Tonight the Tigers arrive at Target Field in Minneapolis faced with the daunting prospect of 10,000 Jim Thomes.
Fortunately, none of them will be in a Twins uniform.
(Unfortunately, Jim Thome is back in a Cleveland Indian uniform).
On Jim Thome Wind Up Walker Giveaway Night, the first 10,000 fans will receive a replica of the player the Twins just traded to Cleveland for Player-To-Be-Named-Later. Thome will rejoin the team on which he began his career, and began killing the Tigers. The Indians are hoping he will be able to continue the Tiger-killing, or if not at least give the fans something to talk about other than the team’s August downslide.
If the Tigers continue winning, they won’t have to worry about Thome or anyone else: Detroit now has a solid lead of 6 1/2 over Cleveland, and 7 over Chicago, with a week of baseball against the struggling Twins and Royals on tap.
And the Tigers have been winning without even scoring–Detroit only scored a total of 11 runs in the 4-game series with Tampa Bay, but managed to win 3-of-4 anyway.
That approach may not work tonight, unless Rick Porcello has a much better showing than he did when he faced the Twins on Aug 16. He gave up 6 runs in 6 innings, and followed that up with a 5-run, 3 2/3 inning appearance against Cleveland. With a season ERA now at 5.17–and 9.15 in August–he has been doing a good impersonation of a 5th starter.
The Tigers will be facing dreaded Rookie Pitcher Guy, this one a lefty named Scott Diamond (0-1, 4.26), making his 2nd major league appearance.
Player of the Pre-Game: Alex Avila
I might as well just leave this name up here for a while. He is now hitting .418 (1.336 OPS) for the month of August, with 6 HR and 16 RBI. His 2010 season totals: 7 HR and 32 RBI.
Today’s Wind-Up Lineup:
- Austin Jackson, CF
- Magglio Ordonez, RF
- Delmon Young, LF
- Miguel Cabrera, 1B
- Victor Martinez, DH
- Alex Avila, C
- Jhonny Peralta, SS
- Ryan Raburn, 2B
- Brandon Inge, 3B
With the way Morneau and Mauer have played this year, they can’t beat anybody. The Twins 2 highest BAs on the team are pitchers ;). Minnesota baseball is lame.
Don Kelly out for a few days on paternity leave. How great would it be if this were 9 months after Cabrera’s little indiscretion and it was found out that Kelly, Cabrera and wives were at a swingers party.
Dude
Apparently the stars continue to align for the Tigers, today CLE placed Tomlin (sore elbow) and Brantley on the DL (joining Hafner, Sizemore, Kipnis and Carrasco).
In light of all the injuries CLE has had to deal with this year, Acta deserves to mentioned for mgr of the yr.
The Twins giving up Thome is probably a good thing for the Twins. Since they’re basically out of it, they give up a well known player who is past his prime, making themselves better for next year. I don’t think he makes Cleveland any better, and certainly the Tigers don’t need another player not playing up to his potential.
But they used up his value for the beginning of the year and could have got extra value by selling him prior to now. Same with Delmon. They invested into this year actually thinking they were going to win, and that’s bad baseball. You have to make use of your assets or get rid of them sooner rather than later, so the value to their future is now diminished compared to what it should have been. They should figure out a serious plan to get better next year, or figure out a way to sell off Morneau and Mauer if they are going to continue wasting their value away for no title run. That franchise is in a sorry state right now, they don’t know which way to go, and being cause in the middle in no man’s land is the worst place to be.
The Twins are a team that is willing to let their overpriced players go when they are not getting a return on their dollar, and rely on their minor leagues to supply the players of the future. The trade-off, they don’t make the playoffs every year, but they do often enough to make there system viable at a lower overall cost.