I can understand the Twins struggling to beat the Yankees… or the Rangers… or even the Tigers and White Sox this season. Those are good teams this year. But losing six straight games (and 6 of 7 games on the season) to the friggin Mariners? Hard to excuse that.
Let’s hope Scott Diamond can do something about that trend in his final start before he begins serving his MLB-imposed six-game suspension for buzzing Josh Hamilton’s tower last week. He’ll apparently have to do it without the help of Denard Span, who is a late scratch from the line up with… you guessed it… shoulder discomfort. It would be nice if someone would invent a clear plexiglass MRI machine for those, like Denard, who have a little issue with enclosed places.
Reports are that, regardless of results on the field, there will be some good news in Twinsville this week. The Twins and Major League Baseball are apparently set to announce Wednesday that Target Field will host the 2014 All-Star Game. Maybe that will make people think twice about not renewing their season tickets. Then again, maybe it won’t.
I’ll be at the final game of the Snappers/Kernels series tonight, but I hope those of you who come around for the GameChat enjoy tonight’s Twins game!
| MARINERS |
@ |
TWINS |
| Ackley, 2B | Revere, CF | |
| Gutierrez, F, CF | Mastroianni, RF | |
| Seager, 3B | Mauer, C | |
| Montero, DH | Willingham, LF | |
| Smoak, 1B | Morneau, 1B | |
| Olivo, C | Doumit, DH | |
| Thames, E, RF | Plouffe, 3B | |
| Robinson, T, LF | Carroll, 2B | |
| Ryan, SS | Florimon, SS | |
| _Iwakuma, P | _Diamond, P |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
| Seattle | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 9 | 0 |
| Minnesota | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 1 |
I didn’t see the game, but looking at the boxscore, I can see that the Twins managed a total of four hits off of five Mariners pitchers. Thus, they lost. To the Mariners. Again.
The Mariners aren’t an elite team, but they’re a middling team (+7 Run Diff; and the RPI rankings at ESPN.com currently rate Seattle 13th in MLB, 9th in AL) featuring decent pitching, led by a Cy Young candidate who is on a roll, and an offense that actually is respectable on the road, and have posted a 27-16 record since the break (and although Chicago just swept them at the Cell, each loss was a 1-run game).
I think they’re kind of what we hoped the Twins might be this year, best-case scenario. If the M’s took the place of the Twins in the Central this season, they’d be a solid 3rd place at the moment with a shot at 85+ wins and maybe a wild card slot if a few teams fell apart down the stretch. If you’re still watching the Twins most days, I get that you’re sick of seeing them lose, and lose; but the Mariners at this point should be beating up on the Twins. Probably every team in the league but the Indians, Royals, and Blue Jays should be beating up on the Twins.