Twins 10, White Sox 5: Good starters pitch like bad starters

In Spring Training, back when that existed, pitchers & catchers usually came to camp first. I’m assuming that’s because their particular skills are harder to hone. A batter hits a slider or fastball from gazillions of different pitchers; each pitcher has their own difficult-to-master delivery & style.

(I’m purely guessing, here; I have the athletic ability of a geekier Pee-Wee Herman.)

White Sox starter Lucas Giolito (sixth in AL Cy Young voting last year) gave up four Twins runs in the first half-inning. Twins starter and two-time All-Star José Berríos allowed four in five. Per radio, both pitchers were missing their catchers’ mitts all over the place. Welcome to besuboru, 2020 American edition — things is gonna get all Ugly Ball.

Max Kepler hit the first pitch of the Twins’ first semi-real game three rows into right, and donged a second one later. So he’s on pace for 120, which would be good if he wasn’t one of those Euros who practically cheat on everything like Lanz Armstrüng in the Tour Du Deutschland.

Jorge Polanco RBI-ed two runs off Giolito replacement Evan Marshall to make Minnesota have more points. Weird bounces and rusty gloves/pitching led to three more Twins runs later on. Hopeful bullpen stalwarts Trevor May and Tyler Duffey each pitched score-i-less-ly, as did “let’s get a guy to get a guy” Tyler Clippard because all things Twins are named Tyler now, and Cody Stashak who is from New Jersey even though “Cody” is a totally Orange County name.

Duds of the game: effing awful killer disease that messed up Spring Training among much worse things and NO OTHER DUDS, TWINS WIN!

Studs of the game: Jorge “Tyler” Polanco, bullpen, and Jesse/myjah/TJ for letting me do this stuff — it’s been a joy.

Robot Roll Call:

Comment of the gamethread: Joel Hernandez with “Hi” since Joel rules

Attendance: Maybe about 7000 spiders in the ballpark’s square footage, I’m no bug expert so I don’t know for sure.