The Twins have looked awfully good so far in Boston, save for Justin Morneau's egregious error and that early 5-1 deficit from yesterday. Tonight, we get another dose of Darin Mastroianni in left field, which seems like he's Gardy's latest scrappy man-crush. It's like Jason Tyner all over again, except Mastroianni actually has a fair amount of power. He's also in the lineup because Josh Willingham is taking a day off, which is a little worrisome considering he DH'd the last two games. Hopefully this is just some general soreness for Man Hammer (Trevor Plouffe's nickname for Willingham, I guess).
Cole De Vries is starting on the pitching side, and if he can avoid the long ball (2.08 HR/9, MLB average is 1.03), he should be able to tack on another quality start for the staff. Oh, and Nick Punto is starting at 3B for the Red Sox tonight!
Twins
- Denard Span, CF
- Ben Revere, RF
- Joe Mauer, 1B
- Justin Morneau, DH
- Ryan Doumit, C
- Darin Mastroianni, LF
- Brian Dozier, SS
- Alexi Casilla, 2B
- Jamey Carroll, 3B
SP Cole De Vries
Red Sox
- Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
- Carl Crawford, LF
- Dustin Pedroia, 2B
- Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
- Cody Ross, RF
- Jarrod Saltalamacchia, DH (So proud of myself that I only had to look at this once to spell it correctly)
- Mike Aviles, SS
- Kelly Shoppach, C
- Nick Punto, 3B
SP Clay Buchholz