Twinkies Road Trippin'
First and foremost, day game, fire up Gamecast. We should take this one, right? The 'F-bomb' gets the start (more on that in a minute.)
So the Twins will be gone for a while. Their next stretch is 14 on the road, 6 at home, 10 more on the road. Wow. We start in LA, yikes! I wouldn't be worried as we play a couple stinkers but this is a young squad that can't win on the road. We need to be better than .500 when we come back from the 14 game stretch. As for Liriano, holding him back against good teams to get his confidence up is all well and good (he didn't pitch against the White Sox or Yankees and he isn't going to pitch in Anaheim) but we need wins dammit, wins!
7 Comments:
The extent of the road trip worries me. These guys have been decent on the road, but not terribly good.
What worries me more, however, is the White Sox. I can't believe it but they're looking more and more for real every day. Hitting the holy crap out of the ball. Their schedule is easier coming home (I think, although they've been feasting on the Royals, A's and Seattle lately, just like we have), and they appear to have gained some serious confidence. Alexei Ramirez emerging into another consistent longball threat (and he has the highest BA in their lineup) has been huge for them, and is bad news for the Twins. The ChiSox will go precisely nowhere in the playoffs with this homer-heavy lineup when they face better than average pitching, but it will serve them well the rest of the regular season.
We will lose today. Liriano's done after only five. We need Boof and someone else to give us 3+ solid innings, or we need to go off at the plate again soon. A 2-1 lead's not gonna hold up with this bullpen in its current shape.
August 20, 2008 at 1:47 PM
I don't pretend to understand baseball from a managers perspective but with a 3-1 lead, a tired bullpen, and Bonser apparently doing fine after pitching 2 scoreless innings, why go to Reyes? Doesn't help that Denny gave up a 4 pitch walk and then got yanked for Crain. Why?
August 20, 2008 at 2:40 PM
I can only imagine Denny's back sweat after that 4 pitch walk.
Good win, good win.
August 20, 2008 at 3:38 PM
Only silver lining right now is that we're gaining ground on the Red Sox in the WC race. The way the White Sox are playing, I am very nervous about our 6 home and 24 on the road over the next month. Good lord...
At least we finish with 2 series against the Sox at home...
August 20, 2008 at 9:32 PM
You're all welcome for the reverse jinxing I pulled off yesterday.
I actually think we could increase our reliance on Bonser a bit - he can throw a lot of innings, and from what I've been reading, his peripheral stats indicate he's been pitching better than his results might tell this season.
August 21, 2008 at 9:04 AM
It's 10pm here and I'm still at work...the Twins and Halos are tied 1-1 in the top of the 11th...I heart baseball, I don't heart work
August 22, 2008 at 12:00 AM
I just witnessed one of the worst at bats that I have ever seen in a MLB game. Punto leads off the 12th with a triple (Hunter really should have caught it) in a 1-1 game. Gomez is up next with the infield drawn in... first pitch- Gomez swings like a mo'fo at it, but misses by a considerable margin. Next pitch is a ball (I think), though you could tell that Gomez wanted to swing. 3rd pitch, with the infield drawn in Gomez tries to bunt for a hit, and I'm telling you he was not just trying to square around and get the ball down, with the infield drawn iin to protect against the run, he tries to drag bunt it down the first base line... you should have seen Gardenhire's face when the camera panned over to him... needless to say, next pitch Gomez swings at a splitter in the dirt, missing horribly and walks sheepishly back to the dugout...
Luckily, Span bails out Gomez with a single down the 3rd baseline right after... oh Gomez, how you baffle me sometimes.
August 22, 2008 at 12:23 AM
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