Game 34: Twins at Blue Jays

First Pitch: 6:07p Central
Television: FOX Sports North; fubo.tv (subscription)
Radio: WCCO 830 AM, Treasure Island Baseball Network (English); twinsbeisbol.com (español)
Know Thine Enemy: Bluebird Banter

I went to Canada once and only once. My family had taken a vacation up to Baudette, Minn., on Lake of the Woods and I think we were at a fishing resort of a guy my Dad knew. One weekend morning my parents must have said, “Let’s go check out Canada,” because we were all in gray Saturn station wagon and in Canada heading towards the town of Rainy River. We got into town and the whole place seemed deserted except for the large group of people (assuming the whole town’s population) at what looked like was a farmer’s market. We drove around some and I noticed that the fire hydrants were painted like cartoon characters, which was pretty neat.

We got to an intersection that had a four-way stop and a truck was in front of us at the stop sign. It was pretty weird now that I think about it because it was just sitting there, no traffic in sight. We stop behind it and all of a sudden the reverse lights came on and my Mom screamed my Dad’s name and BOINK... CLANK..., this guy in the truck backed into our car! My parents got out and surveyed the damage: our license plate got knocked off and that’s it. The guy in the truck got out and seemed friendly and then tried to sell us life insurance. My parents got back in the car and we booked it back to the good ol’ U. S. of A.

The Minnesota Twins look to claim a series victory tonight against the Toronto Blue Jays in the second game of this three-game set. A win tonight would also even the season series with Toronto, who are currently five games below the .500 mark in an AL East division that has the New York Yankees Boston Red Sox Tampa Bay Rays leading the way. (Really??)

The Twins send out their number one starter, José Berríos, tonight. He’s pitched at least six innings in each game since the beginning of this season and looks to make that eight games in a row tonight. In his last outing, Berríos struck out five Houston Astros batters and walked none on the way to an 8-2 win for our local nine. He ended up pitching seven innings while allowing only two earned runs and one homer. La MaKina (we have shirts that say this, by the way) has pitched his way to a 2.91 ERA so far this season and is striking out almost nine batters per nine innings. Another thing to watch: Berríos has not allowed a walk in his last two starts.

Toronto will counter with Aaron Sanchez, a home-grown player from the Blue Jays organization. Sanchez was an All-Star in 2016 and then followed up with injury-shortened campaigns in 2017 and 2018. Since we last saw him on April 16 in Minneapolis, he only pitched five innings in an outing once; the other two times, he went only four innings each. He’s allowed five earned runs and has walked nine batters while striking out only eight. This year, he’s pitched to a 3-2 record with a 3.09 ERA, allowing 12 earned runs and three homers. He’s allowed almost as many walks (22) as he has struck out opponents (29), leading to K/BB of 1.32 next to his WHIP of 1.486. Let’s see if walks will haunt the Blue Jays tonight.

GO TWINS GO!

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