Twins Series Preview: An interleague home and home

The Brewers and Twins play a weird home-and-home 4 game series this week so we'll just look at the games in Milwaukee today.

The Twins spent the offseason throwing money at every middle of the road starting pitchers. They signed Ricky Nolasco for 4 years and $49 million and Phil Hughes for 3 years and $24 million. Hughes has been good, Nolasco not so much. Overall the staff has been adequate. The offense has been a problem; Joe Mauer is having his worst season at the plate, and without Mauer being a major threat the offense has some pieces but lacks power. The Twins currently sit in the middle of the AL Central at 26-28 and that's likely about where they will be all year.

Kyle Gibson (4-4) vs. Matt Garza (2-4), 6:20 PM CT, Miller Park

This game will be starting at 6:20 due to a WTMJ promotion. The Brewers should sell all their start time rights; there was a team a few years ago that started games at 7:11 due to a sponsorship deal with the convenience store chain (I want to say it was the Rangers).

Gibson is a former top prospect who stalled for a long time in AAA, partially due to a year lost to Tommy John surgery. He has good stuff but has shown basically nothing in around 100 innings at the big league level. In fairness he fits the Twins starter mold, with a career 4.9 K/9 in the majors to 3.4 BB/9. He's pretty much a get groundballs/limit home runs guy already at this point in his career, which isn't so exciting for Twins fans. He can be effective but the Brewers should be able to get to him.

We've been saying it for a few weeks now, but Matt Garza really needs to get on a roll. His peripherals have been basically fine but he has given up more than 2 runs in all but 2 starts this year. To Garza's credit, he has been able to limit the damage and keep his team in games but it would be huge for the Brewers for Garza to string together a few really good starts to take some of the pressure off the offense.

Samuel Deduno (1-3) vs. Yovani Gallardo (3-3), 7:10 PM CT, Miller Park

Deduno's a bit like our Marco Estrada, an unheralded swingman who has found his way into the rotation and held his own. He recently entered the starting rotation to take the place of the injured/ineffective Mike Pelfrey. Deduno's actually a ground ball guy, with a very effective sinking fastball. In his first try at the majors in 2012, he walked the ballpark, but has since seemed to harness that and become a decent bottom of the rotation guy.

Meanwhile, I just want to talk about Yovani's hitting. If Roenicke sticks with the stacked top of the lineup and eventually does opt to hit the pitcher 8th, this would be a good day to start it, no? Although Gallardo may be the better OBP man than whoever hits 9th anyways so maybe it's best to just leave things be.

Join us on Wednesday for part two of the series preview, when we get to talk about who will DH at Target Field! (Hint: probably Aramis Ramirez).