Friday, April 10, 2009

Quick and Painful

Yesterday, Glen Perkins finally answered the Twins' call for a strong outing from a starting pitcher. In fact, he went above and beyond, tossing eight innings of one-run ball. Unfortunately, the rest of the team didn't show much appreciation, delivering a punchless performance against Jarrod Washburn and dropping the series finale 2-0 to finish with a split in their opening set against the Mariners.

The game was reminiscent of so many we've seen from this team before. Going against a mediocre left-hander, the Twins could never string together any type of rally, managing just five hits (zero for extra bases) and failing to move a runner past first base until the eighth inning. If there was one positive to be drawn from the game, it may have been that those who cut out of work to head over to the Metrodome had plenty of time to go back to work and finish their day (then again, maybe that's not really a positive). The contest barely ran longer than two hours thanks to the quick work of Washburn, who posted a 4.69 ERA last season and a 6.60 ERA this spring.

A series victory would have been nice entering this weekend's series at U.S. Cellular, where Twins pitchers surrendered a 928 OPS and 6.80 ERA last season. As it stands, the Twins will have a tough time leaving Chicago with a winning record. Tonight they'll be trotting out R.A. Dickey, who has a 6.31 career ERA as a starter, and on Sunday the White Sox will start Mark Buehrle, a much tougher lefty than Washburn. I'm confident that the Twins will get on track and start rattling off some wins at some point, but I'd be surprised if it were this weekend.

5 comments:

Dwade said...

The Sox don't look much better than the Twins do, in fact, they may look worse. I don't see either team sweeping the series, so you may be right, and the Twins will leave one game below .500, but it won't be more than that.

Its also worth pointing out that the Twins series in May at the Cell found the Sox at the hottest point of the season, and included Kevin Slowey's worst outing as a pro, which skews the numbers a little bit.

TwinsFix said...

I see that "offensive ineptitude" tag again, Nick. I thought we were done with those.

neckrolls said...

Why so pessimistic? Zach Greinke was 0-6, 7.78 ERA in Chicago coming into Wednesday's start, and he was able to shut them out for 6 IP. It's a new year...

Beau said...

Twins have a career adjusted 108+ OPS against Buehrle (where the average team would have 100). He's not a Jeremy.

J. Lichty said...

the game yesterday at least puts the Twins otherwise inexplicable interest in Washburn last year in some perspective.