Pregame after the jump...
Pregame
On August 17 the Twins welcomed Ryan Feierabend to the major leagues with a 6-run bombardment. He lasted three innings, striking out and walking one batter. With all due credit he bounced back against the A's, giving up just one run over five innings on his 23rd birthday. With a sub-90's fastball and average stuff, hopefully the Twins offense can get it right tonight.
Glen Perkins is 7-1 with a 3.39 ERA over his last 10 starts, giving up 67 hits and 16 walks over 66.1 innings. He's still not striking many guys out (just 29 in that span), but have nevertheless been effective. His keys, as always, are to keep the ball in the park and to be aggressive; he doens't have the stuff to nit-pick around the dish and hope the opposing hitters take cuts on the bad ones. He needs to keep the ball in play to record outs, and recently his ground-ball and fly-ball rates have levelled off--each sitting at exactly 39.5%--which makes the hits he does give up less dangerous. Hopefully he keeps it that way.