Gibby on the mound for the Twins as they try to follow up on the beat down the gave the Indigious People yesterday. If Gibs can get it to the 7th he won't have Abad to help him out but who know by that time Max "Der Hammer" Kepler may have hit his 4th HR.
Cleveland needs this game as Detroit is suddenly breathing down their neck can they handle the pressure. Tune in at 6:10p.
For the first time this year, a sweep was not involved in the series. Once again, the good and bad from the series.
The bad:
The good:
Apathy has set in early this year. I don't know who the Twins are playing. The schedule says LAA, but who knows. Does it matter? Why can't the Twins win a game. WHY OH WHY.
So, I guess, play ball or something.
At least its finally warm outside.
The Twins dropped three straight at the defending champs to fall to 0-6. They will have to win Monday's Home Opener to match 2015's 1-6 horrible start, which they better do because Tuesday would be an awful time for an off day with the team sitting at 0-7.
The Twins not only have not won, they also have not scored more than 3 runs in a game. They haven't done that in 6 games since last June 6-12. That streak also involved 3 games with the Royals, although this time the series was at Target Field.
As for this series:
THE GOOD
Paying Off: Ervin Santana and Ricky Nolasco were both very good. They gave the Twins what the team was hoping for when they signed them to the two largest free agent contracts in franchise history. Santana gave up 2 runs in 6 innings with 7 strikeouts and 2 walks. Nolasco was even better, allowing just 1 run on 3 hits and no walks with 5 strikeouts in 7 innings.
Park Bang: Byung-ho Park hit his first major league home run on Friday. It was a no-doubter in a difficult park to hit it out of, especially with the wind blowing in. It also broke an eighth-inning tie.
Breaking Out: After going 0-for-Baltimore, Brian Dozier broke out in KC by going 4-for-11 with a home run and three walks.
Vaguely Familiar: Joe Mauer is looking like the Joe of old. He went 4-for-9 with 4 walks and an hbp in the series and is batting .400 with 1.069 OPS on the season. What's most exciting is he has improved is K/BB ratio with 4 Ks and 5 BBs. Prior to concussion symptoms ended his catching career, Mauer had more walks than strikeouts. The last two seasons, Mauer has had 127 walks and 208 strikeouts.
THE BAD
Blown Chances: The lack of offense has been the dominant storyline for the Twins, but the Twins still had two late-inning leads in this series and lost both games. Jepsen blew the lead in Game 1 about 3 seconds after Park's first home run landed with an assist on a questionable dive in left field by Eddie Rosario. Perkins blew the save in Game 3 with another assist on another ill-advised dive by Rosario. So despite the lack of offense, the Twins still should have won this series.
Painful Loss: After getting 4 hits in his first start of the season, Eduardo Nunez got hit on his right arm near his wrist and had to be removed from the game before taking the field in the 10th, which left the Twins with no backup infielders.
THE UGLY
Ineffectively Wild: Trevor May has been racking up the strikeouts, but in the 10th inning on Sunday, he walked the leadoff man, bounced a throw to first to send the winning run to third with no outs, and then, after keeping the runner at third with two outs, he then bounced a breaking ball in the dirt in front of home plate for a walkoff wild pitch.
Offensively Bad: There's not much to say that hasn't been said. It's been bad. The good news is that the offense isn't this bad. At least 5 regulars are well below projections and only 2 are above them. All players go through slumps. It doesn't help when a number of players are going through it at the same time. And because it is the start of the season, everything is blown out of proportion. It certainly would help to ease tensions for the batters if the bullpen could have gotten the team a win or two, but you would like to think these players have been around long enough at multiple levels to be able to figure it out soon enough on their own.
Different year, same start. Twins once again are swept in the opening series. It would be easy to say it worked out okay for them last year, but it didn't really. Yes they performed better than expected but they finished three wins behind the Astros. If they instead had swept the Tigers to start the season they would have at least had a playoff game.
I watched barely any of the games and had the radio on for only a plurality of the time so I'm going to fill in the bad and good from the boxscores.
Four negatives from the series:
Three positives from the series:
