Tag Archives: San Francisco Giants

Game 73 Recap: Giants 2, Twins 1

SAN FRANSISCO 2, MINNESOTA 1
Record
- 32-41 (4th in Central, 3.5 games out of 3rd)
Highest WPA
- Duensing (6.2 IP, 1 R, 5 SO), Cuddyer (3 for 4, 2 2B, RBI)
Lowest WPA - Delmon and Danny V. (both 0-4)
NOTES - Non-Cuddly Twins went 1 for 26 in this one.
Fangraphs

MLB Recap
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Looks like a pitcher's duel, and, perhaps as expected, Lincecum was just a bit better than Duensing in this one.  Twins hitters (Cuddyer excepted) never figured anything out against the Freak, striking out 12 times, and failing to get the ball past the pitcher's mound a bunch of times as well.  The Twins won't be the last team that Lincecum dominates, so I guess we can all take comfort in that?  At least Duensing held his own, keeping the Twins within striking distance throughout.

When Cuddyer doubled in Casilla in the ninth with no one out, it seemed there might be an outside chance that Minnesota could steal the rubber game of this series.  Instead Delmon, Danny, and Luke failed to advance him even a single base, and the Twins were handed their first series loss in quite a while.

2011 Game Logs Game 71: Minnesota @ San Francisco Baseball Giants

Carl Pavano

@

Madison Bumgarner

Are we having fun yet?

No matter what arbitrary end points you chose the Minnesota Twins have been playing pretty good baseball as of late. They have won 6 in a row-- 9 of 10--  14 of 16-- well, if you go back much further than June 1st it doesn't look too good but you get my point. The Minnesota Twins are starting to do what many predicted them to do at the start of the season, be a winning team with aspirations of a division title.  This isn't new information to anyone here, of course.

If the Twins do the unexpected and climb back from from 16 or so games back from the division lead to claim the AL Central title there is going to be a ton of revisionist history claiming this team got hot once star players like Joe Mauer, Jason Kubel, Jim Thome, Tsuyoshi Nishioka,  Glen Perkins (heh), Justin Morneau, Denard Span, Kevin Slowey, and Joe Nathan all returned to the line up from injury. Only then did this team start to live up to its expectations.  I am just here to remind everyone the following players are the ones who trimmed the division lead down to 7.5:

Ben Revere, Rene Tosoni, Brian Dinkelman, Matt Tolbert, Rene Rivera, Drew Butera, Luke Hughes, Jason Repko, Trevor Plouffe!, Anthony Sleestak, Phil Dumatrait, Chuck James, Eric Hacker, and well, not so much Jim Hoey.

Just remember Brian Dinkelman when Reusse complains on the radio in September saying this team had no chance until their players got healthy. Remember Rene Tosoni when Souhan says the Twins would have won the division by 15 games if Joe Mauer wasn't such a wuss. Remember Chuck James when the Twins prepare to face the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs, again.

Summer starts today and the Twins are looking good.

I don't know about you but this is starting to get fun.