KANSAS CITY - The Minnesota Twins and the Kansas City Royals baseball teams will play a series of games against each other this week, according to public documents released by both teams and confirmed by Major League Baseball officials. Continue reading 2013 Game 109: MN @ KC
While none of us have had a lot of recent experience seeing the Royals atop the Twins in the standings, there was a time when the more wrinkled and bent among us did. Back when pant-legs were still short and stirrup socks were long, when free agency and the designated hitter rule were busy destroying the game as we knew it, back before expansion and realignment and wild cards made a mockery of what winning a pennant was all about, and when lawns were gloriously free of trespassers, the Kansas City Royals were an elite ball club in the seven-team American League West, perennial contenders who made it to the more exclusive playoffs seven times between 1976 and 1985 and won the World Series in the final year of that stretch. (Suck on that sentence, Mr. Faulkner.) The Royals rosters back in those days were a litany of greats -- George Brett, Steve Balboni, Frank White, Hal McRae, Bret Saberhagen, Dan Quisenberry and Charlie Liebrandt to name a few. But then the team fell on hard times.
Continue reading 2013 Game 103: KC George Alexanders vs. MN Emily & Marens
Both teams hit some homeruns...and doubles - 22 hits between 'em. In the end, the Royals did just enough against Twins pitching to eek out a "W".
Positive note - after going a very long stretch of the season without a HR, Mountie has doubled his HR total in the last 10 games to 4. Trader Clete now has 3 on the year...le sigh.
In other news and to much less fanfare - the NHL held it's draft. Colorado selected 17-year-old center Nathan MacKinnon with the first overall pick.
More on what the Wild did below.
Holy cats, a night game! (Maybe. If it isn't rained out, and based on the weather report, that's a very real possiblity.)
Mike Pelfrey vs. Jeremy Guthrie
My first ever game log and it comes against a Jeremy. Fortunately, it also comes in the second game of a series after an opening loss, so I expect a solid, 4-3 victory for the Twins tonight. Maybe. If it isn't rained out.
This will be the first start for Pelfrey since his Wichita State Shockers were removed from that thing that is named after March but not fully contained within March. Hopefully he's had enough time to get over the loss so he can throw some innings against the Royals.
More importantly, Hicks wasn't with the organization when the whole Jeremy curse began, so I fully expect him to hit two doubles and a home run tonight. More realistically, I don't. But, I've been hearing a load about sending him down to Rochester. I don't know his "make-up", but I don't see a problem with letting him hack his way through the whole season barring The Minnesota Curse injury. He can always gain confidence with the extra games against the Astros. Now, it'll be a different story when he strikes out in the bottom of the ninth of Game 7 of the World Series. We'll cross that bridge when we get there, though.
For some reason Kansas City has received more than its fair share of musical tributes. Rodgers and Hammerstein gave the city the Broadway treatment with Everything’s Up to Date in Kansas City back in 1943. Over the years the town has been lauded in Leadbelly’s Kansas City Papa, Jelly Roll Morton’s Kansas City Stomp, Buck Owens’ The Kansas City Song, Count Basie’s Kansas City Shout, and Van Morrison’s The Eternal Kansas City, not to mention Kansas City Milkman, Kansas City King, Kansas City 90210, Kansas City Shuffle, Kansas City Funk, Kansas City Blues, Kansas City Man Blues, Train from Kansas City, 18th Avenue (Kansas City Nightmare), and Kansas City Southern by various artists.
Continue reading Game 7: First Place Twins at Last Place Royals
PJ Walters v. Luke Hochevar
GO TWINS!
*edit* this game has been postponed until Saturday at 3:10pm.
the remnants of Hurricane Isaac are making its way up the central US, giving places like Arkansas, Missourri, Kansas, and Illinois some much needed rain. The forecast for KC tonight calls for rain, so this game might now get underway.
The Twins have been brutal this month, posting a 9-19 record with 1 game to go. This month is an improvement over last year where the Twins went 7-21. And the Twins have gained 4 games on Cleveland as they have only 5 wins in August.
Cole DeVries is scheduled to start for the local 9. DeVries has this Brad Radke thing going this year, giving up 16 home runs, and allowing 17 walks. Something to watch at the end of the year: will he give up more homeruns than walks batters.
The Royals will trot out a dude named Will Smith, who looks like a Twinsesque pitcher with a low walk rate, low k rate, and a high ERA.
Pitchers:
Twins - Nick Blackburn
KC - Ronald Paulino
Go Twins!
@
Some interesting information on Matt Capps this season*.
So the key is to keep him out of medium leverage situations.
*sean, there appears to be a widget to embed baseball-reference tables. Is that something we can add?
the twins won. that's about all i know. apparently i can create posts from my new iPhone though, so i got that going for me. which is nice.