As I announced two weeks ago, in honor of the doubleheader today's View from the Ballpark will be a different kind of challenge - replicating the view via your mapping tool of choice. Click through for the recaps and the picture clue.
Category Archives: WGOM
Matthew Sweet – I’ve Been Waiting
Matthew Sweet on the Dennis Miller Show.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieKFOOGP1r8
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Loading... 2011 Game 95: Diamond in the Rough
Let's hope the Genie in the Lamp grants us three wishes for game two.
1) Fausto Carmona is Fausto Carmona
2) Scott Diamond can do a "David Huff in Game 1" impression
3) Dongers. Lots of dongers for the good guys.
2011 Game 94: Indigenous Persons at Gardy’s Guys
According to the Yahoo preview, the Twins have now attained "surging" status, having won 12 of 16 to threaten to be a factor in the AL Central race.
This game matches up a guy who has a mug shot, but has yet to appear in a Major League game this year, vs. a guy who has no mugshot but has been the darling of the local media for being Not Kevin Slowey.
Huff has thrown 100 1/3 innings in 17 starts at AAA in 2011, with underimpressive peripherals (63:28 K:BB) but impressive outcomes (3.86 ERA, 4.01 FIP). He's a big-ish (6'2", 215 lbs) lefty with a mediocre fastball and a mix of other pitches. In 2009-10 with the Indians, he went 13-19 over 208 innings, with a 5.84 ERA, 5.12 FIP and 5.19 xFIP. Chosen in the supplemental round in 2006 out of UCLA, he doesn't quite qualify as a Jeremy, but he's close.
Stompsnake has bounced back and forth between the big club and Rochester this year, putting up good results despite missing few bats (19:11 K:BB in 40 innings with the Twins, 25:7 in 32 1/3 in Rochester). Hopefully he brought his smoke and his mirrors in his suitcase from upstate New York. In his last appearance for the Twins, on July 10, he held the White Sox to one run on four hits and two walks over six innings, striking out five.
It's a great day to play two, but it would be really nice if Songsack managed to go the distance in this one. How 'bout we get him some runs, boys?
Fun fact: Cleveland is 7-2 against the Royals, 6-10 against the rest of the division, including 1-4 against the Twins.
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes – Up From Below
Hey Cleveland, can you hear that? It is foot steps. Two by two.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNp4p3DZ2Nk
A throng of hipsters jamming out in Mexico, 2011. Also, thanks to Free for a great job while Jobu and I went on vacation. We went to Uruguay. We forgot our cameras though. Sorry.
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Loading... Game #93: Twins 4, Royals 3
Twins record: 44-49
Fangraphs
MLB Game Wrap
Truth be told, I spent most of this game busy drawing hearts around the name "Alex Morgan" which I had written in my notebook...but it looked pretty good on Gameday, especially the part that said "J. Thome homered to deep center, B. Revere and J. Mauer scored". So, three out of four from the Royals to kick off The Most Important Homestand Ever? So far, so good.
Hitter of the Week: I kind of want to pick Jim Thome for this every time he gets closer to 600 from now on.
Pitcher of the Week: I think I'll go with Joe Nathan here, I'm feeling nostalgic.
Game 93: Royals at Twins
Felipe Paulino vs. Brian Duensing
The Royals may have finally found a good one in Paulino. He's averaging nearly a strikeout an inning and has kept his walk rate low, although he's been rather hittable. Paulino has 24 strikeouts his last three starts but has somehow managed to give up 29 hits so either he's been pretty unlucky, or he has good stuff but has had trouble with mistake pitches.
I like throwing a lefty against the Royals. As long as Duensing doesn't let Billy Butler beat him, he should be OK.
The Twins need to take advantage of playing the Royals at home. Splitting a series with them would be pretty disappointing. GO TWINS!!!!
Steve Allen with Jack Kerouac — Readings from On The Road
Sunday mornings I like to listen to jazz, drink black coffee, and read the New York Times. While not exactly jazz, this is a great Sunday morning selection.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzCF6hgEfto
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Loading... Game 92: Twins 4, Royals 3
Now that wasn't so hard, was it?
One night after a gut-busting loss on another Capps blown save, Gardy finally makes the right decision and puts Joe Nathan back in his familiar closer role and suddenly everything seems right with the world. The Twins win at home against an AL Central team and Nathan gets the save with the usual obligatory base runner. Even without a strikeout, Nathan looked good with three popups for outs and the only hit a roller through the infield, which may have been helped with Cuddyer guarding the line in the ninth.
It will be interesting tomorrow if the Twins have another narrow, late lead. I think Gardy may have been hesitant to make Nathan the closer because he has said he won't use Nathan three days in a row. I'm fine with that, since most relievers (outside of LOOGYs) shouldn't be used that often anyways. This undoubtedly means Perkins will close tomorrow, if necessary, and I'm fine with that as well, especially after he dominated Saturday night and absolutely abused Alex Gordon, who's been the Royals' best hitter, on three pitches. The interesting part will be to see who gets the eighth inning, or at least who starts it. If righties are coming up, I wouldn't be surprised to see Capps in there with Mijares warming up. The other choice would be Alex Burnett and neither one inspires a lot of confidence right now, although Capps' splits make me think he can thrive as a protected setup man. Of course, this means the Twins need Mijares to figure out his control problems as well.
It's amazing how much difference one bases-empty single can make. The Royals' Jeff Francis was in cruise control in the eighth inning Saturday before Alexi Casilla flared a single into right field. Joe Mauer followed with a ground ball through the hole created by the presence of Casilla and suddenly Francis was out of the game and ended up with the loss after Cuddyer singled off reliever Aaron Crow to put the Twins ahead.
That eighth inning and Nathan' s save prevented me from a meltdown after two bad calls by the umpires in the sixth inning allowed the Royals to tie the game on an infield out. Both were close plays, but when you have two close calls go against you in one inning of a tight game and both were shown to be bad calls, well that can be pretty tough to take. Fortunately, it didn't mean much more than prevent Pavano from getting the win and give me one more reason to have no respect for Cowboy Joe West.
2011 Game #92: Royals at Twins
I had a post written up about how much Matt Capps sucks, but I wrote it while angry and somewhat inebriated. Today when I read it, I realized that it wasn't even quarter-bakef. We can't have substandard stuff like that, so instead, I'm going to half-bake it on the fly.
Carl Pavano (6-6, 97 ERA+)
Jeff Francis (3-10, 84 ERA+)
The 'stacheless 'stacheman has been pulling it together as of late, that one game in Milwaukee excepted. We've beaten Francis around a little bit in couple of times we've played him this year, so I'm feeling pretty good about tonight's game. I predict Ben Revere will hit an inside-the-park home run in which he will run the last 80 feet backwards.
Matt Capps sucks....but we'd better score a few more runs tonight than we did last night.