Facing the Royals, a team who struggled to score runs (4.05 per game) and strikes out in hearty portion of their plate appearances (15%) it would be assumed that Scott Baker would slice through them like a butter-knife in melted Velveeta. After all, Baker's most recent start bucked a trend in which he had gone at least six innings with a minimum of five strikeouts in his past five starts dating back to June 4th. The Twins starter would need 111 pitches to labor his way through five innings and only accumulated a solitary strikeout of Tony Pena Jr. Just one? One g'damn strikeout? Heck, Miguel Olivo and Mike Jacobs have combined to strikeout in nearly 30 percent of their plate appearances alone - and neither succumbed to Baker who had struck out 34 in his previous 34 innings. The Royals were able to constantly fouled off pitches as Baker failed to flip anything resembling an out-pitch towards the plate.
Ron Gardenhire told the media&...
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