{"id":14641,"date":"2011-04-03T08:00:46","date_gmt":"2011-04-03T13:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14641"},"modified":"2011-04-03T08:00:46","modified_gmt":"2011-04-03T13:00:46","slug":"sunday-mlb-picks-minnesota-twins-at-toronto-blue-jays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/sunday-mlb-picks-minnesota-twins-at-toronto-blue-jays-14641\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday MLB Picks: Minnesota Twins at Toronto Blue Jays"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Toronto Blue Jays seek an opening series sweep of the Minnesota Twins at the Rogers Centre on Sunday.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>
Toronto seeks an opening series sweep of the Minnesota Twins Sunday<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Minnesota lost for the second time in as many games yesterday, losing 6-1 to the Blue Jays in Toronto.\u00a0 \u201cDefinitely a tough day,\u201d said center fielder Denard Span.\u00a0 \u201cNobody put the bat on the ball good off this guy.\u201d\u00a0 The last time the Twins lost their first two games of the season was 1994.\u00a0 Additionally, the last time the squad started a season with three consecutive losses was when they started 0-4 at the beginning of the 1981 season.\u00a0 First baseman Justin Morneau is still looking for his first hit since July 7, when he suffered the concussion that kept him out for the remainder of the 2010 season.\u00a0 He has combined with catcher Joe Mauer to go 0-9 against Toronto starter Brett Cecil, who went 2-0 with a 2.08 ERA in two career starts against Minnesota.\u00a0 The team is 60-61 versus left-handed starters the last two-plus years.<\/p>\n

Twins starter pitcher Nick Blackburn finished the 2010 season with a 10-12 record and 5.42 ERA in 28 games (26 starts) and comes in off a 3-1 performance in spring training.\u00a0 \u201cI feel good.\u00a0 I\u2019m ready to start the season,\u201d Blackburn said.\u00a0 \u201cI feel so much better about my mechanics right now.\u00a0 I almost feel like it\u2019s quite a bit different than what I was doing last year.\u201d\u00a0 The right-hander is 14-13 with a 3.82 ERA in 41 day outings in his career.<\/p>\n

Toronto has thoroughly dominated the first two games of this series and has posted a 30-12 record against Minnesota since the start of the 2006 season, including a 15-5 mark at the Rogers Centre.\u00a0 The Blue Jays have homered six times in the series and clinched their seventh consecutive home series win over the Twins.\u00a0 The team led the majors last season with a club record 257 home runs and that recipe for success has carried over into the early part of the 2011 campaign.\u00a0 Toronto is 92-72 at home the past two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

Blue Jays starting pitcher Brett Cecil led the club with 15 wins last season and went 7-2 with a 4.46 ERA in 12 home starts last season.\u00a0 The left-hander finished the 2010 season with a perfect 4-0 record during the month of September but carried a 6.92 ERA in five starts.\u00a0 He is 5-2 with a 3.49 ERA in 13 lifetime starts during the day, allowing hitters to hit for a combined .266 average.\u00a0 In 22 starts on regular rest last year, he recorded a 12-5 mark and 3.56 ERA compared to a 3-2 record and 6.75 ERA in six starts on extra rest.<\/p>\n

Bettors are likely to back the Blue Jays due to their 11-1 record versus right-handed starters, while the Twins are 0-6 when facing southpaws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Toronto Blue Jays seek an opening series sweep of the Minnesota Twins at the Rogers Centre on Sunday. Minnesota Twins at Toronto Blue Jays Minnesota lost for the second time in as many games yesterday, losing 6-1 to the Blue Jays in Toronto.\u00a0 \u201cDefinitely a tough day,\u201d said center fielder Denard Span.\u00a0 \u201cNobody put […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[1843,284,240,1502,1748,223],"class_list":["post-14641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-brett-cecil","tag-justin-morneau","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-nick-blackburn","tag-rogers-centre","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14641","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=14641"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14643,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14641\/revisions\/14643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}