Game time: 6:05 CDT
TV: FS-N / Radio: TRN
Probables:
Nick Blackburn (113 tRA+, 5.12 tRA*) vs Fausto Carmona (1 tRA+, 5.19 tRA*)
Carmona won his first game of the year last week against the Yankees. Though, who couldn't. It was an otherwise mediocre start with 4 ER, 4 BB, 1 SO, and 2 HR. Carmona had a breakout year in 2007 and decent 2008 until he injured his hip on May 24. Wasn't quite the same afterwards.
| ERA | BB | SO | HR | FIP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-May 24 | 2.25 | 35 | 22 | 1 | 4.62 |
| Post-May 24 | 7.61 | 32 | 35 | 6 | 5.08 |
His FIP so far this year is 7.55.
| Year | SO/9 | BB/9 | FB% | SL% | CH% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | 6.99 | 3.74 | 77.2% | 15.3% | 3.6% |
| 2007 | 5.73 | 2.55 | 75.0% | 12.0% | |
| 2008 | 4.33 | 5.22 | 80.9% | 8.8% | 2.6% |
| 2009 | 4.50 | 5.63 | 86.5% | 3.9% | 9.5% |
So, he drops his slider (a groundball-type pitch) for his changeup (a flyball-type pitch). Carmona lives on his sinker and control to get outs and when he overly relies on one and loses the other, this unsurprisingly hasn't gone so well. I wonder if his lack of control is related to his injury last year. His career BB/9 in the minors is 1.7 with only a 2.0 in AAA and AA, so the outliers here would be recent performance. However, his control suffered before the injury as well, so I could just be making up stuff.
Conclusion? Be patient and let Carmona do his part in funding the fight against breast cancer.
Go Twins!
Joe C:
Boy, sounds like that guy is not helping himself out.
He was removed from a game for no apparent reason about a week ago and hadn't played since. I had assumed he was injured. Thanks for the update.
Dirty Sanchez.
Can you say that, E-6? I thought this was a family site. ;-)
Hey, man. He got caught. His name is Sanchez. Do the math. ;)
so, you are saying that he's dead to you??? ;-)
aww, cr@p, I messed that up ;-)
Duuuuude
THA DUUUUUDDDDDDDE
Take that, Jason Morneau. Who's the cleanup hitter now?
You know, I really would like to see Pronk have a good year, except against us.
"span man" = gardy's nickmame. about as original as one of bush's...
You're doin' a heck of a job, Spanie.
Spandex?
DSPAN2 is quality.
But visually, the Denard's ad rules.
i love dspan2. i figure if i ever saw a video of him laughing, or any other large display of emotion, i'd suspect it was digitally manipulated somehow.
Santana so far tonight: 2 IP, 1 H, 6 SO. Not a good night to be facing him.
but a good night to have him on my fantasy team.
smooth move, punter.
Jeebus. Miss some bats, Blackburn.
Redmond has no future as an actor.
Or a hand-model. ;)
DDelmon!!
Delmon!
Did Delmon actually make a good catch there?
Delmon..nice.
Gordo with a mind-numbingly convoluted theory that he eventually capped with an audio shrug.
Vin Scully, he ain't.
Sometimes I think Gordo's mind wanders while he's talking, and so he gets lost in mid-sentence.
That's exactly how it played out. It happens to me, too, but thankfully I'm not on the radio.
or a Pastor. same here.
a little magic act by Blackburn there. He looked bad this inning
where did he learn how to do that?
Cuddyer, of course,
Nice wiggling there. Kept the damage to a minimum.
Blackburn escaping with only 1 run seems very lucky. And this team needs some luck.
(Where's that shiv?)
will this work?
WTF have they done to our shiv?
Ha!
MOUNTIE!!!!!
Morneau looked bored hitting that
CC!
w00t!!
Oooooh Canada!
w00t!
Hey, an opposing fan kept the baseball. Is that allowed?
damn right, it is.
game so far:
Kuddy.
i thought kuddy would lead the team in Ks by now, but it's still crede with 12. kuddy's got 11 (young, gomez, and the mountie with 10).
Krede.
oops. sorry.
It just seems like every time a guy makes a good catch for the second out of the inning, he'll come up to bat fourth in the next inning.
"these observations are simply amazing. explain to me again how a ram's bladder may be employed to prevent earthquakes..."
Way, Jose!
