Kind of a Big Deal: Twins Series Preview
July 28th, 2008 Posted in 2008 season, Clayton Richard, G. Floyd, Jeeves, Joe Mauer, John Danks, Mark Buehrle, Minnesota Twins, Pregame Preview, White SoxThe last time the Sox were looking up at a team in the division, the team was 21-20 and playing in San Francisco on May 16. The following day, the Sox won a 3-1 ball game to take the lead in the division, a position they’ve held since. The division lead has grown to as large as 6.5 games and as small as 0.5 games. Now, as the Sox are set to enter a 4-game set against the second-place Twins, the lead is at 2.5. It’s conceivable that they could find themselves out of first place for the first time in 72 days, though, I highly doubt the Good Guys will find themselves in that position.
On the year, the Sox are 7-4 against the Twins, winning the last 5 head-to-head match ups, including a 4-game sweep at The Cell June 6-9. That 4-game sweep was especially impressive, considering that the net score for all 4 games was 40-15. I would love a repeat performance, but that probably won’t happen again for a few reasons. First off and most obviously is the fact that this series is at the Metrodome. The Twins, like seemingly everyone in MLB this year, are far superior at home. They are an impressive 34-19 at home and a mediocre 23-28 on the road. The other reason why I’m confident the Sox won’t sweep is because the Twins have been playing a lot better since that sweep at Comiscular; since then they’ve gone 26-14.
As long as the Sox win at least 2 games in this series, I will deem it a success. Obviously, 3 or 4 wins would be better, but I’m not going to be greedy. A split is perfectly acceptable on the road against a good team, especially coming off a series win on the road against a good division rival (Tigers). So let’s take a look at the pitching match ups and then a closer look at some of the opposition’s hitters.
Game 1
Game 1 pits Mark Buehrle against Kevin Slowey. Buehrle is far removed from his early season struggles. He’s brought his ERA all the way down to 3.56. It had been as high as 5.81 on May 12, but it has fallen pretty consistently since then. Since the start of June, he’s taken the rubber 9 times and has posted a fantastic 1.99 ERA. Even his WHIP has been good over that time span at 1.05. Typically, he has a much higher WHIP (around 1.2 for his career), but he’s been able to really keep a lid on his walk and hit totals. He’s been the Sox best pitcher recently, which should be a great way to kick off this series. Buehrle is coming off a great start Tuesday when he pitched on 3-days rest. He pitched 7 1/3 innings and gave up 1 run against the Rangers. I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict a 2 run, 7 2/3 inning outing for Mr. Buehrle today. Hopefully I prove to be more Nostradamus than Ms. Cleo.
As far as Slowey is concerned, he has improved over his rookie campaign last year. On the year he has a 4.41 ERA and a 1.141 WHIP. Slowey allows hits at about the same rate Buehrle does, but he rarely walks anyone. In 87 2/3 innings, he’s walked only 15 batters. That’s a pretty damn good rate. I’m going to go even further out on that limb and predict an Alexei Ramirez walk against Slowey, for no other reason than the fact that Alexei rarely walks and Slowey rarely issues walks. Since throwing a complete game shutout against the Brew Crew, Slowey has struggled. In his last three starts, he’s thrown a total of 15 innings and given up 15 runs. Here’s hoping the Sox continue those struggles.
Game 2
The second game is the game I’m looking forward to the most. This is because Clayton Richard will be on the mound. All you need to know about him is here, where I take a look at his minor league numbers and his college football career and here where I broke down his first start.
His opponent will be Glen Perkins. I’m not quite sure how Perkins is as effevtive as he is. He has a 4.08 ERA which is pretty good (right around league average) but the rest of his peripherals suck. He has a 1.428 WHIP, which is due to high hit totals. He gives up around 2.2 BB/9 which is pretty good, but he doesn’t strike anyone out. He K’s 4.5 per 9 innings, which is just not very good at all. This is his first year starting in the bigs. He pitched 19 games of relief last year. The interesting thing about Perkins is that he’s pitched steadily pretty much the whole season. He hasn’t had a run of pitching really well or a streak where he’s pitched really poorly; he’s been pretty steady. So with that in mind I’m going to go ahead and say Perkins will throw 6 innings and give up 3 runs.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’m throwing in a bunch of predictions. It’s not so I can gloat afterwards when I get stuff right or so I can prove to everyone that I don’t know diddly, it’s basically just for the hell of it.
