RealGM

Scott Baker (2-2, 3.71) vs. Michael Pineda (4-2, 2.84)
Francisco Liriano (2-5, 7.07) vs. Felix Hernandez (4-3, 3.36)

Quick, two-game series. Liriano will be interesting. On April 27, he gave up 7 and was chased after 3 innings. On May 10, he gave up 4 and was again chased after 3. In-between, he threw a no-hitter against the White Sox.

WIN SOME GAMES. This excellent starting pitching/surprisingly adequate bullpen combo seemed to be working well, at least masking some of the problems in our lineup. But we're just not good enough to overcome a poor offense and Brandon League imploding. He was the losing pitcher in 4 of our 5 losses last week.

Pineda's off to a great start [as usual]. Now let's see the offense get some runs for him...

Pineda was an absolute beast. Loved it.

Wait a minute....That looked like Michael Saunders choking once again with men in scoring position? Hmm...lemme see....YEP, IT WAS!

Bay_Areas_Finest wrote:Pineda was an absolute beast. Loved it.

The Twins just didn't stand a chance against him. He's amazing.

He seems to be rolling through teams the first time he faces them...I'm really hoping he does start to adjust a bit as teams will start to realize he's [a] going to throw a lot of strikes early to get ahead in the count, and [b] he doesn't throw his change-up. This may sound odd, and I know I'm certainly not the first person to suggest it, but I'd like to see him pitch out of the zone a little more on the first pitch to keep hitters off balance, and just try the change-up out more to see what happens.

Yeah. Its crazy when I saw that stat that says Pineda throws more first pitch strikes than any other pitcher in baseball. Crazy, but also AWESOME for a young pitcher.

I dont even think he needs to throw out of the zone. Just throw an off-speed pitch over the plate on the first pitch. Nobody is looking for that. It would mix things up enough for the big fella.

Anyways; Last nights game sucked. I had a feeling Liriano would shut us down. Oh well.