The ‘Jose Bautista Show’ rampantly bemuses the Minnesota Twins (Pt. 1)
Target Field has allowed 1.35 homers in every game during this season claims hittrackeronline.com. Well that was the case before the match between the home team, Minnesota Twins and the visiting Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday. For Major League Baseball followers,
the stadium has the lowest concession rate after Oakland’s McAfee Coliseum at 1.33 and Seattle’s Cavernous Safeco Field 1.22. The two American League teams collided at the venue for their first fixture of the 4 game series. With a crowd of 39,477 strong supporters
on the benches, it seemed like an interesting game was about to go underway.
The Minnesota Twins have won the Central title but they lost the chance to equal or surpass the wins record set by both the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays. For Ron Gardenhire, the accomplishment does not mean all too much, given the focus has always
been on the playoffs. Now that they’re there, it remains to be seen what comes next for the club. At the moment, their season performance has been dipping. The team has lost 5 of its last 6 games and Gardenhire is anything but happy about that. He opined,
"It's a different atmosphere when you get to the playoffs, but it's not fun, right now. That's not the way you want to go into it, pitching like this and getting beat around."
For Toronto, team performance is up and much can be owed to manager Cito Gaston. The first Black American Manager to win the World Series has announced his retirement from managing the Blue Jays. After being the one to step up for the side in 2008, the veteran
will finally close the curtains on his campaign after the series with the Twins comes to an end. The Canadian ball club’s roster has been running high on inspiration and it wasn’t a surprise to see the side pummel the Yankees in their last series, 8 – 4, in
their last encounter. The won the series against the 2009 World Series champions, 2 – 1 and grabbed support from the Tampa Rays’ fans.
The fixture between the Twins and the Blue Jays took place yesterday and it marked the 4th last time that both teams were going to face off in the league season. Their final series will conclude on the 3rd of October and it will be
Minnesota that goes through to the post season. For the blue birds, it will mean the last time Cito Gaston manages the squad, bringing an end to his illustrious years’ as the Jays’ Manager.
The Twins brought on Francisco Liriano, who has been considerably reliable in terms of defensive pitching. His 14 wins and 9 losses record was something to be proud of. Prior to the match, the 26-year-old pitcher was sitting on 195 strike outs. Manager Ron
Gardenhire considered the ball thrower for the encounter, due to his low Earning Runs Average (ERA) of 3.48. Unfortunately, that was not something that would help in the match.
For a man who had given up 6 homers in 150 matches went for 3 in less than 6 innings. He led the list on the fewest homers conceded this season but everything changed in the game. The ace player featured in 5.1 innings and gave away 5 runs off 6 hits. He
reached his 200 ‘Strike Outs’ mark with 6 hitters and increased his ERA to 3.62.
Toronto, on the other hand, brought on the shaky Shawn Hill for the encounter. His 3 games, prior to the game saw him lose 2 and win 1. It was important for the experienced man to get his touch on the ball back on before the season concluded. For a man who’s
ERA has been on 2.81, the opportunity to make that figure count came up. The ball thrower conceded a run off 3 hits in 4.2 innings. In addition to that, he pitched 93 times and struck out just one hitter in the process.
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