Buckle up, citizens, it's going to be a long ride. The Twins come north to tee off their 2024 home season today against Cleveland sporting a 3-2 record but losing Royce Lewis to injury. Looks like he'll be out at least a month or more with his quad strain. It's always hard to say how the season will turn out this early, impossible really, and spring training is a poor prognosticator, but I've seen a few encouraging things so far. Except for that Easter shellacking from KC, we've look pretty good. Correa appears to be back to full health, his Willie Mays catch running toward the left field wall yesterday gives us a glimpse of what we'd hoped for last year. Again, with the exception of Baily Ober the starting pitching has been solid. And I'll give a shoutout to Griffin Jax out of the bullpen, who took a bit of abuse from me last year. His stuff is wicked, and it looks like he got some bulldog injections over the winter. And hey, how good is it to see Byron Buxton patrolling centerfield?
The starting rotation starts its second cycle today with Pablo Lopez on the hill for the Twins, the Guardians counter with Tanner Bibee. In 26 starts last year he pitched to a 3.08 ERA and a 1.22 WHIP with 145 strikeouts. He did not figure in the decision in his first start. So that's it, I have to get dressed for the game and off to the ballpark.
Oh, one other thing. Scheduling the Twins at Brewers series for the first week of April is about as stupid as it gets. MLB must leave a lot of money on the table with its crappy scheduling algorithm.
PLAY BALL!
