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The Twins win in today's game at the Cell in the South Side of Chicago prevented Minnesota from being swept by the White Sox, and allowed them to win just their 4th game in the past 14. Success! To his credit, Scott Diamond pitched well in today's game, and his performance was definitely an improvement over his last start. Today, he went 6 1/3 innings and gave up just 5 hits, 3 earned runs, and 2 walks. He didn't strike anyone out, which was a little troubling, but limited the runs allowed was encouraging. He did give up a 4th inning bomb to de Aza, but other than that, the Sox scraped their runs across the plate and Diamond kept things under control. The bullpen came in to pitch a near-perfect remaining 2 2/3 innings with just one hit being given up by Jared Burton in the 8th. Otherwise, the Sox were kept very quiet by the Minnesota 'pen.
As for the Minnesota offense, Oswaldo Arcia was the player to knock in the first of the runs in the first inning, an RBI single that plated Alex Presley. 3 players each had RBI singles in the second inning: Chris Colabello, Brian Dozier (whose breakout season has continued), and Eric Fryer. After that, Danks settled in for 5 more innings of solid work and didn't allow any more runs for the Twins. The team's RISP for today's game was a much more encouraging 4-for-8, while the White Sox struggled and were just 1-for-4 with RISP. Ouch.
Roll Call
| # | Commenter | # Comments
 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | WestRiverTwinsFan | 47 |
| 2 | kenzertz | 14 |
| 3 | Jesse | 11 |
| 4 | Brananorama | 10 |
| 5 | twinsgirl197 | 5 |
| 6 | ColossusOfRhode | 3 |
| 7 | missles | 3 |
| 8 | DavidRF | 1 |
| 9 | myjah | 1 |
| 10 | The Ham Sandwich | 1 |
| 11 | Boot | 1 |
| 12 | Stan Gallo | 1 |
Day games always have the saddest of roll calls...special thanks/shoutout to Brananorama for posting the lineups as well!
Win Expectancy Graph
<iframe src="http://www.fangraphs.com/graphframe.aspx?config=0&static=0&type=livewins&num=0&h=450&w=450&date=2013-09-18&team=White Sox&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=2013-09-18&team=White Sox&dh=0&season=2013">FanGraphs</a></span>
Coming Up...
Tomorrow, the Twins head to Oakland to take on the A's, who are pushing for a clinching playoff position. They'll be starting the game at O.co Coliseum (still the worst facility name in all of sports, honestly) at 9:05 CST. Starting pitchers will be Kevin Correia for Minnesota and Dan Straily for Oakland.