There are certain pitching matchups that just make you want to drop all your doing and watch. If you haven’t seen what Joe Ryan has been doing for the Twins this season, he has singlehandedly kept the starters room afloat. He has elevated himself as the Twins go-to guy and is now called upon to go toe-to-toe with one of the games most exciting arms in Pirates Paul Skenes. Skenes, who dominated college baseball at LSU, is dominating the MLB too. With a lightning-quick fastball, it seems that no one can figure out how to time Paul Skenes. The only problem for Skenes is he cannot get any run support from his offense. It is pretty absurd to look at his record of 4-7 and then see his ERA at 1.94, that simply doesn’t happen. However, it does happen in Pittsburgh because of their anemic offense that simply can’t score more than one or two runs when Skenes takes the bump.
Joe Ryan, on the other hand, has won eight games on the year and boasts an impressive 2.74 ERA for Minnesota, and hopes to set the tone for the series tonight for the Twins. The Twins are coming off back-to-back series wins against the Rays and the first-place Chicago Cubs, and are starting to shake off what was a miserable month of June. With this being the final series before the All-Star break, the Twins could carry some serious momentum into the long break if they can make it three series wins in a row by beating the Pirates. That would certainly do wonders for the momentum and clubhouse mentality before coming back for the final two-plus months of the regular season.
Tonight’s first pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM CT and can be heard on KGFX 1060 AM or on 103.1 FM in the Pierre area.
Comments