Perkins vs. Mussina
Coming off of a 2-day break, the Twins head into their LAST GAME EVER AT YANKEE STADIUM (EVER!!!!1oneone!!!1111!!!), with Perkins and his 4.80 xFIP facing off against a borderline (or better) Hall-of-Fame candidate in Mike Mussina, sporting a 3.67 xFIP so far this year.
But! The Twins' two-day break will hopefully allow them [...]

Slowey vs. Rasner
Slowey's got an edge of about 0.3 xFIP on Rasner.

Blackburn vs. Ponson
Sidney Ponson is apparently an asshole, but posted a very respectable 4.38 xFIP (and 3.88 ERA if you're into that) with the Rangers. Nick Blackburn, on the other hand, has a 4.24 xFIP. So, the pitching matchup is really pretty even, talent-wise.

Padilla vs. Light Rail
So far this season, Baker has gotten 84% of his strikeouts as strikeouts swinging. That caught me by surprise. Santana, who got a ton of swinging strikeouts when his change-up dropped off the table, has 82% of his career strikeouts as strikeouts swinging. Average is 74% of strikeouts as [...]

Matt Harrison vs. Livan
If Livan was any other pitcher on the staff, I'd point to his 5.44 ERA, 4.62 xFIP, and .346 BABIP and I would conclude that he's been some combination of unlucky on balls in play and poor defensive support. So that's exactly what I'm going to tell you--Livan's been some combination [...]

Millwood vs. Perkins
We now enter the portion of the season where it begins to become fashionable to say things like "they don't play the games on paper"* and strawmen come into play all over the place. I'm going to try to do a better job ignoring that BS and focusing on enjoying baseball. [...]

Verlander and Blackburn on the mound.

Light Rail vs. Robertson
If he had enough innings to qualify for the ERA title, Baker's 3.67 xFIP would be 8th in the AL. Not too shabby.
Maybe the whole "Christmas in July" thing on Thursday got to me, or maybe it's because 10am (PT) start times make day games that much more annoying, but it [...]

Perkins vs. Galarraga
First off, in honor of yesterday's game, I'd just like to say Joe Nathan >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Todd Jones.
Next, I'll mention that Glen Perkins is still sporting a pretty good walk rate of 2.1 BB/G. I'm still not willing to completely dismiss the shaky control he had in the minors, but it's not [...]

Slowey vs. Rogers
More day baseball in an attempt to completely halt the nation's economy.
Things more surprising to me than the outcome of yesterday's game:
This last Sunday, I found out while playing cards that one of my friends had never heard the Kenny Rogers classic "The Gambler." But don't worry, I've reported this suspicious behavior [...]

ubelmann must have been doing some late night physics equations or something. The starters are Josh Beckett and Livan Hernandez. Looking at that matchup makes the last two losses sting just a little more.

Blackburn v. Lester
Now that Lester has started throwing more strikes and has his xFIP down to 4.17, I'm less of a hater.
The Red Sox are currently in second place in the AL East. I see two clear reasons for this:
1) The Red Sox are not superheroes in a cartoon.
2) The Rays are [...]

Light Rail vs. Dice-K
Dice-K has a 5.07 xFIP so far this year, mainly fueled by a crazy 5.7 BB/G and a low, low 35.5% GB%. As a team, the Twins still don't walk very much (255 walks ranks 25th in baseball), but it seems like (outside of Gomez and Delmon) a lot of the [...]

Cliff Lee Is Not That Good vs. Perkins
Don't get me wrong--Cliff Lee has still be great this year, but his xFIP of 3.15 is much higher than his ERA of 2.26 and while he'll probably start the All-Star Game (and it's not a terrible idea for him to do that), I would personally choose Halladay [...]

Laffey v. Slowey
I didn't get to watch the game yesterday, but looking at the box score, it was good to see that the Twins put a bunch of runs on the board. Delmon's been pretty hot lately, which I am really glad to see. Having him hit well over the second half of [...]

Byrd v. Livan
Both starting pitchers today have managed to limit their walks allowed quite well, while at the same time being overall crappy pitchers. But some offensive fireworks would be rather appropriate for Independence Day, don't you think?

Bonine v. Blackburn

Robertson v. Light Rail
Last night's loss was certainly a tough one, but it's a long season, Citizens, hang in there.
2008 VORP for Twins acquired in offseason trades:
3.5 -- Delmon Young
1.2 -- Carlos Gomez
0.3 -- Brendan Harris
-0.8 -- Craig Monroe
2008 VORP for Tigers acquired in offseason trades:
17.2 -- Miguel Cabrera
6.2 -- Edgar Renteria
-6.4 -- Dontrelle Willis
-7.6 [...]

