All Star Nelson Cruz is out of the lineup because he tweaked his neck after sneezing. Pretty much suns up the season.
Game is on ESPN and BSN
All Star Nelson Cruz is out of the lineup because he tweaked his neck after sneezing. Pretty much suns up the season.
Game is on ESPN and BSN
Maybe Kenta Maeda will give us a reason to watch?
I am kind of annoyed that the Royals used 5 relief pitchers yesterday and not a single one of them blew the lead. It's some weird new definition of "relief pitching" that seems particularly unfair when deployed against the Twins.
Happy 4th of July everyone! I hope your weather is nice and your neighbors fireworks last only until bedtime and no longer.
I've liked Wolf Alice on and off since their debut album a while back, but their albs have always struck me as a bit uneven. Their newest, Blue Weekend, fixes a lot of that, and it rocks, besides.
I always figured they'd put on a real good live show, and this clip seems to confirm that.
Oh, and Griffin Jax takes on the Royals, if you're into that sort of thing.
The Twins have played a lot of Friday night baseball against the Royals this season. Here's how that has gone:
April 30th - Win!
May 28th - Loss
June 5th - Loss
I was hoping for a pattern so I could say they were due or something. Instead we get J.A. Happ pitching again. Let's see what happens!
In Progress in case anyone cares...
Bailey Ober
vs
Dylan Cease
Closing in on 50% of the season finished so lets take a look at what the projections think for the final half of the season.
Pro-rated Record: 69 - 93 (+3 wins since last time)
Runs scored: 757 (+7 runs)
Runs allowed: 860 (+38 runs)
Pythag prediction: 71 - 91 (-4 wins)
Offense has picked up some but the pitching/fielding was much worse over the last 20 games. The pro-rating now expects the Twins to give up an additional 38 runs since I looked at this at the beginning of the month.
FanGraphs now projects 77 wins for the season, down two wins from last time. This still feels about right. If they win tonight, that will put the June winning percentage at .480 and above May's .448. Losing will drop it to .440.
Lineup
Arraez - 2B
Donaldson - 3B
Larnach - LF
Cruz - DH
Kepler - RF
Kirilloff - 1B
Gordon - CF
Rortvedt - C
Simmons - SS
It's the first of 7 6 games against the White Sox in the next two weeks and with the Twins at 10 games under .500 and 11.5 games behind the Sox, one would normally think who cares, GOSO right? But the White Sox are struggling: losing 7 of their last 9 games and the numerous injuries they have suffered are finally catching up with them, especially at the plate and in the field. So if the Twins are going to salvage the season, the time is now.
Meada v. Geolito so should be a fun pitching match-up. Twins have actually fared pretty well against Geolito as he has a 5-7 record with an ERA of 4.74 and 77 strikeouts in 14 appearances against the Twins in his career.
First pitch as 7:10 although there is still some chance of rain. I have a feeling they will try to get the game in regardless.
Twins Lineup
LF - Arraez
3B - Larnach
RF - Cruz
DH - Cruz
CF - Kepler
2B - Polanco
1B - Kirilloff
C - Jeffers
SS - Simmons
J. A. Happ v. Hentges
My rudimentary weather prediction skills say this game will probably be played.
Remember in 2019 how the Twins would get rained out and then hit like 10 homers the next day? I feel like that happened a couple of times (LA and Baltimore?).
Let's channel that energy today and turn it into a series victory.
Does it feel like the Twins went 4-2 this past week? I guess I kind of recall that they had a free good games, but wouldn't have guessed a .667 record, necessarily. The Twins have largely stabilized, but they obviously need to do a lot more than that to dig out of the hole they flung themselves into.
Today, the hometown nine match up against this same uninspiring, but somehow competitive Cleveland team. The season series is tied so far, so hopefully, King Kenta's comeback from the IL , which has been pretty good so far, keeps on rolling.
So I guess we've been reduced to a bullpen game. Having such an outstanding bullpen as we do, I'm sure that's going to go fantastically.