Perk! Span! Cuddy! Twins Beat White Sox!

I really felt like Al Michaels in 1980 last night after watching the Twins beat the White Sox. Glen Perkins on the hill, against John Danks? Clearly we had no shot.

But, Perkins hasn’t been terrible this year. It’s true that his stuff is below average. His fastball travels just under 90 mph on average, and his changeup is about 81 mph. Bottom line he either needs to throw harder or throw his change slower. His slider, however, has been excellent; it’s 5.5 runs above average according to Fan Graphs. Like Blackburn, I think Perkins can eventually be a guy who goes 6 or 7 every outing and allows 3 or 4 runs. If he can do that consistently, the Twins should win a lot of ballgames. With Slowey out for the year, his role becomes even more important.

In the 9th inning, Denard Span made a heck of a catch in the 9th for the second out of the inning. He leapt at the wall and caught it behind his head, and I yelled like nuts. This after Michael Cuddyer’s 6th inning 2 run homer to put the Twins up for good. The Twins took advantage of some Sox errors and some Dome mojo, which sadly will not be around next year, to pull within 3 games of the Tigers. It’s still anyone’s division folks.