Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Gearing Up For the Tribe and Sox

The Twins got a much-needed day off yesterday, and there wasn't much in the way of news, leaving little to write about. The Twins have six important home games coming up in the next six days against the Indians and White Sox, and my hope is that, win or lose, the games are more engaging than the ones the Twins played against the Blue Jays over the weekend. The series wasn't just frustrating because of the Twins' ineptitude, the games were not much fun to watch because they were all pretty much laughers. This was especially disappointing considering how entertaining the games in Detroit were, particularly the series finale on Thursday.

If anyone has any interesting topics for discussion, feel free to open up in the comments section. Otherwise, check back in tomorrow for analysis of an important start for Johan Santana against the Indians.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

While the White Sox series is important, I hope the Twins don't put too much pressure on themselves just yet. If they just don't get swept, they will still have a chance. Obviously, it would be better to win more than one of three, but four games back with six weeks left in the season would still be doable.

Have you heard who the pitchers will be for the Chicago series? It would seem it will either be Bonser, Radke, Santana or Radke, Santana, Silva. The questions would be how much Radke and Santana would benefit from extra rest, and whether Silva is much better than Bonser.

If it was me, I'd go Bonser, Radke, Santana. I don't know how much Radke's shoulder will benefit from an extra day of rest, but it certainly wouldn't hurt. With Santana not being as dominant lately, an extra day off might not hurt him, either. While Silva is probably a better bet than Bonser, I'm not very confident with either one.

I can see why you would choose the other way, though. What do others think?

Nick N. said...

I'm pretty sure the Twins are planning on throwing Bonser/Radke/Santana in the White Sox series. I agree with you that this is a better idea than taking away an extra day of rest from the two horses in order to get Silva in there. Silva and Bonser have both been pretty HR-prone this year so neither one of them is going to be a great bet against the powerful Sox lineup. Bonser had a solid outing against the Blue Jays this past weekend, so maybe he can carry that forward and do some good things for the Twins over the next few weeks. If he could, that would be a big bonus.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Silva: I didn't understand Mr Gardenhire let him pitch the 7th innning last Thursday againts the Blue Jays. Silva definitely needs a lot of energy lately and the game was pretty close after 6 i's. It was enough for Silva and the Twins have the best bullpen. Of course the Blue Jays scored three runs in the 7th inning and the game seemed over.

Nick N. said...

Silva had a pretty low pitch count and Gardy loves to pitch him deep into games regardless of how well he's doing (I remember a game earlier this season where Gardy let him pitch into the ninth despite the fact that he had given up eight runs).