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Monday, April 16, 2012

CBS Sports: MLB Preview: Minnesota at New York

Including postseason, Derek Jeter and the New York Yankees have won 33 of 40 at home against the Twins over the past decade, and Yankee Stadium fans will likely be relishing the chance to rudely greet Minnesota starter Carl Pavano.

Minnesota (2-7) was swept over the weekend by Texas at home, and now faces a major nemesis. The Yankees (5-4) have eliminated Ron Gardenhire’s club from the playoffs four times in the decade since he took over as Twins manager, and he’s well aware of his poor record in the Bronx.

“We just play the schedule,” Gardenhire told MLB.com. “We’ll go to New York for four tough games, and then off to Tampa for three more tough ballgames. So it’s a tough road trip.”

The Twins didn’t project to be very good this year and so far they’re living up to that.  While they’re probably better than the 36-126 pace that they’re on, they may be the worst team in the American League.  Which would make them the favorite for the NL Wild Card.  The Twins’ primary problem this year has been offense.  Only Oakland is scoring fewer runs per game than them.  Their pitching has also been pretty crappy with an RA of 5.33 per game, but that’s better than four other teams.  Interesting note, Tampa Bay has the worst RA in the league.  Mentioning this allows me to post this very irritating table of Tampa Bay’s 2012 pitching splits so far.

Split	W	L	RA	FIP	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	BF	BB/BF	K/BF	BABIP
Boston Red Sox	0	3	11.63	7.78	24	39	31	31	7	16	16	124	12.9%	12.9%	.381
New York Yankees	3	0	4.00	5.09	27	21	12	12	2	18	16	119	15.1%	13.4%	.232

If it makes you feel better, I’m sure Tampa Bay’s fan is not happy about this either.

Back to the Twins, the pitching matchups for this series are:

Monday, April 16, 7:05 PM ET
Carl Pavano vs. Freddy Garcia

Tuesday, April 17, 7:05 PM ET
Francisco Liriano vs. CC Sabathia

Wednesday, April 18, 7:05 PM ET
Jason Marquis vs. Hiroki Kuroda

Thursday, April 19, 7:05 PM ET
To be announced vs. Phil Hughes

You have to give the Twins the edge in that Thursday match up.  Pavano vs. Garcia is probably a tossup, and I’d give the Yankees the edge in the other two matchups.  A sweep of a four game series is tough no matter how poor the opponent, but I’ll be disappointed in anything less.

This also means that Ivan Nova will start the first game of the Yankees’ next series in Fenway.  I trust Nova more than any other pitcher in the rotation right now (given the way CC’s looked so far) to pitch decently against Boston, which means he’ll probably get shelled.