Coming off a 5-2 road trip, the Twins will try to continue building momentum tonight against Baltimore, a team that hadn’t won a series since the All-Star break before taking two of three from the White Sox in Chicago this weekend.

This has the potential to be another trap for the Twins, much like their last homestand, when they dropped two of three to both Cleveland and Kansas City. Like those teams, the Orioles are dangerous because they have nothing to lose as they try gaining experience for 2010 and beyond.

Under former Twins GM Andy MacPhail, the Orioles are retooling with some promising young pitchers, and the Twins will see two of them the next two nights:

TONIGHT
RH Chris Tillman
Stats: 1-1, 4.80 ERA. Age: 21
The Orioles got him from Seattle as part of their heist for LHP Erik Bedard. That package included All-Star CF Adam Jones and LHP George Sherrill, who has since been dealt to the Dodgers. This will be Tillman’s sixth major league start. He is 1-1 with a 3.72 ERA in his past three starts and has held opponents to a .250 batting average in those three.

TUESDAY
LH Brian Matusz
Stats: 2-2, 6.75 ERA. Age: 22
When we were stressing the importance of the Twins signing first-round pick Kyle Gibson last week, we pointed to Matusz, who pitched for the University of San Diego last year before the Orioles took him with their first-round pick (No. 4 overall) in the 2008 draft. This will be Matusz’s fifth major league start. Though he has given up his share of runs already, the 20 strikeouts in 18 2/3 innings speaks to his top-of-the-rotation potential. Righthanders are batting .419 against him, and lefties .000 (0-for-8).

Note: Check back here later this afternoon for tonight’s starting lineups and pregame notes.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 10:18 am and is filed under Twins thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.