{"id":677973,"date":"2026-04-17T23:27:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T23:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/677973\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T23:27:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T23:27:49","slug":"game-20-reds-at-twins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/677973\/","title":{"rendered":"Game 20: Reds at Twins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kepler<\/a><\/p>\n

Kepler and Ryan a few years ago. Plus some other guys. (Photo by Adam Bettcher\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

First pitch: 7:10 Central<\/p>\n

Weather: Partly sunny, 44\u00b0<\/p>\n

Opponent\u2019s SB site: Red Reporter<\/a>. Indie site: Redleg Nation<\/a>TV: Twins TV. Radio: There is no actual WKRP in Cincinnati (there is a low-power WKRP radio station in Raleigh, NC)<\/a><\/p>\n

The Reds come into town sitting at 11-8 (same as the Twins), after finishing 83-79 last year and getting swept in the wildcard round. If, like me, you don\u2019t think a playoff series win is a \u201creal\u201d series win unless it involves winning the divisional series, then the Twins haven\u2019t done it since 2002\u2026 but the Reds haven\u2019t done it since 1995. They did get to Game 5 in the 2012 NLDS, behind the bats of Jay Bruce, Brandon Phillips, and Joey Votto, and I\u2019m having a hard time remembering who those guys were. The last Reds I really remember were Barry Larkin and Ken Griffey, Jr.<\/p>\n

The current squad is led by rookie tater masher Sal Stewart (7 homers) and slick-fielding SS Elly De La Cruz (who Snoop Dogg loves<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Their starting pitcher today is Brandon Williamson, a 28-year-old lefty who spent much of 2024\/2025 on the injured list. He throws a low-90s fastball and cutter, plus a change against RHB and a slider\/sweeper against LHB. Those offspeed ones are his best pitches.<\/p>\n

Williamson is officially One Of Us, born in Fairmont, MN. Fairmont is a south-central Minnesota town with some 10,000 residents (that\u2019s pretty big for the region!). Its Wiki \u201cNotable people<\/a>\u201d entry lists the Education Minnesota 2018 Teacher of the Year and a gentleman who wears a homemade costume to sci-fi conventions, calling himself Tron Guy:<\/p>\n

\"From<\/a><\/p>\n

Hey I\u2019ll betcha he\u2019s gotten more readers than I ever will.<\/p>\n

A few links for your perusal:<\/p>\n

Simeon of the Three Names had a fourth-inning meltdown last Friday<\/a>, but a case of food poisoning might have been partly responsible, per this Bobby Nightengale Star Tribune story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Woods Richardson \u201cwas throwing up pregame,\u201d manager Derek Shelton said. \u201cI mean, after the third, he wasn\u2019t in a great spot. We were hoping to get more out of him, and it just looked like he ran out of gas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woods Richardson told the coaching staff he could pitch after chucking up his pregame meal. The Twins already had a shorthanded bullpen, and they were down a reliever because Cody Laweryson is headed to the 15-day injured list.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019ll be the last day he eats Subway for a long time,\u201d catcher Ryan Jeffers said.<\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s probably just one worker who didn\u2019t wash their hands properly, it can happen at anyplace, not just at Subway. Still, all kudos to SWR for trying his best to help the team. (Hopefully on Wednesday<\/a> he didn\u2019t eat from \u201cCrazy Eddie\u2019s Sushi Truck.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Of course, that\u2019s better than that time in 1972<\/a> when Reds management sent a pitcher with a sore arm to\u2026 the dentist. The dentist yanked teeth to cure the sore arm. It did not cure the sore arm.<\/p>\n

Per Eric Strack and Ted Schwerzler at this site<\/a>, Tom Pohlad got cranky with a fan who was wearing a \u201cSell The Team\u201d hat at Sunday\u2019s game, calling her \u201cclassless.\u201d Apparently the woman did take some pictures of Pohlad \u2014 I don\u2019t like having a camera pointed at me, either \u2014 but if he was just crabby about the hat, that\u2019s a bit silly.<\/p>\n

Yet another story<\/a> about how sports gambling ruins lives. Yet another story<\/a> about how sports gambling companies are trying to subvert laws protecting residents in all 50 states (and get the legal age you have to be to gamble lowered). None of this is going to end well.<\/p>\n

Defector\u2019s Diana Moskovitz<\/a> on being a woman who\u2019s a sports writer. It\u2019s what you\u2019d expect in terms of the rotten stuff. It doesn\u2019t make it any less infuriating.<\/p>\n

\u201cTalking Points Memo\u201d is a terrible name for a website, but Peter Dreier has an good post there<\/a> about how Jackie Robinson\u2019s legacy is much more radical than MLB tends to highlight.<\/p>\n

And ESPN the channel may be the all-sports-gambling, all-Screaming Bro network at this point, yet the website still has OK stuff sometimes, and here\u2019s a fun piece<\/a> about what players think of ABS so far. Basically, they like it, though everyone has a different notion of how the system could be improved. I like Reese McGuire\u2019s idea that offense and defense should get two challenges each. Travis d\u2019Arnaud made a neat point I hadn\u2019t thought of before; umpires like being proved right. I was thinking more about ego-tripping umps not wanting to be proved wrong\u2026 but for good umps who really are trying their best to not be ego trippers, it must be nice to know you got a tough call right.<\/p>\n

Why does that ESPN piece have no author name? Was it compiled by a bunch of interns? Freelancers? Who knows. Mamas, don\u2019t let your babies grow up to be writers, it\u2019s usually not for the best.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kepler and Ryan a few years ago. Plus some other guys. (Photo by Adam Bettcher\/Getty Images) Getty Images…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[5,822,60,84349,3190,4,148],"class_list":{"0":"post-677973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-twins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-minnesota","10":"tag-minnesota-twins","11":"tag-minnesota-twins-game-information","12":"tag-minnesotatwins","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-twins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116422647517137300","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}