Galarraga vs. Perkins
I'm back from my trip now--my forehead a little worse for the wear--but of course that means I have some catching up to do. I'm a little disappointed that the White Sox beat the Dodgers and that I missed the historic game Saturday night (which I was originally planning on attending until [...]

BushSheets vs. Slowey
The older I get, the faster time seems to go by. I can hardly believe that we're already to the second half of the season.
Double play rates for Twins hitters (as of June 23rd):
3-10, 30% -- Tolbert
3-13, 23% -- Punto
2-10, 20% -- Redmond
10-52, 19% -- Delmon
11-60, 18% -- Mauer
13-78, 17% -- Morneau
7-50, [...]

Sheets Parra vs. Livan
Twins record after 80 games in recent seasons:
42-38 -- 2007
45-35 -- 2006
46-34 -- 2005
43-37 -- 2004
43-37 -- 2003
45-35 -- 2002
49-31 -- 2001
35-45 -- 2000
31-49 -- 1999
38-42 -- 1998

McClung vs. Blackburn
Blackburn looked pretty good at the convention, but I'm posting this a fair bit in advance so I can't be 100% sure he's going to make this start. His xFIP of 4.19 would look a little better in recent years gone by. This year, it makes him just a bit above [...]

Light Rail v. Banks (Looks like a Supreme Court decision to me)
Josh Banks has pretty good numbers for a 3.71 xFIP. ~6 K/G, ~2 BB/G, and a really low HR total that is probably aided by his home park. Of course, he's pitching in his home park so I wouldn't expect many [...]

Perkins vs. Maddux
An unfair comparison:
172.3 wins above replacement -- Greg Maddux
2.7 wins above replacement -- Glen Perkins
A somewhat less unfair comparison:
6.2 K/9, 2.2 BB/9, 0.5 HR/9 -- Greg Maddux, age 24
5.7 K/9, 1.4 BB/9, 1.5 HR/9 -- Kevin Slowey, age 24
Maddux never had Slowey's HR problem (probably because he's more of a GB pitcher), but [...]

Slowey vs. Peavy
Going into the series, team leaders in VORP:
30.1 -- Adrian Gonzalez
18.5 -- Brian Giles
9.2 -- Jody Gerut
6.5 -- Edgar V Gonzalez
5,4 -- Kevin Kouzmanoff
22.4 -- Joe Mauer
19.8 -- Justin Morneau
7.7 -- Alexi Casilla
7.5 -- Jason Kubel
2.9 -- Nick Punto (this is not a typo)
I heard someone recently say that Adrian Gonzalez might be [...]

Webb vs. Livan
Webb >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Livan

Owings vs. Blackburn
78 OPS+ -- Micah Owings, 2008
120 OPS+ -- Micah Owings, career
I heard some talk that he might DH today, but it kind of seems like the D-Backs have better position player options? Everyone in yesterday's game has an OPS+ better than 78 so far this season except for Montero, who was catching. [...]

Big Unit vs. Light Rail
Randy Johnson is absolutely amazing. He's got a 3.80 xFIP and by next January, he'll have seen 10 different presidents in his lifetime. As measured by ERA+, Randy Johnson has had 6 of the 100 best single seasons in the history of baseball, and 2 more in the next [...]

Shawn Hill vs. Glen Perkins
The Nationals have hit just .235/.317/.357 against right-handed pitching this year (2nd-worst OPS in the league), and .246/.312/.371 against left-handed pitching this year (5th-worst OPS in the league.) So I guess they are marginally less bad on offense against lefties than against righties.

Jason Bergmann vs. Kevin Slowey
Inanefforttospeeduptonight'sgamelog,Ihavedecidedtowritewithoutspaces. Clearly,thingsweren'tmovingalongfastenoughbefore.
Ican'tbelievejustcan'tbelievethattheTwinshavebeenfinedforplayingtooslowly. ShouldDelmonstartswingingwhilethepitcheriswarmingup? CouldGomezpossiblybuntmoreofteninorder
toendhisplateappearanceinoneortwoptiches? Ijustdon'tgetit. Andwheninstantreplayisinevitablyenacted,
Iamquitesurethatthatwillreallyhelpspeedthingsup,too.
Butthankstothewholeordeal,IlearnedthattheAstrosaremanagedbyCecilCooper. Honestly,IhadnoideaNOIDEAwhomanagedtheAstros. So,thanksforthat,MLB,Iguess.

