People are hassling me to start a Twins blog, and lately I've realized this: If fatalist attention whores can do it, so can I, apparently.
Hopefully the long-term future of this blog will have Twins in the summer, general NFL (read: Packers) coverage in the fall, and Sioux hockey in the winter. So that means, for now, baseball!
After an off day Monday, the Twins continue their long first home-stand at Target Field with a three-game set against Clevelandia. The Native Americans are coming off of a very nice four-winning streak which includes a surprising sweep of the White Sox. But of course, that came on the heels of getting swept by the Tigers and dropping two of three to the Rangers, so there's not much we can say safely attribute this to other than small sample size.
Nonetheless the Indians are 6-6 and in third place in the Central. There are no high aspirations for this team this year outside of northern Ohio, but that's not to say Cleveland should be overlooked. At the risk of using dangerously small sample sizes, just look at the Indians' rotation. Three of them have ERAs under 3.50. The highlight of the rotation has so far been David Huff, who has posted a WHIP so far of 0.867 (!), which along with his disgustingly lucky .199 BABIP equates to a pretty solid 1.80 ERA. We'll see how long this lasts, what with Huff's BABIP in addition to his laughable 3.6 K/9. However, it's worth noting that he and Mitch Talbot (1-1, 3.21 ERA) pitched back-to-back complete games last week and are thus durable pitchers who keep the bullpen rested. Huff will pitch Wednesday and Talbot Thursday against the Twins' Francisco Liriano and Nick Blackburn, respectively.
This blog entry is way out of order but let's go back to tonight's matchup. Kevin Slowey (1-1, 3.48 ERA) looks to get on the right track as he figures out just what his screwy (pun intended) arm can do. Slowey did not get out of the sixth inning in his two previous starts this season, but a promisingly good Spring Training suggests that there's nowhere to go up for the Brad Radke-wannabe.
Slowey goes up against the enigmatic Justin Masterson (0-1, 2.45 ERA), who came to the Indians at the trade deadline in 2009 as part of a package from the Red Sox for Victor Martinez. Masterson has had early season success like Huff and Talbot, but has one very large weakness: Lefties. While right-handed batters post a .200 BA against Masterson, lefties hit .299 with an .857 OPS. Predictably that amounted to mountains of success for the Twins when they faced him last year.
The Twins have won their first four series this year, and I should think that five straight is pretty likely considering the pitching matchups and the vulnerability of the Indians' lineup outside of Shin-Soo Choo.
Thanks for reading!
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