#2xSP (8.14-8.20)

by
August 11, 2017

The season numbers aren’t great but we’ve picked up some steam over the last few weeks and hopefully will finish strong. As always, if you have any suggestions or tips, please feel free to mention them in the comments section, and thank you for reading.

Here’s how we’re doing so far this season (through half of Week 17)

29-32 record
4.75 ERA
7.6 K/9
2.4 K/BB
1.43 WHIP
35 quality starts

Here are this week’s recs (with team wRC+ for this season in parentheses):

RHP Jerad Eickhoff – 14.9% ESPN – @SD (85), @SF (82)

Oh man, this is a great week for Eickhoff. The talented righty who has had a bit of a rough season gets two of the bottom-three offenses in the game. Of course, he plays for the fourth-worst, but we can’t get too tied up in that, can we? Since his ERA peaked at 5.22 a couple months ago, Eickhoff has been really, really good, too: 3.10 ERA, 38-17 K/BB ratio in 40.2 innings and a .240/.324/.380 line against. I’ll always bet on talent like this.

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RHP Dinelson Lamet – 23.1% ESPN – v. PHI (86), v. WAS (107)

The nice thing here is that Lamet and Eickhoff pitch on separate days, so you don’t have to pray for a 2-1 game. The last four starts for Lamet have been 2-2-0-2 as far as earned runs are concerned, and even though the Nationals matchup isn’t an easy one, Lamet has been considerably better at home this season: .602 OPS against, 4.03 ERA, 10.6 K/9, 5.7 K/BB and 0.90 WHIP.

RHP Bartolo Colon – 1.8% ESPN – v. CLE (103), v. ARI (94)

He’s been pretty good since coming over to the Twins, and has gotten progressively better with each start. He threw a complete-game win against the Rangers in his last home start, then tossed seven shutout innings at Miller Park as part of a four-game sweep of the Brewers. Neither of these are particularly amazing matchups, but a 44-year-old righty with an 89 mph fastball DGAF about that. His season ERA is still 6.77, but since joining the Twins it is 4.02 with a 5.4 K/BB ratio and 1.31 WHIP. That’s…..workable.

Last men out: Antonio Senzatela (v. ATL, v. MIL), Trevor Bauer (@BOS, @KCR)





 

In addition to Rotographs, Warne writes about the Minnesota Twins for The Athletic and is a sportswriter for Sportradar U.S. in downtown Minneapolis. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Warne, or feel free to email him to do podcasts or for any old reason at brandon.r.warne@gmail-dot-com

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