John Lannan vs. Livan Hernandez
How is this for a kick to the nuts?
20.9 VORP -- Cristian Guzman, 2008
0.3 VORP -- Twins SS, 2008
For that matter, Guzman's VORP last year (16.4) was better than Jason Bartlett's (14.7). And he's only making $400K more than Craig Monroe and his -1.1 VORP. Not to mention $800K [...]

Light Rail vs. Seth McClung
Buscher is more useful than Rincon--yes or no? Discuss.

Glen Perkins vs. Jeff Suppan
Twins' VORP through June 12th:
Good
18.3 -- Mauer
18.2 -- Morneau
Decent-ish
9.4 -- Casilla (probably will regress some, but I like his chances to be a contributor)
5.0 -- Gomez
Backup or about replacement level
3.0 -- Punto
2.2 -- Macri
2.1 -- Kubel
1.8 -- Redmond
0.4 -- Tolbert
-0.6 -- Monroe
-1.1 -- Delmon
-3.1 -- Harris (who is also a bad [...]

Kevin Slowey vs. Dave Bush
Interleague play annoyance: hearing about how much more interesting baseball is without a DH. (It's not.) It's impossible for double-switches (which are completely predictable anyway) to be exciting. Thought-provoking, perhaps, but not exciting. Certainly not exciting the way that a showdown between David Ortiz and Mariano Rivera [...]

Livan Hernandez vs. Aaron Laffey
You know, I would love for Livan to really be the exception to defense-independent pitching statistics. I would love for him to go out there and use his guile and competitive nature and his veteranness to prevent more runs than you would expect based on his strikeouts, walks, and ground [...]

Nick Blackburn vs. Paul Byrd
After game 59, the Twins were "on pace" for about 85 wins. Today they are "on pace" for about 77 wins. Ignoring for a moment that that's not a very good way to project forward a team's final record, this hasn't been a very fun stretch, has it?
But let's [...]

Twins at Indians, June 10, 2008

Glen Perkins vs. John Danks
Looking at his fangraphs page, it would appear that Danks has starting throwing a cutter this year, using his fastball less (down from ~60% to ~50%) and mixing in a slider, too. Throw that all in a blender, and Danks has gone from a fairly extreme fly ball pitcher to [...]

Kevin Slowey vs. Gavin Floyd
Unicorn boy again. Seems like we've seen him a lot already.
PECOTA projects an ubelhangover and a lot of cleaning to do today.

Livan Hernandez vs. Mark Buehrle
Players that I'm happy with so far: Mauer, Morneau, Nathan. (Alexi Casilla gets honorable mention. Even though he's probably playing over his head, he's still young and as a low-cost player could be a real asset to the team if he plays to his abilities.)
Players that I'm not so [...]

Nick BlackNoseBurn vs. Javier Vazquez
Roll Call!
Bench: Monroe, Macri, Redmond
Starting pitchers available to pinch hit/run: Livan Hernandez, Kevin Slowey, Glen Perkins (Probably not Baker since he's coming off of a groin injury.)
Bullpen pitchers available to pinch hit/run: Boof!, maybe Crain (threw 1+ innings and is coming off of last year's shoulder thing)
Only those who will risk [...]

Garrett Olson vs. Scott "Light Rail" Baker
Note: For purposes of self-contained discussion, it might be better to post draft thoughts in the draft post below. Just a suggestion.
Scott Baker makes his return. The Twins are near the bottom of the league in run prevention, and while I think defense is a [...]

Daniel Cabrera vs Glen Perkins
Cabrera has somehow morphed himself into a near identical clone of Carlos Silva (circa 2005), with the notable absence of Silva's ability to throw strikes.
Note that this has not always been the case. In fact, when Cabrera came up, you'd be hard-pressed to find a pitcher more different than Carlos [...]

Radhames "Thin Lizzy" Liz vs. Kevin Slowey
For the second year in a row, Thin Lizzy is making his Orioles debut against the Twins. This is what I had to say last year:
Well, it looks like the Orioles have hopped on the where-can-we-find-a-soft-spot-for-our-prospect-pitchers-to-land? Hey-let's-pick-on-the-team-without-an-offense! train. Radhames, or Thin Lizzy as I like to call him, [...]

Andy Pettite vs. Livan Hernandez
Livan has been a totally wacky pitcher so far this year. With 24 K's, 13 BB's, and 1 HBP, 89% of the hitters who have faced Livan Hernandez have put the ball in play. The major league average is for 74% of hitters to put the ball in play. [...]

