 stretch, they scored 109 runs and gave up 131 runs. That's 4.5 runs/game and 5.5 runs/game respectively. In terms of wins it was worse, but the run differential is just shy of one run a game instead of two runs per games.
Let's try another year that also started poorly but ended up okay. Like 2006. Oh look! They also started 9-15 and hovered around 10-14 for quite a few consecutive 24 game stretches. That was a frustrating early 46 games. Anyway, they scored 96 runs and gave up 148 runs to start the season. And that's with a True Ace anchoring the staff. That's an even 4 runs/game scored and 6.2 runs/game given up. And it got worse! From games 3-26, those figures were 3.7 and 6.1 respectively.
Going earlier, I see in 2003, the Twins were as bad as 6-18 with similar run differentials to this season's differential. Games 72-95 for instance they were 7-17, scored 79 runs and gave up 137.
Now, I am not saying things are going to go just like 2006 and the Twins will have a historically great second half of the season or they finally put some pitcher into the rotation and he pitches quite all right. Instead, awful stretches happen during seasons that otherwise end well. Truthfully, I do not foresee any big changes like in 2003 or 2006 that will dramatically alter the team's true talent level. They could continue to suffer from injuries and finish worst in the division, it happens, but that's a worst case scenario even now and acting like it's fated to be is, well, stupid.