[Note: our guy ubelmann is taking a break from posting game logs at the WGOM for a while. He's got family in town and for some reason he thinks that's more important than communicating his thoughts to you about this game. The nerve, I tell ya! So, I'm filling for him.]

Game 110: Cleveland at Minnesota
Game Time: 6:10 PM CDT
Scheduled Starters: Paul Byrd (21st start, 115 IP, 4.87 xFIP) v. Kevin Slowey (17th Start, 96.7 IP, 4.20 xFIP). What is xFIP?

What a difference a year makes. Last year, Cleveland roared to a Central Division title and beat up the Twins in the process. Cleveland was 14-4 head-to-head against our favorite squad and they outperformed their Pythagorean number by five wins on their way to 96 wins and the best record in all of baseball. This overperformance in terms of the Pythagorean number was a marked changed for an Eric Wedge managed Cleveland club. In the four previous seasons, Wedge's clubs had never overperformed their Pythag number and in fact had underperformed by an average of 5 wins a season, including a ridiculous 11 win underperformance in 2006. I don't know if there's a managerial element that can be traced to a team's performance vis-a-vis their Pythag number, but I found it curious that Cleveland was significantly underperforming. Well, anyways, there was Cleveland, overperforming in 2007 and getting to the brink of the World Series before folding in the ALCS.

Flash forward to 2008. The Indians are a mess, currently sitting in last place in the AL Central at 47-61 and underperforming their Pythag number by 7 wins. At 54-54 they wouldn't really be in the race, but you can bet that they wouldn't have sold off cc: Sabathia, either. Plus, it should be noted that the Twins are returning the beatings from last year. They currently hold an 8-4 edge in the head-to-head matchups. I certainly would enjoy a 14-4 record by season's end.

In a sense, it's probably better to flop than to chug along in mediocrity, especially given the situation they were facing with cc:. Rather than ride him out until the end of the season, they got a package of four prospects from the Brewers, who hope like Hell that they are going to make the playoffs this year, because it's going to be a long cold winter in Milwaukee after Ben Sheets and cc: file for free agency. Of course, Indians fans probably don't agree, but as we've talked about before, they are used to disappointment.

As for tonight, the Twins face Byrd, who credits Bert Blyleven for helping him with his slider grip (h/t Gleeman). I don't know when the Blyleven-type tutorial occurred, but I'm not all that scared of Mr. Byrd. The Twins have had pretty good success against him over the last couple of years, even though he did shut them out last year. This year, the Twins have hit 4 home runs off of Byrd and scored 13 runs in 15 1/3 innings. There was one pretty good outing for Byrd in there, but a soft throwing righty like Byrd should be like read meat to this Twins lineup right about now.