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Mike Pelfrey took a step back in his season progress today, as he lasted just four innings in Minnesota's loss to the White Sox. Chicago actually took the series today, and did some damage to Pelfrey while they were at it. In his four innings, Pelfrey gave up 5 earned runs on 8 hits to Chicago batters, including 2 home runs -- one to Adam Dunn in the third, and another to Dayan Viciedo in the fourth. He did strike out more batters than he walked (3 and 2, respectively), but I'm not sure that's much consolation at this point in his season. His ERA has now climbed to 6.57, with 57 hits given up in just 38.1 innings pitched. Ouch.
To his credit, Anthony Swarzak came in and cleaned up as best he could, throwing a solid two innings of scoreless ball. He gave up just one hit, walked one, and struck out another. Brian Duensing and Josh Roenicke did not have such luck in their appearances today, as they both gave up two earned runs to Chicago batters (Dunn hit his second bomb of the day off Roenicke in the eighth inning). For whatever reason, Glen Perkins came in to close out the game, and only gave up one hit and striking out another batter.
While this game was a bit of a stinker for the Twins, the offense wasn't completely silent this afternoon. Josh Willingham knocked in a couple of RBI today, and Eduardo Escobar homered off of Dylan Axelrod in the second inning. The other Twins run came from a Jamey Carroll double in the second inning (Joe Mauer also doubled in this game, but he sucks at baseball and--oh wait! Joe Mauer is now leading all active players in career batting average, with a .324 BA, passing up Pujols. ALSO, Mauer is on a 14-game hitting streak. HE SUCKS). It's not like Axelrod was shutting the Twins down or anything, either. He gave up 9 hits and a walk in his 5.1 innings pitched. The Twins just weren't able to capitalize on most of their opportunities. Anyway, the Twins offense wasn't completely silent on a Wednesday game, and this is great news.
Studs & Duds
Studs
-Joe Mauer. He's just so good at baseball (did I do that wrong?).
-Anthony Swarzak. Nice clean-up job, Squatch.
-Eduardo Escobar. Home runs are fun!
Duds
-Mike Pelfrey. Quit it.
-Brian Duensing. Also quit it.
-Josh Roenicke. Ditto.
Roll Call
Slightly disappointed with the lack of comments today, but I guess that's what afternoon baseball will do to you.
| # | Commenter | # Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | DavidRF | 8 |
| 2 | smookaj | 6 |
| 3 | TwinATL | 5 |
| 4 | ColossusOfRhode | 5 |
| 5 | kenzertz | 4 |
| 6 | MNWildcat | 3 |
| 7 | The Ham Sandwich | 3 |
| 8 | Sportsavenue | 1 |
| 9 | Luke in MN | 1 |
| 10 | aariediger | 1 |
FanGraphs
I made sure to grab the right date this time. Your sad fangraph of the day:
<iframe src="http://www.fangraphs.com/graphframe.aspx?config=0&static=0&type=livewins&num=0&h=450&w=450&date=2013-05-15&team=Twins&dh=0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" height="450" width = "450" style="border:1px solid black;"></iframe><br /><span style="font-size:9pt;">Source: <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/livewins.aspx?date=2013-05-15&team=Twins&dh=0&season=2013">FanGraphs</a></span>
Coming Up
The Twins have an off day tomorrow, and will open up the weekend series on Friday against the Boston Red Sox at home at Target Field. The game starts at 7:10 pm CST, and hopefully the predicted rainfall doesn't prevent the hometown nine from playing any games this weekend.