It's Yankees-Twins. Captain Cheeseburger faces the Dunce, who's barely an ensign, let alone a captain. The Yankees are waltzing to the playoffs again while the Twins are sputtering along to a possible 90-loss season.
Still, though, Joe Mauer is playing right field. This is happening, and it must be seen.
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
Last night was fun, too bad these teams didn't play on Monday.
Pitchers:
Twins - Dunsling
Rangers - Colby "Jerry" Lewis
Lineups:
Twins
Rangers
Go Twins!
Twins record: 41-48
Fangraphs
MLB Game Wrap
This week I am faced with the prospect of pushing back not just one, but two excellent food-and-drink posts, both of which concern material that I find myself much more interested in than baseball at this point of this season, frankly. So I will once again try to get out of the way and tell you to go read those posts just below here instead. As for today, I'll just say that even I can't complain about taking three of four from Chicago in Chicago.
Hitter of the Week: I'm going to pick the Iceman, just because, since I make my offensive stat charts in sets of eight games and today's game was the start of a new set, I'm going to get a kick out of Iceman's three times reached out of four PAs today keeping him on the top of the chart for a whole week after this, as he won't appear again on this set unless someone else gets hurt.
Pitcher of the Week: I think I liked Brian Duensing and his two very nice starts this week the most.
David Price vs Brian Duensing
The good doctor seems to have expended all of his posting energy this morning on the book club.
2:45 Central? What kind of goofy game time is that? Programming Note: This is the MLB.tv free game of the day.
The Dunce 4-6, 74.2 IP, 4.82 ERA, 3.59 FIP, 3.96 xFIP, 1.3 WAR
The Freak 5-6, 98.1 IP, 3.39 ERA, 3.02 FIP, 3.07 xFIP, 2.2 WAR
You know, I saw some mainstream junk asking what Lincecum(5-6)'s problem was this year, and I gotta tell ya: looks like the answer is "nothing." Score some runs for him, and he'll beat the other team every time. He's again on pace to throw a total buttload of innings; how long is that arm going to hold out? Is he that once-in-a-generation guy who can do that? I hope so, 'cause I always liked him.
Meanwhile, Duensing also has been better than his mainstream numbers suggest, though certainly nowhere near as good as Lincecum. This isn't a game to be betting on the Twins, though it would be nice to steal a win before the Wolves amuse and depress us all at another draft tonight.
Two more days until Thome and Twitchy are back, right? I've been trying not to say "When the Twins are all healthy" because I'm not convinced it's ever going to happen, but wouldn't it be awesome?
Clayton Richard vs Brian Duensing
Jake Peavy with White Sox: 3.3 fWAR for $25.067 million, with $21 million more guaranteed.
Clayton Richard with Padres: 2.8 fWAR for $0.746 million.
I hear Peavy did quite well in his last rehab start though.
The Padres rank dead last in runs scored per game. The Twins next stop, the Giants, rank second to last, a smidgen less than the Mariners. Both have good pitching, although it's helped one more than the other.
Playing well over last two weeks: check
Playing a weaker league: check
Time to take back first place move above .500!
Things are looking brighter. The Twins swept a mediocre team, won their first three game series against a better team, and did well against Texas.
Texas sends another lefty to the mound tonight, since it worked so well last night. Let's just not give up the game-tying homer this time, okay?
Twins record: 21-37
Fangraphs
Whoops, I forgot I had to do one of these, so I'm going to get in, get out, and go to bed. The Twins won, we swept the Royals in KC, baseball is fun again, Duensing was on top of his game, there's some cool pictures from the WGOM get-together in the CoC, I can't think of as many things to say when the Twins win as when they lose. That's all I've got.
Hitter of the Week: I suppose I ought to give one of these to Alexi Casilla before he turns back into Alexi Casilla.
Pitcher of the Week: Carl Pavano