Archive for game logs from previous seasons.
Chris Young
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Kyle "No More Staff Ace" Gibson
Last week the Twins were in fourth, almost fifth, place. This week they are in third, almost second or fourth, place within the division. The Tigers remain as far ahead of the Twins at last week. I am okay with that and if it remains true for the rest of the season, I will be more than okay.
Chris Young has a 2.63 ERA but a 4.80 FIP. The Mariners have a good defense, but not that good. Time for the Twins to initiate some regression to the mean.
Busy today. Here's a game log. Go team!
Today's "I don't want this pitching matchup to exist" pitching matchup is Felix Doubront vs. Kevin Correia. At the near-quarter mark of the season, the Sawks are 19-19 and the Twins are 18-19, still treading water with the rest while the Tigers sit well in front as expected.
You know, this team may not have me "excited," but it's nice to be playing .500 ball for a while. If we can get it for another month or two leading into the ASG, I think I'd be fairly satisfied.
Ricky Nolasco (2-3, 5.64 ERA) vs. Felix Doubront (1-3, 5.09 ERA)
The Twins return to the Bullseye after spending time in two crappy cities. This doesn't look like a matchup of guys who've gotten off to a good start this year. Doubront has been walking a bunch of guys and not lasting very long into games while Nolasco seems to be prone to the "In Play Run(s)" type of plays. The good news is that Nolsy's last couple of starts have been much better with some increased striking out of guys. Hopefully that trend can keep going tonight. Of course, as is the way of things, this will probably turn out like the last time I previewed an opposing pitcher who walked a lot of guys and hadn't been pitching well. Hopefully the Twin's band of merry infielders can keep the good feelings rolling after the Detroit series win.
For the brewers out there, I recently tried out a new hopping technique, first wort hopping. Flavor/aroma hops are added prior to the boil during the sparging process (could also be done during the grain steeping if doing extract with specialty grains). I made an IPA using this and kegged it on Saturday and wow, the hops really asserted themselves on my initial taste during the kegging process. I will report back once the batch is carbonated if anyone is interested. It better utilizes the hop acids meaning fewer hops could be used to get a similar effect. Plus, it simplified the boil quite a bit. Its always fun to try new things after all these years. Next thing I boldly try might be decoction mashing.
Gardy got ejected because Joe West is an umpire
Kurt Klutch does it again. Suzuki has had a reputation for getting important hits. It's difficult to find stats that will back up that "clutchiness" is a repeatable skill, but Suzuki has had this reputation when he was in college, I remember Oakland commentators talking about it when he was with the A's and now he's carried that through so far with the Twins.
Of course, it could be just a guy that isn't a good enough hitter to expect anything from, so when he does get a hit in an important situation, it's a pleasant surprise. So far, pretty much everything about Suzuki has been a pleasant surprise other than the fact that his daily presence in the lineup is stunting Josmil Pinto's development as a catcher. Oh, well.
The real story of the game was the continued excellence of Phil Hughes. On the season, he has a 5.33 K/BB ratio and in his last 4 starts, all wins, he has an incredible 15/1 K/BB ratio. He hasn't been dominating, but he has a respectable (for Twins standards anyways) 7 K/9 rate. With extremely good control so far, he's done a pretty good Brad Radke impersonation.
Hopefully, the Twins can get healthy and start scoring runs like they did at the beginning of the season. The Twins managed to win three games while Mauer has been out, but two of those victories were 1-0 and 2-1, so that won't last long at all.
Danny Santana continues to smack the ball around, so hopefully Gardy will continue to play him most of the time and let him learn through his mistakes in the field because he has the skills to more than make up for them.
We've already got a comedy of errors going, down 3-0 in the second as everyone from Santana to Joe West bumbles around, but I suppose I'll put this up anyway.
Never mind. Cabrera jacks one out to make it 6-0. I'll be bailing as I post this, I suspect.
Philip Hughes
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Justin Verlander
The Twins are tied for fourth place, a half game behind the third place Royals. The Tigers have increased their division lead. I suspect it will be insurmountable when the Twins leave town. Insurmountable for the other three teams of course. It was impossible starting in mid-2011 for the Twins.
Twins have a chance to even the series before moving on to Detroit.
Continue reading 2014 Game 33: Minnesota Twins at Cleveland Indians – STRANGELY EARLY DAY GAME ALERT
As usual, the Twins are within a game of .500 as today's game begins. Two pitchers having a rough go of things - Danny Salazar and Ricky Nolasco - will try to get back on track today in what looks like it might be a season-long four-way battle for second place in the Central (yes, I know it's too early to assume such a thing, but if ESPN can talk about the AL East race, I'm allowed).
Photo courtesy of Erik Drost
