Strange things are afoot at the Circled Dot. Despite cruising below .500 all season, the team still finds itself in second place in the AL Central. The pitching, which early in the year gave cause for indigestion, has settled in pretty nicely with both rotation and bullpen performing well. Over the course of the season, the hurling staff has notched a 4.22 ERA, good for an ERA+ of 101, or about as average as it gets. But while the pitching has trended toward improvement over the first two months, the offensive trend has been southbound with a bee in their pants and the boys are suffering through a serious case of assbats. Right now, the Twins offense combines for a total 4.7 WAR. As Beau points out in today's Cuppa, Mike Trout himself has delivered 4.9 WAR so far this year all by himself. I only eyeballed the math, but looking over the lineup the Twins offense right now is basically performing at replacement level. As a team, the Twins have achieved null VORP on offense in April and May. While some of that is driven by injury and actual replacement players in the daily lineup, most of it is simply under-performance. That's not sustainable for a team that wants to contend, and if not for the weakness of the division we'd be in an even worse position than we currently are. This is not a team that can win much with just a few guys contributing at the plate. It's time to burn every bat in the clubhouse and start over. Maybe sacrifice a chicken while they're at it. Berrios (5-4, 3.82 ERA) up against Leake (4-3, 5.46 ERA) on the mound today. I always feel like we have a good chance when José takes the hill.
We'll see how many innings I get through before falling asleep on the couch, but hopefully the Odor is pleasing tonight.
Also, hopefully the team can be a little more inspiring tonight than they've been lately. I think they're approximately 1-25 when I've watched them, so this could be a bad sign.
Paxton had a very good year in 2017. Let's hope he carries his first start over (4.2 IP, 6H, 6R, 6ER), and not his 2.98 ERA, 143 ERA+, 2.61 FIP from last season.
Gibson gonna Gibson... did you know he had identical 5.07 ERA's in each of the past two seasons? (83 & 87 ERA+, 4.70 & 4.85 FIP's respectively). He was not efficient in his first start. We'll see what happens.
Remember when we all clammored for the Twins to call up Kyle Gibson? Gibby was going to be the savior, the guy who was going to pick up Johan Santana's dusty mantle and become staff ace. Heck when he finally finally got called up, we called it Gibmas.
Anyway we don't feel that way anymore do we? He's pitched better of late but that's faint praise.
Gibby on the mound again on this steamy night. Let's hope more improvement is shown and we can remember those days when we were young and idealistic.
The Twins take their traveling wrecking ball into Seattle for a 3 game series against the Mariners. The Twins are 17-6 on the road and Safeco is the only place where the Twins swept last year. So we got that going for us. Which is nice
Unfortunately for the Twins, the surprise pitcher of the year James Paxton and his 1.26 ERA and 4-0 record is on the mound for the Mariners. Hector Santiago pitching for the Twins.
Game at 9:10 so you have time to watch the Stanley Cup Finals, er.. the NBA finals, um enjoy the beautiful evening before the game.
Late night baseball + holiday weekend + terrible baseball team = maybe 20 comments for tonight's game?
Even if the Twins were fielding a decent team, it would be a tough task to garner a win because King Felix is on the bump for the Mariners. Pat "I'm not Dizzy" Dean goes for the locals.
Its been a long tough week for me, I hope the Twins put on a good show just to lift my spirits.
