Tag Archives: Who Is David Huff?

Game (1 of 2): Twins and Clevelanders

Hey, doubleheader... why not?

So it seems that baseball's 200,000th major league game will be played today. They're counting the start of the actual National League as the first game, mostly because it's easier to place a direct date on it that way. If nothing else, it's kind of cool that much as it's changed over the past 140 years, there's still a certain heart at the center of the game that ties it all together.

Now, before I go all Field of Dreams on everyone and start misattributing everywhere, there are urgent matters to attend to in Cleveland. A win today would ensure that the race to the bottom will fall short of its "target". Much as I believe that this is the worst year of Twins baseball since the franchise got here, it would be nice the ragtaggers to win back at least that much of their dignity. Hell, if they sweep the doubleheader, they would only need one more win to avoid 100-losses. That would be.......something, I guess.

Looking into the crystal ball, we've got three opening day batters in our lineup (which, if I'm not mistaken is about the most there can be for the rest of the season, so the lineup's not getting nay better than this). Rivera gets to try to out-Butera Butera. Right now he's at a .406 OPS, so it'll be exciting to see whether he can push that into sub-400 territory.

Brian Duensing's on the mound, if he can make it through five and a third innings, he'll qualify for the ERA title. Then again, if he gives up 4 runs in those five and a third, he'll have the worst ERA for any qualifier, so... go Duensing?

David Huff pitches for Cleveland, he ate us alive his last time out, so maybe 1982 isn't safe, just yet.

2011 Game 94: Indigenous Persons at Gardy’s Guys

According to the Yahoo preview, the Twins have now attained "surging" status, having won 12 of 16 to threaten to be a factor in the AL Central race.

This game matches up a guy who has a mug shot, but has yet to appear in a Major League game this year, vs. a guy who has no mugshot but has been the darling of the local media for being Not Kevin Slowey.

Huff has thrown 100 1/3 innings in 17 starts at AAA in 2011, with underimpressive peripherals (63:28 K:BB) but impressive outcomes (3.86 ERA, 4.01 FIP). He's a big-ish (6'2", 215 lbs) lefty with a mediocre fastball and a mix of other pitches. In 2009-10 with the Indians, he went 13-19 over 208 innings, with a 5.84 ERA, 5.12 FIP and 5.19 xFIP. Chosen in the supplemental round in 2006 out of UCLA, he doesn't quite qualify as a Jeremy, but he's close.

Stompsnake has bounced back and forth between the big club and Rochester this year, putting up good results despite missing few bats (19:11 K:BB in 40 innings with the Twins, 25:7 in 32 1/3 in Rochester). Hopefully he brought his smoke and his mirrors in his suitcase from upstate New York. In his last appearance for the Twins, on July 10, he held the White Sox to one run on four hits and two walks over six innings, striking out five.

It's a great day to play two, but it would be really nice if Songsack managed to go the distance in this one. How 'bout we get him some runs, boys?

Fun fact: Cleveland is 7-2 against the Royals, 6-10 against the rest of the division, including 1-4 against the Twins.