{"id":14602,"date":"2011-04-01T10:04:58","date_gmt":"2011-04-01T15:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14602"},"modified":"2011-04-01T10:04:58","modified_gmt":"2011-04-01T15:04:58","slug":"friday-night-picks-minnesota-twins-at-toronto-blue-jays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/friday-night-picks-minnesota-twins-at-toronto-blue-jays-14602\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Night Picks: Minnesota Twins at Toronto Blue Jays"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Minnesota Twins kick off the regular season north of the border against the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre<\/p>\n

Minnesota Twins at Toronto Blue Jays<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Toronto Blue Jays kick off the 2011 season by hosting the Minnesota Twins<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Minnesota definitely has many reasons to be optimistic heading into the 2011 season and none are more important than the return of All-Star first baseman Justin Morneau to the lineup.\u00a0 The Twins have been very cautious in bringing their star back from a concussion and he managed to hit just .152 in 10 spring training games.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019ll tell you that he\u2019s getting closer,\u201d said manager Ron Gardenhire.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s been a couple times he really looked like he was on the ball.\u201d\u00a0 Another return from injury could prove even more important for this club, as closer Joe Nathan has made a healthy return from Tommy John surgery, but many experts found his fastball velocity to be down.\u00a0 Minnesota is 79-86 on the road the past two years.<\/p>\n

Twins starting pitcher Carl Pavano will be making his second career Opening Day start tonight and is looking to move past his first experience that came with the Yankees in 2007.\u00a0 He lasted just 4 2\/3 innings in that particular contest and made just one other start before being shut down for Tommy John surgery on his right elbow.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s nice to get a chance to redeem yourself and get a chance to relive it and make good of that experience,\u201d Pavano said.\u00a0 The veteran right-hander is 3-5 with a 5.91 ERA in 12 career starts versus the Blue Jays, surrendering 15 home runs in 64 innings of work.<\/p>\n

Toronto enters the season looking to recapture the power it showed during the 2010 campaign that allowed the club to win 10 more games than the previous season.\u00a0 The Blue Jays relied heavily on the home run and the exploits of outfielder Jose Bautista, who hit a franchise record 54 long balls and signed a new multi-million dollar contract during the offseason.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019ll have down months,\u201d said general manager Alex Anthopoulos.\u00a0 \u201cBut you\u2019re buying into this for the long term and you have reason to believe he\u2019s going to be great.\u201d\u00a0 The offense will need to be great in order to make waves in the American League East with a pitching staff touting four starters 26 years old or younger.\u00a0 Toronto is 90-72 at home over the past two seasons.<\/p>\n

Blue Jays starter Ricky Romero is coming off a solid 2010 season that saw him post a 14-9 record and 3.73 ERA in 32 starts.\u00a0 The left-hander is a perfect 2-0 with a 2.78 ERA in three career starts versus the Twins, giving up just a single home run in 22.2 innings of work.\u00a0 He was solid in 14 starts inside the Rogers Centre last year, compiling a 6-4 mark and 3.27 ERA, allowing hitters to hit just .221 against him in the process.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Blue Jays due to their 10-1 record versus right-handed starters, while the Twins are 1-5 in their last six games on turf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Minnesota Twins kick off the regular season north of the border against the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre Minnesota Twins at Toronto Blue Jays Minnesota definitely has many reasons to be optimistic heading into the 2011 season and none are more important than the return of All-Star first baseman Justin Morneau to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[2004,2401,284,240,1395,1748,223],"class_list":["post-14602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-carl-pavano","tag-jose-bautista","tag-justin-morneau","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-ricky-romero","tag-rogers-centre","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14602"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14604,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14602\/revisions\/14604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}