Know Thine Enemy: Royals Review
Bannister is a a bit like Nick Blackburn, just with a few more strikeouts and a few more walks. He's had some decent stretches over the course of his career, but in general has been a mid to back of the rotation starter.
What's interesting about Bannister is that, after 2008, his fastball use dropped from over 50% to less than 20% in 2009, and he's still right around 33% this season. Instead of a mediocre fastball around 90 mph, he takes a couple miles per hour off and throws something of a cutter pretty regularly. His mid 80s changeup hasn't been nearly as good as it was last year, and he finishes up with a mid 70s curveball.
If the Twins wanted a chance to sweep a team that's down, and to make it a third consecutive mash-up while they're at it, chances won't get much better than this.
In the Battle of the Brians, Duensing is the better pitcher. In his second start, hopefully he can get through six instead of five, and hopefully after the game today we can talk about the stretch of awesome starts from out rotation.