Preview of Tonight’s Game: Gomez Leads Off

Tonight, the Twins bring Anthony Swarzak to the mound to face Dallas Braden of the Oakland Athletics. Swarzak is 2-3 in his 6 games as a starter for the Twins with a 4.50 ERA. He hasn’t pitched since July 8th, though, so it’s easy to question if he will have to shake off the rust much like Nick Blackburn had to do last night. I don’t like the matchup against Braden, who’s record of 7-8 doesn’t show how good his stuff is with a 3.45 ERA. He’s had very poor run support much like Blackburn had early in the season.

The main reason I really don’t like the matchup is that one of the team’s best hitters against left-handed pitching is out of the lineup tonight. Denard Span is hitting a whopping .371 against lefties this year and I really don’t like not having him in that lead-off spot.

Instead, Carlos Gomez will be leading off tonight which is a great story, besides the fact that it means Span is out. He’s really starting to get his swing back and has improved his batting average every month so far this season. He’s hitting .286 in July so far which gives the Twins fans a little bit of hope that he might have figured his swing out. Before July, he was striking out once every 4.48 ABs. So far in July, that number has fell considerably to once in every 10.5 ABs. That’s a noticeable improvement, and although he’s still not taking as many walks as he should be, he’s showing some real signs of life at the plate.

A couple of other things to note, looking at the lineup card, are that Crede is back in the lineup in the 6th spot and Joe Mauer has moved to the 2nd spot. Hopefully this will spark some more offense like it did when he first came back and they tried this. It’s also just another reminder that this team is hurting for a good number 2 hitter. Mauer belongs at the 3 spot and Justin Morneau is supposed to be the clean-up hitter. Which also brings up a good question…Why is Ron Gardenhire tweaking the lineup if it’s the bullpen that lost him last night’s game not the offensive production?

Follow me on Twitter as I’ll be ‘Tweeting’ throughout the game!

Tags: anthony swarzak, athletics, carlos gomez, dallas braden, joe crede, joe mauer, justin morneau, mlb, nick blackburn, ron gardenhire, Span, Twins, twitter