Series Preview: BORDER BATTLE!!! Twins vs. Brewers in home-and-home week

Consider, for a moment, a baseball team. A team with low expectations this season, that jumped out to a surprising, early lead in their division. A division with the defending pennant winner. That upstart of a team has faded away, but left fans with a taste of success!

Who am I talking about, The Brewers, or the Twins? Trick question, its both of them. The Brewers haven’t slid as far as we have, and are only a half game behind the Cubs. They are still very much in the playoff race. The Twins, on the other hand, are now six games behind the Indians.

The big difference, of course, between the two teams is their fans. You, Twins fans are a sophisticated, mature, intelligent person. Who just happens to like “dong stroking” jokes. They’re from Wisconsin.

Now let me tell you, I have many, many family members who are “Sconnies.” I even like most of them. But in general, we are dealing with a beer-swilling, cheese gobbling, flannel-wearing, heavily mustached crowd of wannabe lumberjacks. And that’s just the ladies. Yup, I resorted to “Your momma wears combat boots” style humor. And Brewer fans travel well typically. Be prepared.

Look at it this way, this is the state that used to manufacture America’s greatest automobile. Hands down. (Hey, I’m a Jeep guy through-and-through. Its a disease.) Then they went and screwed it up and sold out to Chrysler. The same Chrysler the Germans couldn’t fix, and the Italians had to be paid to take. No matter what Lee Ioccaca pulled off, being the shitty part of Chrysler is an impressive accomplishment. Is that still not enough reason to hate the Brewers?

If I can’t convince you with this, you’re beyond hope. The Brewers gave us Captain Contraction himself, Bud Effing Selig. The guy who tried to make the Twins no longer exist. There is a special place in sports-fan hell for the guy who tries to take away a beloved team.

But that’s 300 words of poorly thought-out vitriol. Surely that is enough to sustain you for a few days, and I should get back to baseball. I may be rambling a bit. The dog and I are sitting on the patio at the local over-priced coffee joint, and I want to get my money’s worth. Anyway, the Twins did something very out of character yesterday. They didn’t lose a series. At home. I know, right!? The Twins offense got it done in their two wins against Texas, and didn’t in the losses. Sounds simple enough, but the Twins gave up four runs in the first three games, and five in finale. To win with those kind of performances, they need a lot of run support.

The first pitcher for the Twins this series is Ervin Santana, who has pitched more complete games than anyone else in baseball this season, including his last time out. He tends to follow those up with a clunker, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Eric Thames has two career dongs stroked (told you, you’d like that joke) against Santana, and is the only Brewer to do so. Santana faces off against Brent Suter, who despite having a great “Upper Midwest” name is actually from Chicago. He went to Harvard. Just like those old Matt Birk commercials. He’s a guy the Twins have never faced.

Adalberto Mejia is looking to finally pitch more than 4 innings, and against a team he has never faced. His opponent is an old friend. Matt Garza was a Twin early in his career, before being traded to obtain Delmon Young and a buffet line to be named later. Of course, in true former Twins fashion, Garza became one of the best pitchers in baseball for awhile. He’s also been pretty good this year. He has a 3.68 ERA. Jason Castro, Brian Dozier and Joe Mauer have hit very, very well against him, including two Castro-Jacks. Dozier and Eduardo Escobar have also hit home runs.

For the road half of the series, we are being blessed, blessed I tell you. Bartolo Colon is starting, in a NL park. You know what that means? Myjah was wrong, and Big Sexy bats again!!!! Hopefully he brings his hitting shoes, because the Brewers are .356/.406/.678 against him. Also, Bartolo pitched a complete game last week, and I still can’t wrap my brain around that fact. He faces Brandon Woodruff, who was five years old when Bartolo debuted in the MLB, and has never pitched against the Twins.

The final starter for the Twins is a guy that only I and his mother are happy to see pitch, Kyle Gibson. In his last outing, Gibson did a Gibson, and pitched 5.1 innings, while giving up three runs. Gibby has never surrendered a long-ball to the BrewCrew, and they have only hit .154/.241/.231 against him. Zach Davies will be occupying the bump for this game. Davies has been a decent pitcher in his brief career, with an ERA just over four both this year and overall. The Twins haven’t had a chance to bat against him either.

Pitching Matchups

Game One (Home) Monday, August 7; 7:10 PM Central — Ervin Santana RHP vs Brent Suter LHP

Game Two (Home) Tuesday, August 8; 7:10 PM Central — Adalberto Mejia LHP vs Matt Garza RHP

Game One (Road) Wednesday, August 9; 7:10 PM Central — Bartolo Colon RHP vs Brandon Woodruff RHP

Game Two (Road) Thursday, August 10; 7:10 PM Cantral — Kyle Gibson RHP vs Zach Davies RHP

Notes

• Remember Oswaldo Arcia? His brother Orlando is the shortstop for the Brewers. Orlando Arcia is having a good season at .282/.327/.425 and a .971 Fielding Percentage.
• As alluded to above, the first two games are by AL rules, the second two by NL rules. Hopefully someone taught Paul Molitor how to double-switch this week.