Anyway…
Game 3
The third game of the series features Gavin Floyd against Livan Hernandez. I’m quoting myself here, not because I’m lazy, but because Gavin’s last start has done nothing but to reinforce this feeling:
Basically, the Sox should score some runs against this guy [Robertson], which is always nice to have when Floyd is on the mound. I’m still at the point where I think Floyd will pitch well, but am secretly bracing myself for the worst. Maybe I’ll get over it completely if he tames the powerful Tigers’ lineup.
Just replace Robertson with Livan Hernandez and Tigers’ with Twins’ and well, there ya go. I want to believe that Floyd is solid, but he just scares me. In his last start against the Tigers, he turned in a solid result, but it still looked ugly. He gave up a crap load of hits, but only 3 runs. I’ll accept another one of those performances even if the added stress takes a couple days off the tail end of my life.
Livan Hernandez just isn’t good. He has a 5.31 ERA and a whopping 1.600 WHIP. The one thing he does do well, though, is give the bullpen a rest. Even if he gives up a fair number of runs in a game, he will soldier on through the game. I suppose that, in itself, has some small value, especially coming after Slowey and Perkins who don’t necessarily go that deep into games. On average he pitches 6 1/3 innings per game, which is really good when considering how much that average is affected by flukish blow outs (as opposed to his consistent mediocrity).
Game 4
The final game offers another left handed starter pitching for the White Sox. John Danks will take the mound against Scott Baker. John Danks, as we know, has been fantastic all year. His last two starts were a little rough, though. In 10 innings total, he gave up 10 runs. So what you have to ask yourself is it a mere bump in the road, or is he starting another second half fade? In the second half last year, he had a 7.11 ERA; during the first half he had a 4.62 ERA. Being the optimist I am, I’m going to say bump in the road, and that he’ll have another Danksian performance againt the Twins. Let’s say 6 1/3 and 2 runs.
Baker probably is the best pitcher the Twins will throw at the Sox this series, at least in terms of performance this year. On the year, he has a 3.38 ERA and a 1.115 WHIP, which is pretty comparable to the 3.18 ERA and 1.211 WHIP that Danks is sporting. Baker is another pitcher that just has been very, very consistent (paging Joe Morgan) all year long. His worst start of the year was when he gave up 5 runs in 4 1/3 innings against the Rangers. Other than that, he has given up 4 runs once while every other start he’s given up fewer than 4 runs. Let’s just say, prior to writing this, I didn’t realize just how good he had been this year.
Twins’ Hitting
Basically, I just want to talk about the Twins hitting splits here. The Sox have 3 lefties pitching for them in this series, which doesn’t happen very often. So lefty/righty hitting splits could be a big deal. The Twins as a whole hit .285/.345/.419/.764 against righties, but only .262/.312/.382/.694 against lefties. Advantage White Sox! Also of note is that the Twins’ two best hitters (Morneu and Mauer) are lefties. Morneau’s OPS is .170 points lower against lefties this season which is in line with his career averages. Joe Mauer on the other hand is absolutely raping lefties this season. He’s hitting .303/.416/.411/.828 against righties and incredibly, he’s hitting lefties to the tune of .361/.413/.567/.980. Over the span of his career, he OPSes about .200 points less against lefties so either he’s changed his approach or more likely it’s an anomoly due to his .350+ BABIP. His slugging is severely supressed by lefties, normally. He slugs only .369 against them, so hopefully the Sox trio of lefty starters can hold Mauer to numbers consistent with his career numbers rather than his flukish year this year.
A Couple More Predictions
-Game 1 - White Sox win the game with Mark Buehrle going 7 2/3 giving up 2 runs and getting the win.
-Game 2 - Things come down to the bullpen. Both Richard and Perkins pitch well, but neither are brilliant.
-Game 3 - Gavin Floyd pitches well. Not fantastically, but not poorly either. He will stress me out and get the win.
-Game 4 - Will be the pitcher’s duel that Verlander-Danks should have been. I hate doing it, but I’m going to go ahead and say Twins win this one but through no fault of Danks.
Continuing the presidential theme from before, Game 2 will be the swing game in the series.
If you want to see what Twins’ fans are saying, take a look behind enemy lines at:
or
1 Trackback(s)