The way Cleveland pitchers have been hurling this year, one expects to get some hits on them. But any Twins pitcher with any sense of history knows that the Indians hit the crap out of the Twins, too. Hafner, Garko the Barbarian, Sizemore, etc, etc. I'm pretty sure every Twins fan in the country was aware of Hafner's power a good two years before the East Coast based media glommed onto him, simply because his bat fucking destroyed the Twins for about 3 years straight.
And so, while it was no shock to put 5 runs on the board on Friday night against Fausto, I was a little surprised that Nick Blackburn scattered 6 hits, giving up only one run in 7 innings of work.
Cleveland is carrying 13 pitchers, so it was not a big surprise to me that Jason Kubelly Kubel was able to knock 2 pitches out of the park, or that Joe Crede was able to follow Kubel's second homerun with one of his own, inflating poor Masa Kobayashi's ERA by a a few points.
But Kevin Slowey, going 8 innings deep, and even starting the ninth? Without giving up a run? That was surprising. Slowey may have benefitted from some overly aggressive swinging on the Injun's part--Slowey isn't what you would call a strikeout pitcher, but he picked up 7 of them in this game, including 4 in a row.
But another thing to notice is that the Twins (along with the rest of the league) are gravitating towards Bert "Farts and Fuck and Hall of Famer ALREADY" Blyleven's mindset--which is that pitch count is bullshit, and possibly harmful to a team.
Bert, for years, has railed, in his polite Dutch way, that pitch count is bullshit--you don't pull a pitcher after 100 pitches just because, and you certainly don't pull him after 85 pitches just because. Slowey threw 114 pitches Saturday; Blackburn threw 99 on Friday. The bullpen got massive rest, and along the way, the Twins in two games have outscored the Smiley Faced Injuns 12-2.
4 comments:
Slowey did actually give up a run. He was charged with the single run the Cleveland Hatemongers scored in the 9th. That still doesn't detract from a great outing.
Waaah! Let's get a boring mascot like the Twins have!
Chief Wahoo isn't racist!
I agree with Anon. Chief Wahoo isn't racist, he's actually pro-race.
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