First Pitch: 6:10pm CDT
TV: FS-N
Radio: Twins Radio Network
Know Thine Enemy: Royals Review
Michael Cuddyer got some love from MLB Tonight after his 30th homer of the season last night, check out tthe highlights here. Without further ado, let's get to our starters.
Unless Baker can throw consecutive complete games over his final two starts of the season, he still won't reach the 200-inning benchmark expected of a full-time starter. He would have, however, had he not missed the first two weeks of the season. That's huge looking forward to next season, when the rotation's stability will be a bigger issue than it's been the last couple of seasons. The last couple outings have been a bit rougher for Scott than we've expected from him over the last few of months, but knowing Baker stints like this will be short-lived. An interesting note is that for the last three seasons Baker's slider has been his best pitch, but this year his fastball has been many times more effective than the slider ever was. Fastball effectiveness can vary wildly from season to season, but it's still interesting to see.
DiNardo just turned 30, and in spite of playing for his third franchise in five major league seasons he's largely been a career minor league pitcher. His biggest asset as a pitcher are his higher ground-ball rates and his low fly-ball rates, meaning that damage off of ball-in-play is kept to a minimum. Lenny's fastball averages an un-sexy 84.3 mph, the changeup is just over 76 mph and the curve is a snail's pace of 72 mph. With that kind of stuff, DiNardo spends a lot of time dancing on the outside of the strike zone. This is the kind of game where the Twins could rack up base runners, hopefully with a view to bringing them around for runs. Let's hope they can do just that.
Six of these nine guys appeared in this morning's post on who's been hot over the Twins' winning streak. I am disappointed that we don't get to see David DeJesus tonight.