clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Twins vs. White Sox News and Notes

It's time for three with the Whities in Minneapolis, as the bottom two teams in the AL Central lock horns.

Jonathan Daniel

Probables (all games FSN)

  • Monday, 7:10pm: Pedro Hernandez vs Hector Santiago
  • Tuesday, 7:10pm: Kevin Correia vs Jake Peavy
  • Wednesday, 12:10pm: Mike Pelfrey vs Dylan Axelrod
  • Thursday: OFF DAY

White Sox Notes

  • Chicago is, by most conventional measures, the worst-hitting team in the American League. They are dead last in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage. The team's OPS+ this year is 71; Nick Punto boasts a career 77 OPS+.
  • The Roll of Shame: Paul Konerko is hitting .214. Jeff Keppinger is batting .187. And Adam Dunn - well, Historically Awful 2011 Adam Dunn appears to be back in Chicago's lineup, as he's hitting .137 / .235 / .308. Also batting .137: Aaron Hicks. (And Hicks has a better OBP than Dunn, who famously walks a lot.)
  • The 120 runs scored by the White Sox this year are comfortably the fewest in the AL, a full 15 runs worse than the always-punchless crew in Seattle.
  • The shame of it, from the Sox standpoint, is that the team's pitching has been excellent. Chicago's given up the second-fewest runs in the AL, at 132; both the team's starters and the team's relievers are allowing opposing hitters to bat just .239.

Twins Notes

  • The Twins are 17-17, including an 8-8 record at home and a 9-9 record on the road. They are 5-5 in their last 10 games, and for the season, have scored 156 runs and given up 155. They could hardly, in any way, be more the embodiment of a .500 baseball team.
  • Joe Mauer is hitting .447 / .533 / .644 in May. He has nine doubles in that span; only three other Twins (Oswaldo Arcia, Justin Morneau, and Trevor Plouffe) have more than nine hits in May.
  • Speaking of Arcia, here's the on-the-nose scouting report from my Dad: "He looks like a mini-Killebrew... with a healthy dose of Delmon Young thrown in."
  • Cole De Vries made his New Britain rehab start: five innings, four hits, two walks, five runs (but just two earned), five strikeouts. He threw 71 pitches. Given that Pedro Hernandez has gotten bombed twice in a row, he'd better throw a gem tonight, or he's going to be packing his bag for Rochester again soon.