Tommy Hunter
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Francisco Liriano
Category Archives: Gamelog Archive
Archive for game logs from previous seasons.
Game 80 Recap: Twins 6, Orioles 4
Two Twins wins in a row. Is that a winning streak? I don't know, I'll take it over watching them get destroyed by one of the weakest offenses in the AL.
Fun game last night. It was definitely the Joe Mauer show. I'm glad he's back. I was going to write this whole recap about him today, but SBG pretty much summed it up in today's CoC.
It's going to rule when the Twins win 14 more in a row and get back to .500.
Game 89: Orioles 7, Twins 19!
Couldn't leave that one without a recap, though I did not see it or hear much of it.
Twins scored 7 runs in the bottom of the first, added 1 in the second, 2 in the third and another in the fourth. It wasn't until the fifth that they failed to score during the home-half of an inning. Meanwhile, Baltimore didn't put up a crooked number until the fifth and Diamond did what he had to do with all of the run support: finished 6 innings and allowing 5 runs on 9 hits while striking out 3 and walking 1.
Every Twins starter had a hit except Doumit who still managed to pick up 2 RBI and a run scored. Morneau went 4-5 to continue his hit streak as did Plouffe. Span only managed 5 RBI on 3 hits including 2 doubles. Mauer jacked a donger, just because he felt like it.
Oh, and just for fun, the Twins added 5 more runs in the 8th to get that nice round number - 20 hits on the night.
Thome did not hit.
Capps gave up a 2-run homer to Chavez and is hurt again.
2012 Game Logs: Game 90 O’s @ Twins
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It probably would have been smarter for the Twins to save their 19 runs for a pitcher like Evan Samuel Deduno rather than for pretty boy Nicky Scott Diamond.
I was starting to worry that the Twins might not win the division this year but to echo the Padre "I feel confident that if we score nineteen runs every game, it'll happen!"
2012 Game 89: Orioles at Twins
Happy vacation, Twayn!
It's the Return of the Gentleman Masher! Jimbo's last game in a Twins uniform was against the O's. How coincidental that his first second current return-trip to the Bullseye should be in an O's uniform.
Anyway, I know what I'm rooting for tonight: jacked dongers.
Of course, there WOULD be a lefty on the mound for the Twins in Scott Diamond, so maybe Jim will si
sit instead of start tonight. That would be absolute Boo.
In Diamond's last three starts, he has gone 7, 8 and 8, respectively, while allowing 2, 2, and 3 runs, respectively. He has emerged as the Koufax* of the staff, with a 2.62 ERA, 3.85/3.53 FIP/xFIP, and 45:12 K:BB in 79 innings.
His opposing number tonight will be Chris Tillman. In his only other appearance this season, July 4 against Seattle, Tillman went 8 2/3 of 2-hit ball, striking out 7 and giving up two runs. The big right-hander throws a mid-90s fastball, curve, and changeup. Tillman was part of the package, with CFer Adam Jones, for Erik Bedard back in 2008. He has had several cups of coffee since but struggled to put his game together in the minors (5.58 ERA, 5.31 FIP in 36 starts over three seasons prior to this year).
From the fangraphs piece by Jack Moore on July 5:
Tillman appeared to figure something out in Triple-A this year, striking out over a batter per inning again after dropping to under 7.0 per nine innings in 2010 and 2011. According to StatCorner, he drew 11.4% swinging strikes after marks below 10% in both 2010 and 2011.
Just a look at the radar gun readings shows what happened: Tillman’s fastball is back. He touched 97.2 MPH in the ninth inning — twice — after averaging just 89.5 MPH on his fastball last season. Tillman averaged 95.0 MPH on the fastball Wednesday, and every pitch saw an uptick in velocity — the cutter up to 93.0 from 84.2, the curve up to 77.4 from 75.2, the changeup up to 83.2 from 78.7 (a massive 12 MPH difference from the fastball).
Hopefully, he'll give Consuela and Morneau a couple of belt-high fastballs each tonight.
*Diamond is in his age-25 season. At age 25, Koufax went 18-13 with a 3.52 ERA and led the NL with 269 Ks in 255 2/3 innings while earning his first A-S appearance. So, umm, yea, it could happen.
Game 88: Athletics 9, Twins 4
Long balls v. no balls....long balls win.
Parker gets the win after his guys managed a cumulative 13 hits off of 5 different pitchers (out of 7 total used by the home club) including 4 more homeruns*.
Duensing gets the loss after a 41 pitch first and a total of 7 earned runs during his 2 completed innings. Poor shlub even walked in a run.
The Twins are now 36-52 (and a ghastly 17-28 at home) and 13 games behind the AL Central leading White Sox.
Good news:
Justin Morneau extended his hitting streak to 15 games with a single in the sixth.
Zach Parise threw out the first pitch before the game. That's right - the Wild signed a couple of amazing free agents this off season. Bring on the snow!
2012 Game 88: A’s at Twins
The Twins and their #30 run differential take on the A's again today. Jarrod Parker, whom I haven't heard of but doesn't seem to suck at all, faces Brian Duensing, whom I have heard of and is serviceable.
Span isn't playing for some reason. Feel free to worry about why that might be.
Game 87: Twins vs. A’s: The Video Game!
Yes, now you can relive the excitement of yesterday's Twins/A's game anytime you like. Just copy the following code and enter it into a QBasic shell, then run it. Exciting text baseball action!
10 PRINT "Welcome to today's game pitting the visiting A's against the Twins.
20 PRINT "It's a scorcher out here - hot as hell, really. I don't know how these guys are going to do it."
30 PRINT "Cole De Vries takes the mound, looks in for the sign, and here's the pitch."
40 PRINT "It's a thigh high fastball out over the plate, and the batter crushes it for a home run."
50 LET X=X+1
60 PRINT "The score is now" X$ "to nothing"
70 GOTO 30
You've got all that you need for a riveting game of baseball. Go to it.
Game 87: Twins and A’s
Coles De Vries takes the ball for the Twins tonight. I could have absolutely sworn when he was sent back to Rochester the first time that we'd seen the last of him. However, as it turns out, he's been pretty persistent, and here he is making his sixth start. He's rapidly becoming a semi-fixture in the rotation, and the fact that he's the second pitcher starting off the post-All Star break seems to imply that he might be here a while.
Is that a good thing? I suppose if we had an ideal major league roster, a 5.17 FIP (4.37 xFIP) wouldn't get my heart all aflutter, but looking over some of the rest of the rotation - Duensing (who I wish would just get left alone in the bullpen), Hendriks (is he still with us? It's always so hard to tell), Blackburn (I know he's not in the majors, but you know it won't be long...) - it's hard to say that he's the first person I'd drop.
The A's are sending out Tommy Milone, who's gotten decent results in his rookie season, but seems to be pretty heavily built up by a super low walk rate. If the Twins can hit some line drives, he'll be toast, and De Vries can pick up his third win. Not bad for someone I figured would be kicking it in Rochester for the remainder of his career.
2012 Game 86: Oakland Athletics at Minnesota Twins (Cities)
A.J. Griffen
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Francisco Liriano
Griffen makes his fourth career start tonight. He's pitched 18 innings and has a 2.00 ERA, but no win thanks to the A's offense.
The Twins have company at the bottom of the AL: the Mariners. They're tied at 36 wins but the Mariners are ahead in losses: 51-49. Along with the Royals, they are the only teams with fewer than 40 wins. With some good play against the A's and O's, the Twins could move into 23rd place! They're already ahead of four NL teams: Astros, Cubs, Rockies, and Padres with the Phillies narrowly ahead of the Twins.