Going for the Sweep

After going 3-10 in their previous thirteen games before this series, it has been nice to see the Twins take the first two games of this series as they move closer to (hopefully) finishing the season over .500. Today's game will be a match-up between Matt Garza (3-6, 3.93) and Vicente Padilla (6-9, 5.77). Padilla only recently managed to get his ERA down under 6.00, so hopefully the Twins' offense will have a good day. Garza, meanwhile, has struggled a bit lately, having not pitched six innings in a game since August 14th, while giving up 25 runs (19 earned), 36 hits and 13 walks in 22 1/3 innings over those five starts. His ERA on the season remains under 4.00 though, as a testament to his incredible start to the season.


On another note, Justin Morneau has continued his huge second-half slump by going 0-14 over the last four games. After going 2-3 in a game against the Royals on July 30th, Morneau's line for the year stood at .300/.367/.580. Since then, he has hit to the tune of a .214 batting average and .329 slugging percentage. I don't know what has been wrong with Morneau in the second half, but two home runs in a month and a half and an OPS more than 100 points worse than Nick Punto's in September certainly is not the type of production that we all expect from him (of course, Morneau didn't have an OPS of .365 in August).