First Pitch: 12:08 pm Central
Television: ESPN2
Radio (English): WCCO 830 AM, Treasure Island Baseball Network, KMBN 102.9 FM “The Wolf”, ESPN Radioo
Radio (Spanish): twinsbeisbol.com
Know Thine Enemy: The Crawfish Boxes
Deep breaths. It can still happen.
I’m talking about winning a single playoff game, of course. Not the series. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First things first. One game at a time. You know the drill.
Today, Jose Berrios takes the hill against surprise starter Jose Urquidy. Urquidy isn’t a stranger to the postseason, having thrown five scoreless innings in Game 4 of the World Series last year, but he’s only started five games so far this year.
While the Twins had Zack Greinke on the ropes early in the series opener, they couldn’t knock him out. And while they still got into the Astros’ suspect bullpen in fairly short order, Framber Valdez highlighted the Twins’ incompetence against left-handed pitching with five easy shutout innings.
Berrios finally gets to start a postseason game against a team other than the New York Yankees. Not only that, he finally gets to start one at Target Field. After stringing together several strong start in late August and into September, Berrios gave up four earned runs in five innings to Cincinnati on Friday night.
Also notable: no Byron Buxton in the lineup for the Twins. Instead, Alex Kirilloff will be making his big-league debut, batting sixth and playing right field with Max Kepler sliding over to center.
While Rocco Baldelli may have over-managed a bit with his lineup in Game 1, here’s hoping that he’s struck the right chords to begin Game 2.
Here’s to the first playoff win since 2002, and here’s to a Game 3 on Thursday...