That Joe Mauer Guy can hit the ball pretty well
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by user twins15
Ok, so Joe Mauer was probably pretty upset with himself after having the average drop all the way under .370 in the past couple days. I'd say going 4/5 with a double, triple, and 5 RBI is a pretty good way to rectify that. With Mauer's career night, he's bumped the average back up to .377, batting .370 against lefties and .380 against righties. Not bad for a 22 year-old catcher.
Of course, he had some help, namely from Carlos Silva, who had another superb outing, tossing 8 innings and giving up 2 runs for his 3rd straight Quality Start. Of course, that only drops the ERA to 6.43, but we'll take what we can get at this point. He only struck out 3, but getting back more to normal for him, he did not walk anyone. His record now stands at 4-8.
Of course, with all these wins over NL teams, not only by the Minnesota Twins but by other American League Central foes, why can't the Twins be in the National League?? This is coming off another article I read, which said that according to some simulations from the Boston Red Sox, the AL on average is 10 games better than the National League, which is obviously an enormous difference.
Then again, maybe it's not being in the AL that's bad so much as it is being in the AL Central right now. After yet another Detroit Tigers win yesterday, the Twins are still 11 back of the Tigers and 9 back of the White Sox. Those two teams, coincendentally, own the best records in baseball.
Tossing in the 2nd game of this series will be a couple of really solid pitchers - Derek Lowe for the visiting Dodgers (6-3, 2.90) and The Iceman Francisco Liriano for the Twins (7-1, 2.17 ERA)
The Twins will look to extend their winning streak to 6 games. They're also 15-2 in their last 17 games, so they have that going for them, which is nice. Hopefully the good fortune can continue.
Date
Tue 06/27/06, 12:05 am EST