I had the wrong start time in my head for this one. Oopsings!
It's my seven-year anniversary of quitting smoking today. If that's not motivation enough for the Twins, what is?
it's hopefully motivation for lots of people. congrats
Thanks. Hardest thing I ever did. Mentioning it was sorta outta nowhere, but I didn't realize it was today until I pulled up the game on MLB.tv and the date showed up.
tell me about it. third time was the charm.
nice work. the wife's nagging finally overtook my enjoyment of cigarettes. i've had a total of four since mid-january, which is better than the pack a day i used to smoke.
I had started dating my now-wife just a month earlier, and she claimed she was allergic so I'd stop. She told me she wasn't really allergic about three years later. I don't know how she got that by me, because I'm excellent at spotting lies, and she's just awful at lying without laughing.
I was probably just looking for an excuse to give it up, so I went ahead and believed it without giving it any thought.
i was going to quit as a new year's thing, but i was going to vegas with old college buddies jan 5-7th, so i thought it best to wait until after that. now the wife's in on me about beer, but i just tell her, "maybe next year".
the smokes are the devil's work, but beer? Has she no shame?!!!!???
For some reason, my feeble mind can't absorb the fact that Cleveland is not in the central time zone. I'm frequently late for the games when we play there.
Yeah, but aren't you from Ohio?
More's the shame.
;-)
If they're going to be in the central division, they should be on central time.
Cleveland doesn't surprise me as much as Detroit. I hate that the Twins play so many games in the Eastern time zone.
in hockey, the Wild play (what seems like) a million games in the Mountain and Pacific time zones. Im not a big fan of that
i almost missed a flight to japan because i forgot detroit was EST...
Extra free bonus run!
Wow, it seems like Carmona is really working the low corners in this game. Pretty good placement, except it also seems like he's not really pitching anywhere else (near the strikezone).
Is the game still going on? Listening to the radio, I can't tell.
Everytime I have to listen to Dazzle and Black Jack I miss Herb even more. He wasn't the best but at least he actually mentioned the game.
Herb was pretty good. He didn't get into a lot of technical stats, but he told you what he knew, he told you what was going on, and he never got in the way of the game.
Herb was golden compared to the present crew.
OMG, shut up with the grade school names already. Almost time to switch to the Cleveland audio feed.
Dear Twins Radio Broadcast team,
I like the game better without extended dialogues on the potentially amusing variations of players with strange, foreign-sounding names.
Your fan,
greenmachine
Santana en fuego tonight, apparently.
Hey! I talked IT into installing Flash Player for "work purposes". Rock-n-roll!
The Golden Ticket.
Ok, douchenozzles..let's stop talking twitter and broadcast the game.
robbie's trying to teach dick n' bert about twitter. give it up...
At least they're not talking about sexting.
btw, sean, excellent demonstration of type-ing skillz in the intro.
Just learning from the best.
What just happened?
Radio guys all over the Krede glove love.
(Sorry. Did that sound dirty?)
Now that was an interesting play. Ready! Aim! Cuddyer!
i second that.
does that count as an assist?
Morris accents Morneau's name correctly; Gordo quickly "corrects" him.
Twitter that beotch...
i think those annoying axe girls should show up and attack robbie insmawhatsit's "gelmet".
I'd prefer to see those Human Wrecking Balls attack him
And Cuddyer hits a strike-out up the middle!
I can't believe _elm_n struck out.
well, if kuddy wasn't going to do it, you knew _elm_n would.
My radio (or the radio station, or something) died. It's a very sad evening.
It's miraculously working again. That was odd...
what station were you listening to? because mine did the same thing
Sure Gordo, the Indians have 96 runs, but half of them were in one game against the Yanks
to be fair, it was over two games in particular.
oh, sure, let the air out of my exagguration
for some reason, stella is just tastier if you own a stella glass.
(however, they're one of those lame 11.2oz bottle beers)
+one Desired Streetcar
steeeeeelllllllaaaaaaa!!!!
A cocktail named sidecar...
Shrinkage!
so, you're saying i should take them out of the fridge?
Time to get my StatFreak on:
First and third with no outs; how are we going to strand them this time?
Haha punto didn't have a picture for the batting order on FSN.
Mmmm, Betancourt....
Just got home from watching the Buffalo Bisons lose another game. 2-13 record. Tomorrow now seems as good of a day as any for my first day in the press box. On the bright side, the Twins are winning.