Darrell Rasner vs. Nick Blackburn
I think Darrell Rasner stole Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy's mojo. He's way closer to a 5.00 ERA pitcher than he is a 1.80 ERA pitcher, but he's had a good first four starts of the season. Inability to miss bats is probably his biggest weakness, so hopefully the [...]

Chien-Ming Wang vs. Boof Bonser
Wang's GB% is lower than it was last year, but is still very good at 56%. His strikeouts have been rising a bit as his ground balls have been going away, though.
The Yankees have been more or less the third-best-hitting team against right-handed pitching so far this year. The [...]

Mike Mussina vs. Glen Perkins
Today, Joe Posnanski has proposed the Dayton Game.* Basically, how many tools are there on your team that are 60 tools. 60 is a rating on the typical scouting scale, and well, I'm not a scout. Posnanski suggests that a 60 tool is an All-Star caliber tool and [...]

Kevin Slowey vs. Luke Hochevar
This pitching matchup could wind up repeating itself quite a bit in the future. (Mainly since we play KC about eleventy billion times per year--seriously, I like an unbalanced schedule but 19 games against an opponent in a season just gets tedious after a while. Variety, spice, etc.)
Slowey has [...]

Livan Hernandez (4.66 xFIP) vs. Zack Grienke (4.04 xFIP)
Dudes, we're totally getting a Delmon again. I noted last night, and will again note, that had Lew Ford made the same boneheaded mistake that Delmon made last night, I guarantee he would have been riding pine today. And Ford's career OPS+ (96 for those [...]

Nick Blackburn vs. Brian Bannister
Bannister became fairly well-known over the offseason for admitting that he knows about stuff like DIPS and not really fundamentally disagreeing with it. Obviously, he would like to always see his ERA beat his peripherals, but after posting a 3.87 ERA last year with a 5.14 xFIP, he's posted a [...]

Gotta love a good night of sleep. I went to bed at 10:30 last night and my wife was in bed reading magazines. She was more than a little disgusted with me as she wanted to continue to read those rags right there. I calmly informed her that she could read them [...]

Ah, crap.
I put together a post on tonight's game this morning, but the WGOM gremlins must have eaten it for lunch. Here's a few seconds on the game tonight.
Nate Robertson (1-5, 6.08) has been a lot better than those numbers. His FIP is barely over 4.00 and his xFIP is about 4.25. [...]

In case you hadn’t noticed, the last couple of introductions to the Game Logs have been, well, brief. ubelmann contacted me to let me know that he’d be on vacation for a while and so things have been quiet. I thought I’d, you know, actually pitch in and add some content to this [...]

Vincente Padilla vs Livan Hernandez
You didn't want to pay attention to that work this afternoon, did you?

"Sir" Sidney Ponson vs Nick Blackburn
Ponson's really been pretty decent so far.

Doug Mathis vs. Glen Perkins

Scott Feldman vs Boof Bonser

Kevin Slowey vs. Jeff Francis
Don't let the ERAs fool you--this could still turn out to be a pretty decent pitching matchup.

Livan Hernandez vs. Greg Reynolds
Reaching the quarter pole probably deserves some sort of recap, but I don't know that we've especially learned anything about this team so far that I haven't already beaten to death.
The offense has scored 179 runs--good for 8th in the AL--but they are 12th in OPS. They are good at [...]

Nick Blackburn vs. Ubaldo Jimenez
Blackburn's been pretty decent in a low-K, low-BB way, high-GB% way, and Ubaldo's been pretty decent in a high-K, high-BB, higher-GB% way.
Sunny and high of 83 today in Seattle, so my work's done here for today. Carpe diem and all that.

Dustin McGowan vs. Glen Perkins
It's a nooner!
I haven't written a whole lot about the Twins' injuries so far this season. There are a couple of reasons for that:
1) I have no special insight into how healthy these players are.
2) They haven't been especially beset by injuries.
They're about 1/4th of the way through the season, [...]

Roy Halladay vs. Boof Bonser
.274/.338/.403 -- Michael Cuddyer, post-DL, 68 PA

Jesse Litsch vs. Kevin Slowey
Litsch has been pretty good so far this year. Slightly above average in ground balls, average K-rate, and outstanding walk rate. All combined together, he's sporting a 3.69 xFIP.
I'm not really worried at all about Slowey so far. 6.9 K/G, 0.0 BB/G, and 37% GB% are all better [...]