Game #157: Diamondbacks @ Twins

Josh Collmenter RHP, 10-8, 3.60

Ricky Nolasco RHP, 5-11, 5.34

Ender Inciarte - LF	Danny Santana - SS
A.J. Pollock - CF	Chris Herrmann - LF
David Peralta - RF	Trevor Plouffe - 3B
Mark Trumbo - 1B	Kennys Vargas - DH
Miguel Montero - C	Oswaldo Arcia - RF
Aaron Hill - DH	Kurt Suzuki - C
Jake Lamb - 3B	Chris Parmelee - 1B
Chris Owings - 2B	Aaron Hicks - CF
Didi Gregorius - SS	Doug Bernier - 2B

These last six games will see a pair of starts from Collmenter, who has easily been the best member of the team's rotation over the past month, as the table below shows, with the figures for all our starters (whether starting or not in the case of Delgado).

Normally, an ERA of one would get you a win more often than not, shall we say - just not for Collmenter, who received a total of six runs of support in the three other games. His last two starts came against a likely playoff contender in the San Francisco Giants, so the Twins will probably provide a little bit of an easier challenge. So, we'll probably need our offense to be at their flailingly incompenent worst, like they were on that road-trip through California. It's likely Tankapalooza 2014 will give them only a couple of runs to play with.

Naturally for this time of year, we'll be scoreboard watching, in particular the game in Arlington where the Astros open a series against the Rangers. That one gets under way at almost the same time as ours in Minnesota, so I'm sure we'll be updating scores in the Gameday Thread. Interesting to see Aaron Hill being used as DH in this game. We face two more right-handed pitchers the next couple of days, so we'll see if Hill remains DH; wonder if we might see Miggy in the role, perhaps for Wednesday's day game.