{"id":15441,"date":"2011-05-16T14:22:54","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T19:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15441"},"modified":"2011-05-16T14:22:54","modified_gmt":"2011-05-16T19:22:54","slug":"battle-of-struggling-teams-minnesota-twins-at-seattle-mariners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/battle-of-struggling-teams-minnesota-twins-at-seattle-mariners-15441\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle Of Struggling Teams: Minnesota Twins at Seattle Mariners"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minnesota Twins (12-26) AT Seattle Mariners (16-23)<\/strong>
\nMay 16, 2011 at 10:10 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 SEA -165, MIN +145<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 SEA -160, MIN +145<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 6.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 6.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

SP:\u00a0 MIN- Scott Baker, SEA- Michael Pineda<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Scott Baker will take the mound for the Twins<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Both these teams are ice cold.\u00a0 The Twins have lost 8 straight and the Mariners have lost 6 straight, so both teams will look to end a losing streak tonight.\u00a0 Seattle just went 0-4 on a road trip through Baltimore and Cleveland, though there were two games postponed because of rain.<\/p>\n

Mariners manager Eric Wedge isn’t overly concerned with the horrible results of late.\u00a0 He rationalizes:\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re in every ballgame…They\u2019re working to get better, pulling for each other. And as we continue to get better and find ways to win, the results will be different.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Twins have dropped 14 of their last 17 and have the worst record in the majors.\u00a0 Twins’ Right Fielder Michael Cuddyer expressed cluelessness as to the root of the problems.\u00a0 \u201cYou definitely try and change things up, because everything we\u2019ve done, nothing\u2019s worked yet,\u201d right fielder Cuddyer said following the loss Sunday to the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n

Things might not get much easier with Mariners rookie Michael Pineda taking the mound.\u00a0 He will be making the start instead of Felix Hernandez, who will start tomorrow night.\u00a0 Pineda has only given up more than 3 runs once this season, although he has given up a few home runs in his last two outings after giving up none in the first five games he pitched.\u00a0 He has a 4-2 record with a 2.84 ERA.<\/p>\n

Pineda’s PECOTA projection predicted a 6-4 record with a 3.59 ERA.\u00a0 As far as prospects go, Pineda is a sure thing and he has drawn comparisons to Pedro Gonzalez.\u00a0 While that may be a stretch of the imagination, he at the bare minimum is going to be a top of the rotation starter for the rest of his career.<\/p>\n

Minnesota will send Scott Baker to the mound.\u00a0 Baker is 2-2 with a 3.71 ERA.\u00a0 He has won his last 3 starts against Seattle while posting a 2.37 ERA in that span.\u00a0 In his first six times aganist the Mariners, however, he recorded an 0-3 record with a 5.50 ERA.\u00a0 Baker was also horrible in his last appearance, giving up 5 runs in 4 1\/3rds innings.\u00a0 In his four starts prior to Wednesday he had a 2-0 record with a 1.59 ERA.<\/p>\n

Baker’s PECOTA projection for this season predicted a 12-9 record with a 3.88 ERA.\u00a0 While it is early in the season, Baker is on pace to pitch much better than that projection.\u00a0 Moving from the Metronome to Target Field was a great boon for Baker’s statistics.\u00a0 His ERA at home was a full run lower than it was on the road…While Baker’s speed didn’t drop off following his elbow tendinitis last year, it did take away some of the bite from the pitch.\u00a0 It caused him to develop a better curve ball and now that his arm is rested and healthy, we should see the best of both power pitching and control pitching.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The total has gone OVER in 4 of Minnesota’s last 5 games and the Twins aer 0-5 SU in their last 5 games.\u00a0 Minnesota is 3-6 SU in their last 9 on the road and the total has gone UNDER in 14 of the last 22 road games. The total has gone UNDER in 4 of the last 5 against the Seattle Mariners and the Twins are 5-1 SU in their last 6 games against the Mariners.\u00a0 The Twins are 2-4 SU in their last 6 road games against the Mariners and the total has gone UNDER in 4 of the Twins’ last 5 games on the road against the Mariners.<\/p>\n

Seattle is 0-5 SU in their last 5 games and the Mariners are 8-15 SU in their last 23 games at home.\u00a0 The Mariners are 1-5 SU in their last 6 games against the Twins and the total has gone UNDER in 4 of their last 5 games against the Twins.\u00a0 The Mariners are 4-2 SU in their last 6 home games against the Minnesota Twins.<\/p>\n

Given Pineda’s dominance, promise, and control, Seattle is in the driver’s seat in this game.\u00a0 While the Mariners have been pretty bad, they don’t have the same duration of horrible play going that the Twins do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Minnesota Twins (12-26) AT Seattle Mariners (16-23) May 16, 2011 at 10:10 PM EST Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 SEA -165, MIN +145 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 SEA -160, MIN +145 Opening Total:\u00a0 6.5 Current Total:\u00a0 6.5 SP:\u00a0 MIN- Scott Baker, SEA- Michael Pineda Both these teams are ice cold.\u00a0 The Twins have lost 8 straight and the Mariners have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[240,220],"class_list":["post-15441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-seattle-mariners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15441","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\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15442,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15441\/revisions\/15442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}