Series Preview: Minnesota Twins @ Seattle Mariners

Seattle: 50-77
Minnesota: 73-55

I was sad to see the offense slip down again, but huzzah to the rotation for taking a big leap forward during the Red Sox series. It might not have seemed like they pitched well since Boston scored five runs off Fister and four off Pauley, but both of them avoided any home runs, kept the walks low and generated a lot of ground balls and very few line drives. That's a recipe for a good tRA.

For your information, the Rays are the second best overall team by the above measures and they're at 111 runs above average. The Twins are just really really good in these categories.

Fri Aug 27, 19:10: Jason Vargas* vs. Scott Baker

Sat Aug 28, 13:10: Doug Fister vs. Nick Blackburn

Sun Aug 29, 13:10: Luke French* vs. Carl Pavano

Hoping to see Jose Lopez catch up on his 50-walk goal? I wouldn't count on it against these three starters.

I enjoy these matchups because each one is like seeing the Twins put out the archetype for each pitching model and the Mariners are running out the clone. And not even the good quality first-run clones, but like the clones from the model that's been used up and sold to a public Middle School.

Jason Vargas comes from the Scott Baker mold but had his polarity reversed and lost some strikeouts along the way. Doug Fister comes from the Nick Blackburn model line and Luke French is just bad.