Friday: Brad Radke (6-7, 5.40 ERA) vs. Carlos Villanueva (0-0, 2.65 ERA)
Saturday: Carlos Silva (4-8, 6.43 ERA) vs. Chris Capuano (9-4, 3.10 ERA)
Sunday: Francisco Liriano (8-1, 2.21 ERA) vs. Zachary Jackson (1-0, 4.70 ERA)
On paper, it looks like the Twins should be favored on Friday and Sunday, with the Brewers have the pitching matchup edge on Saturday for a couple reasons: Capuano has been better than Silva, and he's left-handed. And in case you haven't noticed, the Twins have a lot of lefty bats, although they have hit well against the lefties. More on the pitching matchup Friday.
One of those lefties is 1B Justin Morneau, who's been a man-beast of late - now 9th in the AL with 19 HR and 2nd in the AL with 64 RBI. Oh yeah, and he's raised his batting average a ton while getting a hit in 18 of his last 19 games.
As for the team as a whole, they've won 17 of 19, but that hasn't meant a whole lot in the standings, as they're still 11 back of Detroit. However, Freddy Sanchez helped today with a walkoff HR for Pittsburgh against the Sox, moving them to 8.5 behind Chicago for the wilcard lead.
So this weekend, root for the Twins, root for the Cubs (against the Sox), and root for the Pirates (against Detroit). With some breaks over the weekend, the Twins are right back in the thick of this race!
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Radke's been doing a heck of a lot better the last month or so than what he started at, which was awful at the beginning of the year. Certainly he can be hit-or-miss, but I like what he's been doing lately.
I doubt the Twins will make a big splash at the deadline, unless they fall out of it and trade Hunter. I can't see them getting a star guy or anything like that, in part because there really isn't much out there on the trade market.
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