Two of the league’s best fireballers take to the mound at Target Field in the series finale.<\/p>\n
Colorado Rockies at Minnesota Twins<\/strong><\/p>\n Colorado has dropped two straight games and eight of 13 to fall five games behind in the NL West, while also falling to an even 23-23 against right-handed pitchers.\u00a0 \u201cIf I had an answer, I\u2019d be much more definitive, but I don\u2019t,\u201d manager Jim Tracy said.\u00a0 \u201cBut I can tell you there is an element of frustration because we\u2019re a club that is still playing baseball a game over .500.\u201d\u00a0 Despite last night\u2019s 2-1 defeat, the Rockies have the best winning percentage in interleague play among National League teams since 2006.\u00a0 Colorado fanned 12 times against Minnesota SP Scott Baker, as they rank fifth in the NL in strikeouts.\u00a0 A bigger problem is a .215 team batting average with 59 strikeouts with two out and runners in scoring position.<\/p>\n Rockies SP Ubaldo Jimenez is enjoying a special season, posting a 12-1 record and 1.16 ERA in 13 starts.\u00a0 The right-hander has allowed just 57 hits over 93.1 innings of work, holding opposing batters to a .180 average.\u00a0 He is a brilliant 7-1 with a 0.76 ERA in eight starts away from Coors Field, allowing just a single home run in 59.1 innings.\u00a0 Jimenez may be slowing down a bit after allowing five runs in his last two starts, which includes issuing eight free passes over 13 frames.\u00a0 His only career start against Minnesota came back in 2008, picking up a 4-2 loss by giving up three runs and eight hits over seven innings of work.<\/p>\n Minnesota moved to 137-99 all-time in interleague play, ranking second in all of baseball behind the New York Yankees (138-98).\u00a0 The Twins are a dominating 58-22 since 2006 against the Senior Circuit.\u00a0 The pitching staff\u2019s 3.93 ERA all-time interleague ERA ranks second behind only Seattle (3.77).\u00a0 Despite losing star closer Joe Nathan before the season, the bullpen has posted an AL-best 2.91 ERA, trailing only the San Diego Padres (2.54).\u00a0 Fill-in closer Joe Rauch\u2019s 17 saves is good four fourth-most in the majors.\u00a0 The Twins picked up two nighttime victories to open the series, but will have to improve upon its daytime mark to complete the sweep (11-12, -540).<\/p>\n Twins SP Francisco Liriano is 6-3 with a 2.90 ERA in 12 starts this season, with 10 of those being quality outings.\u00a0 The left-hander has been dominating in June, posting a 1-0 record and 1.20 ERA in two starts while striking out 21 batters and walking just two in 15 innings.\u00a0 He is an even 2-2 with a 3.81 ERA in four daytime starts, as opposing batters are hitting .295 against him (.224 night).\u00a0 Liriano has made a smooth transition from the Metrodome to Target Field in 2010, going 3-1 with a 2.00 ERA in five home outings.<\/p>\n It hasn\u2019t mattered who the Rockies\u2019 Jimenez has matched up against this season, but bettors should be cautious with the team\u2019s 11-26 mark the last three seasons on the road with a moneyline of -100 to -125 (-1,820).\u00a0 Colorado has posted a solid 15-9 mark during the day this season (+500).\u00a0 When the total is 7 or less in a game this season, Minnesota has lost both games (-200) and fell below the number as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two of the league’s best fireballers take to the mound at Target Field in the series finale. Colorado Rockies at Minnesota Twins Colorado has dropped two straight games and eight of 13 to fall five games behind in the NL West, while also falling to an even 23-23 against right-handed pitchers.\u00a0 \u201cIf I had an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[166,919,1534,240,1876,1450],"class_list":["post-4652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-colorado-rockies","tag-francisco-liriano","tag-interleague","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-target-field","tag-ubaldo-jimenez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4652","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=4652"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4654,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4652\/revisions\/4654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}