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 [...]

Clay Buchholz vs. Livan Hernandez
Programming note: Beware the 6pm CT ESPN start time.
Buccholz has a 3.45 xFIP so far, to go with a ZiPS-projected 4.47 ERA. Lots of strikeouts (8.9 K/G), and an uspectacular/poorish walk rate (3.4 BB/G), and a decent ground balll rate (44% GB%). I certainly think he'll turn out to [...]

Tim Wakefield vs. Nick Blackburn
I don't think I really have anything particularly worth saying today. I'm sure we'll hear about Wakefield's previous success in domes about 10,000 times during the broadcast.
Happy Mother's Day.

Dice-K vs. Glen Perkins
Dice-K has 27 walks in 40.7 IP this year. Holy walks, batman. I've got a good feeling about Morneau vs. Dice-K today.
For all the same reasons I don't really believe that much in Jon Lester as a top pitching prospect, I have serious doubts about Perkins. Mainly, I just [...]

Jon Lester vs. Boof Bonser
Jon Lester is one of those pitchers I just don't "get." Or rather, I don't understand where all the hype comes from. In the minors, Lester had 203 walks in 486 innings, and holy crap that's a lot of walks. As one might reasonably expect, his walk rate [...]

Kevin Slowey vs. John Danks
The phrase "numbers can't tell you (something that numbers can probably tell you" gets thrown a lot in baseball coverage. Well, I'm here to tell you that numbers can't tell you whether or not Kevin Slowey's bicep is pain-free, or whether his bicep is fully healed. But I sure [...]

Livan Hernandez vs. Mark Buehrle
I don't know what it is--perhaps a sort of "playing with house money" effect--but I can't help but be amused whenever Livan is pitching these days. My reaction when he gives up a big home run isn't so much "Oh no! How will we win now?" but rather "That ball [...]

Nick Blackburn vs. Gavin Floyd
Floyd's peripherals were bad the last time we faced him, and they haven't gotten any better. Boof denied his unicorn last time, and now it's time for Blackburn to deny it yet again.
Random crap because I don't have much else to say about the pitching matchup:
- Jon Garland has but [...]

Kenny Rogers vs. Boof
At the moment, I have two thoughts:
1) Being in first place is nice, regardless of how long it lasts.
2) Kenny Rogers 2003 reminds me of Kyle Lohse 2008. (Expected multi-year deal, nothing doing on that front, signed contract in the middle of spring training, figure to be a league [...]

Justin Verlander vs. Scott Baker
I've been making Verlander/Baker comparisons for as long as I can remember knowing about both players, even if no one seems to care at times. But here I go again (on my own/goin' down the only road I've ever known/like a drifter I was born to walk alone?):
10.3 K/9, 2.0 [...]

Livan Hernandez vs. Armando Galarraga
I'm not sure exactly what to make of Galarraga. On one hand, it took him forever to get out of Rookie/A-ball, but he had a pretty decent year last year between AA/AAA, and it wasn't like he was super old for that level. His overall peripherals in the minors [...]

Nick Masset vs. Nick Blackburn

Gavin "donotdenymyunicorn" Floyd vs. Boof Bonser
I'm not a big Gavin Floyd believer. Check out these projected ERAs:
5.30 -- PECOTA
5.87 -- ZiPS
5.56 -- CHONE
5.89 -- Bill James
5.44 -- Marcel
Pretty ugly, huh? Now let's look at Floyd's performance so far this season:
5.3 K/G, 4.6 BB/G, 34.2% GB%, 5.38 xFIP
So his xFIP to this point is [...]

Livan Hernandez vs. Vincente Padilla
No proper game intro as I spent too much time last night sweeping the street in front of my house after some lowlife decided it would be a good idea to smash a glass bottle and drive off. Real funny wiseguy(gal). ubelmann will not stand for broken glass in [...]

Scott "Light Rail" Baker vs. "Sir" Sidney Ponson
A lot of folks look back and mock the Ponson Era. And certainly Sidney's girth makes him easily mockable. I thought it was a good move to sign him to a minor league deal and a ridiculous move to put him in the Opening Day rotation [...]

Nick Blackburn vs. Kevin Millwood
Today would be a good day for Mr. Blackburn to keep that GB% above 50%.
I would like to think that this would be a good time for the offense to break out, but it's tough to take advantage of the hitter-friendly conditions in Arlington if you're not hitting fly balls. [...]

F-Sparkler vs. Greg Smith Unknown Lefty Destined To Dominate The Twins
A kitten dies every time you overanalyze a Francisco Liriano outing.

“kittens” by d u y g u, cc-licensed.
Now if we're all careful today, we can save a lot of kittens. Who's with me?

Boof vs. Chad Gaudin
The early word is that Gomez is getting the day off in favor of Span in CF. Gomez has played all 20 games so far, and it's good for guys to get a breather every now and then. In addition, Chad Gaudin has a fairly big platoon split for his [...]

Johan Santana vs. Dan Haren
Oops.
Livan Hernandez vs. Joe Blanton
Well, that's certainly a ... a ... um ... heavier matchup.
Let's take a gander at how some of the Twins and A's have gotten off the starting line:
New Center Fielder
.318/.348/.409 -- Ryan Sweeney
.244/.262/.329 -- Carlos Gomez
New Third Baseman
.196/.344/.294 -- Jack Hannahan
.145/.186/.218 -- Mike Lamb
I guess that, technically [...]

