After laying a big egg in Baltimore to end the first half, the local nine have been playing much better ball since their return from the All-Star break with a sweep of the Athletics and two wins in three games with Seattle. The Twins will try to seal a series win from the Mariners in a businessman's special this afternoon.
The Twins will send Pablo Lopez (5-5, 4.24 ERA, 145 K) to the mound today, Seattle will counter with sophomore right-hander George Kirby (8-8, 3.43 ERA, 93 K). Let's hope the Twins bats make a lot of noise again today, it sure is entertaining to watch when this team is hitting well.
The Twins scored five, ten, and again five runs versus the lowly A's. Nice signs for the batters but it's the A's. The Mariners' staff is actually better than average (4.2 runs/game versus average of 4.6 runs/game). So the Twins scoring six and then ten runs is nice to see. Tonight will be the real test of this series with Castillo and his 2.96 ERA / 3.92 FIP. He's really good.
So after beating up on the dreadful A's the Twins back in the mire losing to teams that are decent. The Mariners are a little disappointing this year after finally making the playoffs in 2022 but apparently playing the Twins is a good tonic for what ails you (Royals and A's excepted).
Rookie Bryan Woo on the mound for the Mariners. He's only 23 and I think this is his 3rd or 4th start. Bailey Ober up for the Twins and he continues to pitch well, but without a lot of run support from the bats.
I mean, a sweep is a sweep, but it wasn't pretty. Especially against one of the historically worse teams ever, but who cares! I'll take it. This next series will be a bigger challenge though.
The M's, like the T's, have good pitching and bad batting. They're at .500 (though have only played 92 games) and they are a +31 to the Twins' +32. Gilbert is having a decent year so far, which isn't good news for the hitting staff.
It was 1995 and Donny Osmond was in town kicking off an engagement of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It had been a huge hit in Toronto and Chicago, they were taking it on tour and Minneapolis was the first stop. It was a pretty big deal, the governor (Arne Carlson) signed a declaration making it Donny Osmond Day. Donny, who we had lined up to do one segment on our mid-morning show, actually volunteered in the green room to co-host the whole hour if we wanted. And of course we did. After the show Donny and I took a limo ride to the Mall of America where he did a little PR appearance at Planet Hollywood, gave them a pair of purple socks for a display case and did a quick song. When that wrapped up Donny headed to the theater to get ready for opening night of the run and the photographer and I went back to the studio and packaged up a story for the 6:00 p.m. news. My impressions of Donny were simple - he may be a Mormon, but he's a total mensch.
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There's nothing like having the game on while mowing for a few hours. The lady of the house is planting the new rose bush, and the kids are golfing around the yard (or, in the case of the one year old, poking the club at the ball and giggling if he happens to make contact). The only thing today needs is some baseball on the radio.....and a good result to that baseball.
Enter Pablo Lopez.
As good as the rotation has been through the first half (and they've arguably been the best in the game), I'd give Lopez the slight edge as the best of them all. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he pitches back to back shutouts. No one has done that since 1884, so that would be fun.
Either way, I'll be listening, first on the mower, then on the deck looking out over my yard, basking in a beautiful day and a Twins win.
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