Archive for game logs from previous seasons.
ANAHEIM 7, MINNESOTA 1
Record - 51-60 (4th in Central, 1.5 games out of 3rd, 8.0 games out of first)
Highest WPA - N/A
Lowest WPA - Liriano (5.0 IP, 7R, 10H, 2 BB) and the entire lineup (6 for 32, HR)
-------------------
Another frustrating game in a season that seems to be an exhaustive collection of frustrating games. Knowing the kind of year Dan Haren was having, it was difficult to be optimistic about the Twins chances, but Minnesota left no doubt as to the outcome of this one.
The infield of non-infielders (well, 50% non-infielders anyway) had a very difficult time turning balls in play into outs. Seeing as how this is kind of an important part of playing defense, it's not surprising things turned out poorly. No errors were awarded, but it sure seemed like the Angels got a lot of extra outs.
F-Bomb was not particularly great. Some of that was the defense behind him, some of it was his own fault.
In addition to the defense being subpar and the pitching being subpar, the offense was (say it with me) subpar. While the Angels were building a comfortable lead, the Twins sent 22 hitters to the plate to record the first 21 outs of the game. Jim Thome's 598th career HR leading off the 8th ruined the shutout, and seemed to open the floodgates as the next three hitters singled. Those three singles led to no runs, in fact they lead to an out as Danny Valencia slid into Jeff "The Wall" Mathis and still hasn't touched home plate. Add baserunning to the subpar side of the equation.
Add it all up and the Twins were well under par for the day. Maybe they should take up golf.
Alright, who's hanging around for tonight's game? Last night was worth staying up for, but the previous game wasn't. How does tonight's look?
Francisco Liriano 7-8, 106 IP, 7.47 K/9, 4.84 BB/9, 4.67 ERA, 4.35 FIP, 4.35 xFIP, 0.9 WAR
Dan Haren 11-6, 161.2 IP, 7.29 K/9, 1.34 BB/9, 2.89 ERA, 2.68 FIP, 3.23 xFIP, 4.8 WAR
Good Lord, those are Cy-worthy numbers. He's got a career-low HR/FB rate that's helping a lot, but for the most part, he's just an awesome pitcher. Of course, this could be a marquee matchup depending on which F-Bomb shows up. But again, on the other hand, Haren doesn't walk anybody, so you know Gardenhire's going to preach aggressiveness. Aggressiveness to our guys seems to mean "Swing at anything and everything." This could be painful for the offense.
I think most of us have given up on this team doing anything meaningful from here on out, but I'm still hoping they pull off this unlikely win to keep my faint hopes alive for a few more days. Go Twins.
I don't see one being made, so here's the minimalist approach.
Scott Baker vs. Joel Pineiro.
Another game, another stellar start from a Twins starter who isn't Scott Baker. To be honest, I went to bed before the end of the game, but that didn't change the outcome. Before I fell asleep, I basically planned on posting a picture of Kevin Slowey and begging that he be called up, but my brain had other ideas.
So last night I had a dream about Kevin Slowey. I was in West Acres, which was a high school. I was high school aged, but I was the Zack I am today instead of the Zack I was in high school. Anyway, I had two random friends with me who don't actually exist, and we were all friends with Slowey.
I don't remember most of the dream, but what I remember is that at one point I got a song stuck in my head and started playing air guitar. I wasn't humming the song, but everyone kind of knew what the song was, and we were an "air band." Mr. Slowey was playing the air bass, and we were jamming out pretty good together. Every few moments, Mr. Slowey reached his hand into this cardboard locker we were standing next to and pulled out a joint which he took many drags off of.
This went on for a bit, and then I woke up. I decided I probably needed to share my dream with you all. I guess there are two morals to the story. First, I have very strange dreams. Secondly, Kevin Slowey needs to be in the rotation. Right now. Maybe I won't have any more weird dreams about him, then.
v.
welcome back, span. we're glad you’re still here, and we’re glad to have you back.
the twins come back from a rare day off and face off against the LAAAAAAAAAA angels. on the mound is ervin santana, whom i'm told has been pitching alright as of late. since we’re obviously not having a fire sale, might as well start winning, i guess. now's as good a time the start as any...
