2025 Season | Series #10 | Twins @ Guardians | April 28 - May 1, 2025

W

Wham with the Right Hand

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Oct 3, 2019
Messages
13,609
Reaction score
40,400
Points
148
Coming off what was surely their worst game of the season the Guardians stay home for a four-game series against the 12-16 Twins. Minnesota is on a roll having won 5 of 6, however, they are 3-10 on the road. The Twins are batting .189/.593 and averaging 2.92 runs per game on the road. The Guardians are 8-4 at home. Royce Lewis is out for the Twins. Surprise, surprise.

The Twins overall rank 23rd in runs per game, 22nd in OPS, and 24th in home run percentage. On the road they’re 26th in OPS. RF Matt Wallner leads in OPS with a line of .263/.847. Next is Byron Buxton at .237/.774, then Harrison Bader at .235/.716. Trevor Larnoch is at .234/.713 and that’s it for players over .700.

They’re better at pitching, ranking 11th in team ERA, 12th in WHIP, and 8th in strikeout percentage. They are 2nd best in walk percentage so they make you hit your way on. Defensively the Twins rank 20th.

Gavin Williams goes against 6'9" Bailey Ober on Monday. Ober has a 5.04 ERA but that’s mainly due to a horrible first outing where he allowed 8 earned runs. In his four starts since he has a 2.42 ERA. Ober owns the Guardians. Jose is 6-for-19 against him but the rest of the team is a combined 2-for-50. Yep, 2-for-50 with 19 K's. Kwan is 0-for-12 and Santana 0-for-10. By the way, congratulations to Carlos for breaking his 0-for-25 slump in his last at-bat Sunday.

Williams is 2-1 with a 4.15 ERA. The Twins are 4-for-23 against him. In his last start he went 6.1 innings against the Yankees allowing 2 runs. He’s had three good starts and two bad ones. In his last two starts he’s thrown 102 and 104 pitches.

The matchups for the remaining games are:

Tanner Bibee (2-2, 5.19) against Chris Paddack (0-3, 6.45)

Luis Ortiz (2-3, 5.96) against Pablo Lopez (2-1, 2.08). Ortiz has a 4.29 ERA in his last four starts.

Ben Lively (1-2, 4.40) against Simeon Woods-Richardson (2-2, 4.07)

Both teams will be starting four right-handers in this series. Vogt said he thinks Nolan Jones is getting close to breaking out and in fact Jones hit his first home run Sunday. This series may come down to pitching, defense, and home runs as neither team seems capable of stringing a lot of hits together.

This has the makings of a low scoring series between two teams that rank 20th and 23rd in scoring.
 
Wham with the Right Hand said:
This has the makings of a low scoring series between two teams that rank 20th and 23rd in scoring.
Click to expand...
Twins have the rotation edge in three of the four starts, so we'll have to make up one on the backend. A split is easily the most likely outcome in this series, which will leave no one on either side happy. Just marking another four games off the calendar with no momentum.
 
Matt Wallner, their leading hitter in OPS, was put on the IL today. He'll miss a month with a hammy. I don't know how much this affects the series since he was hitting .345 at home and .179 on the road, but the Twins are really hurting for offense and to lose their top OPS guy can't help.

Wallner is a left-handed hitter and the Guardians are starting four right-handers.
 
Missing Walner is huge this series, and we just missed Royce Lewis as well (he's on minor league rehab). The guy they had batting 3rd (rookie Luke Keaschall) had nearly as much WAR in 19 AB's as Manzardo did the whole season, but he just had his forearm broken on a pitch. Miranda flunked out and their catchers have hit zero homers, and we miss arguably their best starter, Joe Ryan. The team has been in a bit of disarray all year, but have played better of late (against poor competition, admittedly) and it would be just like them to make life tough on us with their solid starting pitching and good pen.
 
The Twins have been pitching well the last couple of series, winning 5 of 6 against the Angels and White Sox. They allowed just 13 runs in those six games. The Angels and White Sox rank 23rd and 26th in runs per game, but still, 13 runs allowed in six games is very good regardless.

Like I said in the preview, Bailey Ober owns us and he's been really good in his last four starts. The Big Rig better come up real big today if we're to have any chance.

Like Azcue pointed out, they are missing Walner and Royce Lewis, so that definitely helps, and Joe Ryan is not pitching this series, although Pablo Lopez has been a little better and we'll see him.
 
Hoping we can sweep the hapless Twins. But there always seems to be one bad team every season we have trouble with.
 
Noel instead of Martinez vs a RHer?

Tryouts over best chance to win.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top