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Both Vance Worley and Nick Tepesch, for their own reasons, haven't exactly had the start to the season that they'd been hoping for. Worley has had four starts: one good, one okay, one meh, and one terrible. Tepesch danced around nine hits against the Mariners in order to put together two one good and one meh start, before getting hit on the hand and coming out of the game in the second inning his last time out.
No Twin has faced Tepesch in the Majors, obviously, and the Rangers have three players with a combined nine at-bats against Worley. Both teams are essentially starting from scratch against the opposition's starting pitcher.
It's going to start warming up in Minnesota tomorrow, but when Worley takes the hill at Target Field tonight, the temperature will still be a chilly (but comparitively warm recently) 45 degrees. He's been coming inside on lefties, trying to work them in and out, and in general he's been pretty good in terms of results. While he might be catching too much of the plate, lefties haven't hurt him yet with a .279/.326/.419 split.
Right-handed hitters, meanwhile, have been crushing him. Last season Worley was in the strike zone quite regularly, but he was good and hitting all nine zones. This year he's been hitting the strike zone belt high, lett to right, more than anywhere else. If he wants to better his righty split of .419/.457/.465, he's going to have to do a better job of hitting his spots on a more consistent basis.
Tepesch mixes good control and good stuff with an ability to induce ground balls. He will allow some hits, but just like against Seattle when he gave up nine hits in less than six innings, he can limit the damage but not giving in to the free pass.
While he's been working in and out to left-handed batters in his 14.2 innings this season, he's worked almost exclusively low-and-away to righties. So far that strategy has worked against the right-handed batters as they've managed just five hits and a .566 OPS in a small sample. Lefties have had more success with an .808 OPS. Hopefully Mauer, Morneau, and Arcia (if he's in the lineup) can take advantage tonight.
We'll see you in a few hours for the game thread!