Category Archives: Gamelog Archive

Archive for game logs from previous seasons.

2014 Twins Game Logs

Game 31: Twins vs. The Clevelands

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Starters: Samuel Deduno (and his Magical Zoomball) (0-1, 2.89 ERA) vs. Josh "Probably a Jeremy" Tomlin (Stats-less)

Dedsy returns to the starting rotation from his spot letting inherited runners in to score in place of Big Pelf, so regardless what happens tonight it'll almost surely be better than it could have been.

I wasn't able to follow last night's game at all. When I got home and checked the score, seeing Escobar as the guy who hit the home run was about as far from what I had expected as possible. At this point, I really don't see why Florimon is on the big club when the bench could really use someone who could actually provide some pop in those late inning situations. But, I suppose I don't control those things and the Twins are at .500, so there is that.

Anywho, tonights opponent is making his first start of the season, so this would seem like a really good game for Twin's hitters to get their walking mojo working. Tomlin's stats make him look a lot like a lot of the starters the Twins have trotted out over the past few years, striking out few and giving up runs. I have a good feeling their new organizational edict at the plate will prevent this from being a typical Jeremy game.

2014 Twins Game Logs

2014 Game 30: Twins v. Tribe

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After Opening Day and Home Opener posts last month, I've been sitting the bench so long I nearly forgot it was my turn to do another game log. Tonight the Twins invade Jacobs Progressive a baseball field in Cleveland to commence a 4-game series with the Indians. The Twins enter the series in second place, 4.5 games behind the Tigers, who stole a 3-game march on the rest of the division last week. A win tonight restores the Twins to .500 on the year.

On the hill tonight, the Twins feature Kyle Gibson (3-2, 4.34 ERA) while the Indians send right-hander Zach McAllister (3-2, 8.82 ERA). Mauer may or may not play and Colabella is turning into a pumpkin, but my non-sexual man crush Brian Dozier will be there to pick up the slack. It's been fun watching this team, because it really feels like a team again. When one or two guys struggle, a couple others step up to carry them. Let's hope that carries through for several more months.

Play ball!

2014 Twins Game Logs

2014 Game 28: Orioles @ Twins

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Wei-Yin Chen takes the mound for the orangebirds today. He's been serviceableish this year. Part of that has been the fact that he's been getting absurdly lucky on fly balls (3.4 FB/HR Rate, which makes up a huge part of the fact that he's cut his HR/9 ratio in almost a third). Let's see if the Twins can't shake that up a bit.

Kevin Correia tries to defend our honor today. He's also been fairly lucky with the homerun ball. xFIP thinks he should be pretty bad, though maybe not quite as bad as the 7.33 ERA suggests. I, having seen him pitch this year, call it an overly optimistic flaw of the statistic. If he keeps allowing everyone to slap the ball silly AND some of the many fly balls he's allowing start flying over the fence? We could be in for some Pelfreyesque times.

I'm expecting a 30+ run game. Hopefully all of those runs don't go to one team (because if they do, I can't imagine that they'll go to the right one).

Go Twins!

2014 Twins Game Recaps

2014 Game 27: Orioles 3, Twins 0

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This is exactly why the Twins brought Ricky Nolasco to Minnesota. He's not going to dominate too much, but they need him to be the veteran presence they can count on to keep the bullpen from falling apart.

The Twins spent three days waiting around to play a game, then played three games in 27 hours and were suddenly so desperate for bullpen help, they actually added a 14th pitcher to the staff.

Gardy is certainly a man who knows how to expect the worst. Even with Logan Darnell in the bullpen, he was sweating it out knowing how worn out the other eight relievers were following an exhausting 15 innings of work the previous two days.

However, Nolasco said, "I got this," and pitched all nine innings and held the Orioles to 1.5 runs below their average, although his task was made a mite easier by facing Twins castoff Steve Pearce four times instead of Chris Davis.

Of course, since baseball is a crazy game, the Twins couldn't do anything against Ubaldo Jiminez, who has been terrible this season mostly because of very bad control. The Twins lead the world in walks, so of course Jiminez only issues 1 while striking out 10.

The lone bright spots on offense were hits by Sam Fuld and Eduardo Escobar, who are trying to solidify themselves in the lineup in place of the struggling Aaron Hicks and Pedro Florimon, although it is hard to say if Florimon is struggling since he's never hit in the first place. Fuld will be playing every day for at least the next week while Hicks recovers from a concussion. Meanwhile, top shortstop prospect Danny Santana was just called up after Mike Pelfrey pulled a groin while watching Dodgers' hits flying off their bats. Santana should be in the lineup instead of Escobar to see how he handles it, but Twins assistant GM Rob Antony has indicated that Escobar will continue to play and Santana will be mostly on the bench. That might be better for the Twins for the next few weeks, but it won't help Santana's development and will just be a waste of his service time.

In the past, Gardy has tended to play the prospects even when they are up for a short time. Hopefully, he will stick to that. In the meantime, the Twins have three shortstops and no true backup center fielder. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Twins trade Florimon for a veteran center fielder to back up or even platoon with Fuld if Hicks' concussion symptoms persist or if the Twins decide that Hicks needs to figure things out in AAA.

If only Byron Buxton hadn't gotten hurt.