Twins record: 50-58
Fangraphs
MLB Game Wrap
Hitter of the Week: Jim Thome
Pitcher of the Week: Brian Duensing
Carl Pavano vs. Brandon McCarthy
The Twins need to win this one. This is the worst team they are playing on this road trip and they have pretty much had their way with Oakland as of late. They have not won their last three series. They haven't gone that long without a series win since the end of May, when they lost four series in a row before beginning this turnaround.
McCarthy is having his best season thus far, mainly be becoming a different style of pitcher. He was mainly a flyball pitcher, but with Oakland he has improved his groundball rate by 50 percent. Combine that with moving from the Rangers' to the A's home ballparks and suddenly his HR rate has dropped to a third of what it was. However, his HR/FB rate is at an unsustainable 3 percent this year, so maybe that luck can change today.
Pavano has had a couple bad starts in a row and needs to reverse that trend against the second-worst offense in the AL.
By the time this game starts, we will know if we should be expecting Denard Span to be up in a few days or a new reliever added to the team. Either way, the team will be receiving help. Let's get this momentum going in the right direction. GO TWINS!!
Just when you want to believe, the Twins get hammered by a bad offensive team and the Indians go out and get Ubaldo Jimenez. Of course, then the Indians go out and trade Orlando Cabrera for a minor leaguer, so I'm kinda confused, although I guess Cabrera had been relegated to a bench role of late. Also, Jimenez gave up four runs on four walks and two doubles in the first inning before being pulled, presumably when the trade went down, so he may be somewhat of an enigma, something in the lines of a Francisco Liriano.
As for the Twins, it still boggles the mind that Blackburn was handed a starting job over Kevin Slowey, especially after Blackburn's struggles last season. His ERA now stands at 4.49 with a 1.51 WHIP, which is even worse than last year when he could at least blame a sore arm for his struggles. He's now allowed at least four runs in six of his last seven starts and it was the fourth time in that stretch he's allowed double-digit hits. The one slightly encouraging sign was he still was able to get 10 groundball outs, which he must do to have any success.
How bad is it, though, that Blackburn got beat when matched up against a poor man's Slowey. Mancuso is an extreme flyball pitcher without an out pitch. His groundball rate, K rate and walk rate are all worse than Slowey's.
Oh well, at least Span wasn't traded. At least not yet. I did see one encouraging sign that the Twins will be insisting on getting a good deal:
The Twins are insisting on acquiring Storen with Bernadina and minor league infielder Stephen Lombardozzi for Span, according to Jim Bowden of ESPN.com.
That deal I can get on board, although I still would be upset that Span was traded, since he's one of my favorite players. However, Lombo's son is exactly the type of player the Twins need to focus on. He's a second baseman that can actually hit. He's a switch hitter with a career .370 on-base average in over 1,800 PAs. He's batting .318/.360/.429 as a 22 yr old in AAA. His numbers remind me a lot of a second baseman on a Twins championship team, but thankfully not his dad. If he does get traded to the Twins, we should start a pool on how long it will take for Dazzle to take a swing at him.
After an ugly series against the Tigers and a split against the Rangers, a series against the A's is texactly what we need right now. Going from facing lineups with Miguel Cabreras and Josh Hamiltons to a lineup whose greatest threat is Josh Willingham is kind of a nice change of pace.
Luckily for A's fans, we're going to try to counteract that lineup by bringing out Nick Blackburn tonight. Blackie's been in second-half form lately, carrying a 6.94 ERA over his last seven starts (and that's after a couple of very nice starts in the middle of this month). We've got the resistible force meeting the movable object - which will suck less? Only time will tell.
The Twins get to face Guillermo Moscoso. Guillermo's trad stats look okay (3-5, 3.47 ERA), but he's carrying some ugly peripherals. He's not striking people out (4.5 K/9), he's walking more than a pitcher like him should (3.5 BB/9), and he's giving up lots of homers (1.4 HR/9, which seems high, until you consider he's got a ground ball rate of just over 25%). Combine that with a BABIP of .219, and you would think that this is exactly the type of pitcher the Twins would tee off on (no ground balls, no strikeouts). So, let's see some of that, then.
I expect a high scoring game. However, since I'm expecting that, I'm sure the game will go scoreless until the 17th inning, when Butera will bunt home a run, making Cuddyer the winning pitcher (Jose Mijares won't be used, because no loving manager would put his team's fans through two straight nights of Mijares pitching).