Minnesota Twins (7-9) at Cleveland Indians (6-10)
Progressive Field, Cleveland, OH
Dates: 4/24-26
TV/Radio: STO-HD (Fri, Sat), WKYC3 (Sun); AM 1100 WTAM
Fresh off of a series win, the Tribe will stick around Cleveland for the weekend as they welcome the Minnesota Twins to town. The Indians are still at the bottom of the division, but only find themselves 2.5 games out of first. A series win over Minnesota would mathematically put us at least ahead of them in the standings. Detroit and Kansas City are squaring off this weekend as well, so there should at least be a few more losses for one or the other.
If there’s a silver lining to this series, it appears that we will avoid both Scott Baker and Francisco Liriano on the hill for the Twins. Of course, this also means that we’ll have to capitalize on this; at least we have Aaron Laffey’s home/road splits in our favor. We just don’t know who he’ll be facing. The key may be the match-up between Slowey and Pavano tomorrow evening.
Oh, and Minnesota is 1-4 on the road. That’s a good thing.
Some stats to make your day a little more numerical:
- Victor Martinez is third in the AL with a .394 batting average; he’s second in the AL with 26 hits.
- Grady Sizemore is fourth in the AL with 15 runs scored
- Second on the team in batting average? Asdrubal Cabrera with .298
- Sizemore is tied for second in the league with six home runs; Victor is one behind with five
- Martinez is seventh in the league in OPS (1.120); Travis Hafner is 14th (1.027)
Probable Pitchers:
Nick Blackburn (0-1, 5.71) vs. Fausto Carmona (1-2, 7.88)
Kevin Slowey (2-0, 5.89) vs. Carl Pavano (0-2, 9.69)
TBA vs. Aaron Laffey (1-0, 2.19)
| Cleveland | Minnesota |
| Grady Sizemore, CF | Denard Span, LF |
| Mark DeRosa, 3B | Alexi Casilla, 2B |
| Victor Martinez, C | Justin Morneau, 1B |
| Travis Hafner, DH | Jason Kubel, DH |
| Jhonny Peralta, SS | Michael Cuddyer, RF |
| Shin-Soo Choo, RF | Joe Crede, 3B |
| Ryan Garko, 1B | Mike Redmond, C |
| Ben Francisco, LF | Nick Punto, SS |
| Asdrubal Cabrera, 2B | Carlos Gomez, CF |
News and Notes:
- Last year’s first round draft pick Lonnie Chisenhall has hit grand slams in back-to-back games for Single-A Kinston. While those are his only two home runs on the season, that’s still pretty impressive. He’s hitting .304/.361/.429 thus far on the year.
- Scotty Lewis will head to extended spring training in Goodyear, Arizona to rehabilitate his injured forearm. The team is looking at a two-week timetable for his return.
- David Dellucci (calf) is looking at another 15 days in Columbus. He should be back with the team in early-to-mid May. I know you’re all thrilled.
- The Twins are still without perrenial All-Star catcher Joe Mauer due to a back injury. He is slated to start his rehab assignment in Single-A (Fort Myers) today and hopes to be back by early May.
- The abovementioned Baker and Liriano are both coming off of games that saw them get absolutely lit up, so maybe it’s not a good thing we’re missing them. Baker gave up six runs on 10 hits in four innings, Liriano allowed seven in his four innings.
- Designated hitter Jason Kubel may get some rest over the weekend due to some neck stiffness. The Twins would deploy the underachieving Delmon Young to take his place in the event of missed time.
Outside Looking In:
Twinkietown
Aaron Gleeman’s Blog
Nick’s Twins Blog
Twins Nation
Next Up:
April 27-29th at home against the Boston Red Sox
