Smelt The Cheese

Twins 5
Brewers 3

Twins game #3 of the season was the story of Devin Smeltzer, a rookie up from AA to face the imposing Brewers, and hopefully avoid a 2 game home sweep to the obnoxious border rivals(who wears a fucking cheesehead to a baseball game?).

Smeltzer threw 6 mostly dominant innings. He made a really good Brewers lineup look feeble. I didn't understand at all why Baldelli pulled him after 6.

The Twins bats however looked equally feeble until the 7th. They never even really had a good scoring chance. But in the 7th they exploded. A Castro single. A would be Tortuga double play turned two base error. Then Kepler drives a double, Cron follows with a double, and, serenaded by a loud chorus of "ED-DIE" chants, Rosario lasers a 2 run bomba. 5-0 in a matter of a few minutes!

Now, of course, the bullpen had to make it dangerous. Parker comes in after the 5 run burst and immediately gives up a single and homerun. But no more damage. Then Taylor Rogers gives up a solo bomb to start the 9th, but again no further damage.

This win was needed more to shut up the Sconnies as much as anything. But you don't want to drop 2 at home before leaving for a 10 game road trip that starts with 4 at Tampa.

The Twins bats were flat out bad in this Milwaukee series aside from one big inning each game. But it's great that they have a lineup that can explode like that.

And we might have something great with Smeltzer. I would assume he gets at least one more start, but frankly if he looks really good again I keep him up here. Pineda has improved some, but he is hardly dominant, and he will not even be a factor come October. Smeltzer also figures to be a major piece of future rotations, with Pineda, Odorizzi and Gibson all free agents after this season.