With such a massive amount of pregame legwork required on the Rob Antony quotes from before today’s game — check those out here — this’ll be an abbreviated version our our pregame blog.
Not only did Antony meet with the media for about 20 minutes, but the club also announced shortly thereafter that they’d retained Korn Ferry, a global search firm with Minneapolis roots that’ll assist in putting together the team’s next front office structure. The firm also assisted with similar searches for the Minnesota Timberwolves, Milwaukee Brewers, Toronto Blue Jays and even in MLB’s search for a new commissioner.
Whether or not that bodes well for the existing power structure remains to be seen, but team president Dave St. Peter did tell media before Tuesday’s game that Antony and his front office comrades are under contract through next season.
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Injury Update
- Third baseman Trevor Plouffe, who is laid up with a rib injury that has cost him nearly all of July, said he is pain-free and has resumed baseball activities in recent days. Plouffe sounded a bit stir-crazy when asked about the team’s success in recent days — especially since they were on the road and he was not — and he added that his hope was to go out on a rehab assignment by the end of this week. Manager Paul Molitor said that Plouffe took 30-to-40 cuts off a tee on Monday, and is slated to take live batting practice on Saturday with a mid-week next week rehab stint likely, however.
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Here’s a look at how the Twins line up today:
Santana is on the mound for the Twins for the 18th time this season, and his ERA has crept down under 4.00 (3.93) due to a pretty strong recent run. Santana has six straight starts with three or fewer earned runs allowed, and over that stretch he has the following numbers: 2.03 ERA, .511 OPS against and 26-8 K/BB ratio in 40 innings. He’s lowered his ERA over a run in that time frame (5.10 -> 3.93) as well.
Opposing Santana is Lucas Harrell, a 31-year-old journeyman righty who has made just four starts with the Braves this season. Harrell spent 2015 in the KBO with so-so results (4.93 ERA, 7.9 K/9 but 5.7 BB/9), and has actually pitched as low as Double-A Erie in the Tigers system this season. His first two starts with the Braves were pretty solid, but he’s looked markedly more hittable in the last two, and is honestly not much of a long-term fixture. In fact, in a perfect world the Braves would flip him like they have Jhoulys Chacin and Bud Norris already this season.
Harrell features a two-seam fastball that he’ll run to the plate about 91-92 mph most of the time, and he’ll mix in the standard slider-curve-change as secondaries in his repertoire. He’s been mostly a groundball guy in his career but that hasn’t been evident as much this season (42 percent GB rate this year, 53.5 percent career), and his only real swing-and-miss offering is the curve.
This should be a good chance for the Twins to race to the bat rack, frankly.
