The Twins meet the Jays once more after a week or so of moving in opposite directions. Scott Diamond goes for the Twins, and I sure as heckfire do hope he's not ruined after his injury. The Jays start something called Todd Redmond, who has four appearances in his life, and just one start (not this year). He was mildly serviceable as a starter in AAA, having two meh years in 09-10, a nice year in 11 and an okay year in 12. I can't imagine he projects to be a long-term starter in the majors, but hey, I'll root for him starting after this game.
Go Twins! We're now double-digit games under .500. Let's fix that.
Sabathia vs. Walters. This would be one of those games where I would actually expect the Twins to win just because they shouldn't, which is the beauty of baseball. However, it is the Yankees and so this can only end one way.
We're halfway through the season and the Twins are about where we thought they would be. At least we can look forward to Gibson starts now (like tomorrow), so there's that.
YANKEES
Gardner CF
Ichiro RF
Cano 2B
Hafner DH
Almonte LF
Overbay 1B
Steward C
Cruz SS
Adams 3B
Sabathia LHP
TWINS
Dozier 2B
Mauer DH
Doumit C
Morneau 1B
Plouffe 3B
Arcia LF
Hicks CF
Thomas RF
Florimon SS
Hughes (3-7, 4.82 ERA) vs. Lake Deduno (4-2, 3.32 ERA)
Ugh, I'm not sure if the demoralizing defeats were worse back when the Yankees actually had a scary lineup, or if its worse watching Gardy trot out what I assume (without being able to see) is a Jared Burton with a lingering health issue followed by a Deunsing who can't get righties <em>or</em> lefties out night after night. I think the latter is worse when taking into account the number of pitchers on the roster.
On the bright side, the Yankees and Twins are similarly behind the leaders in their division, so we got that going for us.
I had a pretty nice game log all ready to go today, but we won't be using it because it's on my laptop. I'm writing this on my backup PC, which I built about the same time that Gardy took over as manager of the Twins. It's slow. Painfully slow. Matt LeCroy slow. Sloths laugh at things this slow. But it's all I've got until I can eradicate the apparent malware that has basically bricked my laptop.
The Twins open a 4-game series tonight against the team we all love to hate. The Yankees send 41-year-old Andy Pettitte to the mound. We know what he can do. He's beat the Twins in his last seven starts against the hometown nine. The Twins counter with Scott Diamond, who has struggled in has past few starts while posting a 1-3 record since June 2nd. But for once it actually feels like the Twins match up pretty well with the banged-up Bombers sans ARod and the Cap'n. We'll see.
Both teams hit some homeruns...and doubles - 22 hits between 'em. In the end, the Royals did just enough against Twins pitching to eek out a "W".
Positive note - after going a very long stretch of the season without a HR, Mountie has doubled his HR total in the last 10 games to 4. Trader Clete now has 3 on the year...le sigh.
In other news and to much less fanfare - the NHL held it's draft. Colorado selected 17-year-old center Nathan MacKinnon with the first overall pick.