I only just realized this the other day, but...Bisons? I always thought that bison was the plural and the singular. Am I totally wrong on this?
Congrats on the gig, btw. Color me jealous.
Hee hee. Good pickup, ubes. Bisons it is. And you are correct, sir. "Bison" is singular or plural.
Correct, the plural of bison is bison.
FWIW, spell check does not recognize Bisons, so I imagine you are correct. Though, Buffalo Bisons does seem to flow a little bit better than Minnesota Wilds or Tampa Bay Lightnings.
And thanks for the congrats, I will make sure to provide links, at least for the first couple of times, in the CoC.
aaaaaackkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.
well, Morales was just clogging the bases anyway. Hit a salami, Morno!
i'm still upset at how little they got derosa for.
Spede Crede.
You read my mind.
8 batters, two runs. That's just sad.
Way to go KKKuddy.
And Kuddyer ends the inning with his third of the game. Go figure.
Gift to Crede. I thought he had no chance. He must be deceptively quick.
I hate lag
you on mlb.tv?
yep.
tell me about it, then. i've noticed the higher the video quality, the longer the lag. highest = 3 mins behind.
Why are the radio guys still marveling at Shin-Soo Choo's name? It's not that funny...
It's a lot funnier when he gets out.
Dinner bell. Grilled steak, hot baguette, salad, GBP.
Chef Boyardee ravioli and a can of Coke - can you tell I'm stuck at work?
the Mrs. is in charge, so I'm thinking leftovers as a best-case scenario.
You really know how to flatter a woman...
Suffice it say, you don't work in a restaurant do you, Will? ;)
you know, i wondered how i survived all the years before i met my wife (i'm much more capable now). then i realized i worked at nothing but restaurants and co-ops that whole time.
Well, I work in the same facility as an excellent all-you-can eat food venue. However, frequently eating downstairs doesn't help too much with my Wellness Challenge.
Fair enough, although those Spaghetti-O's ain't exactly "health-food".
Blackie is getting a really high foot-per-out ratio.
400+ on that fly ball out to center will help skew the number.
try 3 or 4 of them.
Any chance Blackburn gets the ball for the 8th with a pitch count of 99? I don't believe we have anyone up in the 'pen yet.
well, since Crain is on the DL, and Nathan can't pitch before the 9th....
Do you really think Gardy gives the ball to Nathan in the 9th for a (potential--knock on wood) non-save appearance?
I'm looking for Ayala for the SOC.
What do you know? Gardy goes and proves me wrong...
_elm_n the only starter in the lineup tonight w/o a hit.
Grienke gives up a run in the 5th, but it's unearned.
Ok, with that K on Sizemore, I'm going home with a good taste in my mouth. Bring 'em on home, kids.
heh. he looks a little out of breath...
What a goofy season thus far, where I fear the days of the Liriano-Baker part of the rotation. If they come around and these other guys are for real...yikers.
i was going to mention that. it's weird that blackburn and perkins have been the aces lately.
I have a theory as to why the Twins are playing well this tonight. Most of the season I have been sipping on Jameson and water. Tonight though, I opted for the ol' standby....
Ugh; playing well tonight.
If this is the true reason the Twins are playing well and you now have to drink this beer to be sure, I am truly sorry.
i must admit, i just figured out the simplistic, minimalist beauty of whiskey water recently. however, thank you for switching it up tonight.
Whiskey and water makes you look both cultured and tough at the same time. I cannot think of another beverage that is its equal in that regard. I am quite sure that someone will prove me wrong in the next two minutes though.
Well, that didn't work. Both times I've tried to post a picture here, nothin'.
It was a Billy Dee Williams Colt 45 ad.
As a poet once said: Neat, Neat, Neat.
Obligatory.
Nice win, boys! In lieu of fireworks, might I suggest a piece of leftover birthday cake.
fireworks = cake = compromise
firework + cake. sorry.
in teh 7th inning, the Twins had the bases loaded in what seemed like forever and never hit a ball out of the infield, yet still scored 2 runs
I think out offense is back to being a well oiled machine!
Wow...Gardy very snarky in the post-game interview. You'd think we lost
It's amazing how easy it is to win when you don't allow 5 or more runs.
I dunno, they're 3-0 when allowing five runs. Only (now) 2-0 when allowing one run. Not so good with the more part though: 1-8.