Today’s big news is that Zach Parise and Ryan Suter have signed with the MN Wild in a huge shocker to the NHL Hockey world!!
oh wait… baseball blog.. right. summer = baseball season. right.
Today’s big news is that the Twins have optioned Nick Blackburn down to AAA and selected the contract of Casey Fien to come up and join the bullpen. I’m not sure what that means the starting rotation will be but that tells me that, even after tonight, Duensing is likely to stay a starter for now. Any other theories?
Raise your hand if you thought we’d be on game three of this series with two wins under our belt. Yeah, me neither.
I don’t know how we got here but I will say that offense has been huge (which makes a lot of sense) and the bullpen has been ridiculously good. Thank god because the starting pitching has still not been great. Let’s hope Duensing can really do something tonight against this lineup because I would really like to see what a lefty with good stuff can do – which means he needs to have good stuff.
Just so everyone knows but I’m sure the announcers will talk about this to death: it’s 103 degrees in Detroit right now.. and more possible storms on the way which I’m sure all of Detroit will appreciate if it brings down the temps at all. The boys wouldn’t have any relief if they were playing at Target Field either – hit 101 here at my house today so .. yeah, it’s just hot on America’s birthday this year. Good luck to ALL the players and fans and I hope they stay hydrated and healthy out there!
[edit] There is a delay to the start of the game because the previously mentioned storms have just hit.. the good news is that it means that the boys will have lower temps to play in.. the better news is that at least this isn’t a west coast game…
| Minnesota |
@ |
Detroit |
| Span, CF | Jackson, A, CF | |
| Revere, RF | Raburn, LF | |
| Mauer, C | Cabrera, Mi, 3B | |
| Willingham, LF | Fielder, 1B | |
| Parmelee, 1B | Young, D, DH | |
| Plouffe, 3B | Peralta, Jh, SS | |
| Doumit, DH | Boesch, RF | |
| Carroll, SS | Avila, C | |
| Casilla, A, 2B | Santiago, 2B | |
| Duensing, P | Verlander, P |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
| Minnesota | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| Detroit | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | x | 5 | 10 | 0 |
Let’s be honest, we didn’t really EXPECT to beat Justin Verlander, did we? So the fact that the Twins lost tonight hardly comes as a surprise. Weather caused the start of the game to be postponed, but not nearly long enough.
The GameChat was looking for silver linings toward the end of this contest. There weren’t many. Chris Parmelee did take a Verlander pitch for a major ride, so that was nice to see. Brian Duensing was hit in the leg by a batted ball, but the X-rays were negative, so I suppose that’s good news, too. Unfortunately Saturday’s scheduled starting pitcher, Cole DeVries had to make a relief appearance, so now both Saturday’s and Sunday’s starting pitcher slots are, as they say, “TBA”.
Fun times.
– JC