Game 65: Mariners at Twins

First Pitch: 7:10p Central
Television: FOX Sports North; fubo.tv (subscription)
Radio (English): W-C-C-O 830 AM, Treasure Island Baseball Network
Radio (Spanish): twinsbeisbol.com
Know Thine Enemy: Lookout Landing

Seattle’s Best Coffee is a coffee brand based out of - you guessed it - Seattle, Washington. It’s also a subsidiary of one of those huge coffee house chains that charges you $159.00* for a combination of hot milk, espresso, and possibly chocolate. Then they write your name wrong on the cup that holds said combination. Just go to your local coffee shop and support local.

Anyway, I first came across Seattle’s Best Coffee back when I actually made sandwiches for a living. (I don’t anymore, just an FYI.) I don’t remember exactly how it happened, whether the chain I worked for started rolling out breakfast or if they changed coffee distributors, but coffee became a thing for this chain and their selection was Seattle’s Best Coffee. Now if you have worked in food service before, you know that freshness is key. Everybody wants everything fresh, and that includes coffee. We’d have to brew it fresh every two hours throughout the day, but not just in the morning when we were serving breakfast... the whole day.** And so every two hours someone would go out to both the air pots (one regular, one decaf), dump both full air pots down the drain, rinse them, and brew two new pots of fresh coffee.

The first time I got a whiff of this coffee while it was brewing, it smelled of a distinct drug and I looked at all my co-workers in the eyes and inspected them to determine if something funny was going on, then one of them pointed out it was the coffee brewing. (Silly me.) Another thing I noticed is that we were barely selling any coffee whatsoever, but our breakfast sales were pretty stellar. So what gives? Nobody wants coffee? I asked one customer who became a regular in the morning what he liked about the coffee. He said he didn’t, but drank it out of pure convenience until he got to work. He compared the taste of it to a certain part of the body.

That’s why I drink green tea instead. Oh, and the Seattle Mariners have one of the worst records in the league right now. That’s the connection. Oh, and they have Seattle’s Best Coffee at the office where I work.

* indicates possible exaggeration
** indicates no exaggeration; this is pure fact

The Minnesota Twins are back in town from another winning road trip and series win and start off a nine-game homestand; the first series is against the aforementioned Seattle Mariners. The Twins are technically tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Houston Astros for the best record in Major League Baseball at 0.672. Our local squad took three out of four games at Seattle back in the middle of May and look to capitalize on that this time around.

Martin Perez is going to be taking the mound for the Twins tonight, and he’s been surprisingly good for this rotation so far this season. He’s put up a 3.72 ERA over 13 games (10 starts) with a K/9 of 8.3 - his highest of his career so far - and a HR/9 of 0.7 - his best in three years. Unfortunately, his last two starts (one at Tampa Bay and one at Cleveland) were clunkers, combining for 7.1 IP, 12 H, 8 ER, 4 BB, and 4 K between the two games. If there’s a way to get that turned around, it’s against this Mariners team.

The one starting pitcher that the Twins did not see during their trip to Seattle was Mike Leake, and he’s who the Mariners will counter with tonight. Unlike Pérez, Leake has come off a couple of very good starts: a 7-inning outing against the Los Angeles Angels and a complete-game one-run game against the Houston Astros. (Yes, you read that right.) However, both those games were in the sweet confines of T-Mobile Park. He’s posted a 1-4 record and a 5.57 ERA in seven games on the road, allowing 14 homers and 10 walks.

GO TWINS GO