Mr. Duensing, you may take field! I am doing my best to moderate my expectations because of several things: it’s a high pressure situation, it’s his first MLB start THIS YEAR [correction per Dewluca], and his relief record seems to tell me that the more pitches he throws the more his ERA kind of creeps up. The interesting thing is that that is what happens for ALL starting pitchers. Brian Duensing isn’t magic – we just expect that right now, he’ll be more dialed in than Nick Blackburn has been. That is what I am limiting my expectations to.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind if he surprised me! 😀
| Minnesota | @ | Baltimore |
| Span, CF | Roberts, B, 2B | |
| Hudson, O, 2B | Tejada, 3B | |
| Mauer, C | Wigginton, 1B | |
| Kubel, RF | Scott, DH | |
| Cuddyer, 1B | Jones, A, CF | |
| Thome, DH | Pie, LF | |
| Young, D, LF | Tatum, C | |
| Hardy, SS | Patterson, C, RF | |
| Punto, 3B | Izturis, C, SS | |
| Duensing, P | Guthrie, P |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
| Minnesota | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 0 |
| Baltimore | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | x | 3 | 7 | 0 |
The good news is that Duensing looked VERY good. He threw 5 full innings (60+ pitches) and only gave up 1 run. His line was more than acceptable and I’ll be looking forward to see what he gives us next week and how long they let him go. Sadly, Slama gave up a 2R HR that cost Duensing his chance at a win. We really should have still been in the game since it was a 1 run lead and only the 6th inning. But yeah, despite multiple hits, the Twins fell into their LOB problem. Cuddyer literally came within INCHES of being the hero of the day by hitting a LONG shot in the 9th that was caught at the wall – just a tad further and the Twins would have had a 2 run lead to take into the bottom of the inning. Oh well.
Sadly, also in news from the game, Orlando Hudson has what has been announced as an oblique strain that laid him low in his second AB. I hope he recovers soon but it appears Casilla is back just in time.
Losing is tough right now, especially a close game against a bad team, but Duensing’s performance was encouraging… and I’m trying to remember the last performance by a Twins starting pitcher not named Pavano or Liriano that I would call “encouraging.” It’s been a while. If he can at least stabilize one more rotation spot, that should be helpful.
yeah, I agree – that’s definitely the good news part of last night. I didn’t feel too badly about the loss given that he started so well.. I wish we could could get more men across home plate so that even a single bad pitch by a reliever doesn’t have such a catastrophic impact.