Paul Byrd vs. Scott "Light Rail" Baker
Undoubtedly, we will hear a lot about how Byrd pitched well against the Twins last season. (It was the first thing that I thought of when I saw that Byrd was making the start today.) Over 4 starts, he threw 29 innings and had a 3.41 ERA. [...]

Jake Westbrook vs. Nick Blackburn
This game will be broadcast on FOX. I think I lucked out and it will be on in my region, but I'm not sure I'll be able to watch.
I'm having trouble getting very excited about any particular aspect of this team right now. Slowey is injured. Young, Gomez, [...]

Cliff Lee vs. F-Bomb
Liriano supposedly made a great adjustment in the last bullpen that should help with his command. I'm not expecting any overnight miracles, though.
Cliff Lee has had an xFIP of about 5.50 the last two years--lots of fly balls, a below-average walk rate, and a mediocre strikeout rate. Of course, he's [...]

Jason Hammel vs. Boof Bonser
There's nothing very remarkable that I can find about Hammel. He's got a decent strikeout rate, not great control, and is a bit of a groundball pitcher, but not an extreme groundball pitcher. Actually, he's kind of like Boof that way. They are both somewhat above replacement level [...]

Livan Hernandez vs. James Shields
If we go way back to the ancient history of 2002-2004 (full list of Twins players remaining from the Opening Day 2004 lineup: Joe Mauer; 2003: Cuddyer (at 3B), 2002: ), through the magic of fangraphs, we see that Livan Hernandez was once a ground ball pitcher, with a GB% consistently [...]

Scott "Light Rail" Baker vs. Nate "Sport Goggles" Robertson
Monroe and no Span is fine by me today. Kubel in RF again, indicating that somehow he's valued more defensively than a guy considered for backup CF duty(?).
Over his career, Robertson has held LHB to .253/.303/.349. Yikes.
Sounds like Everett is going to have his shoulder [...]

Nick Blackburn vs. Jeremy Bonderman
Last year was a weird year for Bonderman. He posted a good 3.99 xFIP but a poor 5.01 ERA, and was eventually diagnosed with pinched cartilage in his throwing elbow. There's at least some evidence to suggest that DIPS doesn't describe injured pitchers all that well, and if he's [...]

*checks schedule*
*double-checks pitching matchup*
*triple-checks pitching matchup*
Well folks, it looks like it's time to drop the F-Bomb:

It is hard to overstate just how good Francisco Liriano was in 2006. It would be a miracle if he was that good this year. Thankfully, he can be worse than that and still be a productive member [...]

Boof "Less Is More?" Bonser vs. Brett Tomko
I don't have much to say today. Go Twins!

Livan "Staff Leader" Hernandez vs. Gil Meche
There's some chance that this game doesn't get played tonight, but it's 12:25 and I glanced at the radar, and in my expert opinion* we'll see at least some baseball played tonight.
*Everyone from Minnesota considers himself an expert on the weather to some degree, right?
Remembrance of things past:
15 IP, [...]

Scott Baker vs. John Danks
Looks like it's going to be fairly chilly for a baseball game tonight in Chicago. So far this season, offense has been down across the board.
.255/.326/.399 -- AL, 2008
.270/.338/.423 -- AL, 2007
This happened last year to an extent, too:
.255/.327/.404 -- AL, 2007, April
.270/.338/.423 -- AL, 2007, Overall
The numbers [...]

Nick Blackburn vs. Javier Vazquez
I was watching the White Sox beat down the Tigers last night, and a couple of things stuck out at me:
1) The White Sox should have a pretty good offense this year. Swisher and Quentin could be pretty big sticks and Orlando Cabrera is a lot better than whatever they [...]

It's SBG here, pinch hitting for ubelmann.
The Twins look to sweep the Royals this afternoon, with Boof Bonser taking on Brett Tomko. I'm going to be otherwise engaged today, so ubes, if you want to add on to this post, go ahead.

GilgaMeche vs. Livan
Kubel, Mauer, and Gomez are currently tied for the team lead in extra-base hits with two apiece.
We can get a rough idea of a player's stolen base opportunities by looking at his singles plus walks. Gomez has had 7 singles and 1 walk thus far this season, and has 4 SB in [...]

John Bale vs. Scott Baker
John Bale is left-handed and seems to be at least a bit of a groundball pitcher. That same combination allowed Joe Saunders to dominate a mostly right-handed Twins lineup (which I was basically in favor of) last Wednesday. I think the problem is less that Gardy put out a [...]

Impostor Santana vs. Kevin Slowey
I'd really like to see Slowey get off to a good start so I don't have to worry about having him bounce between Rochester and Minnesota all season.
Ervin Santana's a pretty marginal pitcher who has had a ~5 xFIP over the last few years and has allowed a ton of fly [...]

Joe Saunders vs. Nick Blackburn
Saunders has been a fairly average pitcher and projects to be something like an average to slightly above average starting pitcher this year. He throws with his left hand and the Twins are suddenly loaded with right-handed batters, so it will be interesting to see what sort of lineup Gardy [...]

Mmmm...writing gamelog intros on back-to-back days...it's good to have baseball back again.
Jon Garland vs. Boof "I Can't Believe It's Not" Bonser (Hopefully that's my last Chris Berman impersonation of the season.)
Bonser lost a lot of weight in the offseason, but that didn't stop him from walking more than he struck out in spring training. [...]

Despite following the team on a daily basis, I must admit that opening day kind of snuck up on me. The explanation is both easy and obvious--life got in the way of baseball, but in a good way. Opening day's not really my thing anyway. It's fun because it means baseball is [...]