For this very special day of August 31st, and to celebrate the Minnesota victory, I thought I would let you in on some of the greatest stuff I have read in the last day or so. Please be sure to check everything out, nothing is worth skipping!

• Nino Colla of Bleacher Report has a great post up about the division and wild card races in MLB. He says that they are not over, and openly laughs when someone predicts that “the Rays have pretty much locked up the AL East.”

• Leslie Monteiro of Twins Killings on Joe Nathan. He says that Nathan is the one reliever that can’t turn in poor results. He needs to continue to dominate if the Twins want a shot at the division.

• Driveline Mechanics recently put a post together on Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano. While it doesn’t directly relate to the Twins, every true baseball fan should find it as fascinating as I did. Be sure not to skip the comment section, there is a great conversation about different slider/sinker grips.

• Adam Peterson of Twinkie Town has some nice research about the quality start. He says that Minnesota has a great rotation, and that it’s the “suspect bullpen” that is holding the rest of the team back.

• R.J. Anderson of Beyond the BoxScore has some research about BaseRuns and Winning percentage. He compares the two to find which is more accurate in predicting success.

• For more sabermetric stuff, head on over to Cybermetrics. He has an excellent post up detailing why he thinks that pitchers today are more aggressive and throw inside more than pitchers years ago. His research is impeccable and his conclusion very interesting! Check it out!

• Union: The Most Collaborative Sports Blog on the Internet has a post up about something I saw a few days ago. Nine year-old pitcher Jericho Scott is being prohibited from playing with his little-league baseball team anymore. Why? Because he’s too good.

• Joshua Taylor of MNTwinsTalk has the list of September call-ups and his opinions of them up on his site. Be sure to check them out, and chime in with your own opinions!

• In case you haven’t heard, CC Sabathia nearly tossed a no-hitter today against the Pirates, but ended up giving a controversial single to Andy LaRoche. Granted, if anyone is to break up a no-no, I would want it to be LaRoche, but there is lots of debate regarding whether or not it was a real single. The ball rolled to Sabathia, but he had trouble fielding it, which allowed LaRoche to make it to first. A pitcher making an error to save his own no-hitter? Has that ever happened before?

  It wasn’t ruled as such, and ESPN’s Rob Neyer has his take. In case you don’t have Insider, here is an excerpt:

  When Sabathia first touched the ball, LaRoche was roughly 40 feet down the line; not even halfway yet. So Yost is right about one thing, at least: if Sabathia does pick up the ball cleanly, LaRoche is out. Maybe even by 10 feet. But it’s terribly unfair for Yost to unload on scorekeeper Bob Webb like this, and I think he should be fined.

Have a great day, Twins fans!

Carlos Gomez vs. Torii Hunter. $395,000 vs. $16,500,000. 22 years vs. 33 years.

Does this comparison also show the difference between ‘young and promising’ and ‘good’?

Let’s take a look at both Carlos Gomez and Torii Hunter and compare them:

I originally wrote this up for Bleacher Report, but I thought it would pertain to you guys, being Twins fans and all. Sorry for the lack of faith, but I guess I am transforming into a pessimist right in front of you.

Not much can be said about Thursday’s game. The Twins stunk it up badly. The bullpen squandered another game, and Minnesota is now one and a half games back in the division.

There is no way this team makes the playoffs with the bullpen in as bad shape as it is right now. No way.

That is all I am going to say about that game. Yuck.

Heading into this four-game series against the Oakland Athletics, Minnesota is just one game behind the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central. No matter which way you slice it, this series is shaping up to be a crucial one.

While Chicago goes on to face Wild-Card leading Boston Red Sox, Minnesota has to deal with below-average Oakland. Sound easy? With Minnesota’s track record against inferior teams, I would say that coming out with a split should be considered a positive thing.

Here is a game-by-game preview of the pitchers Minnesota will face in this upcoming series.

Game One: Nick Blackburn vs. Dana Eveland

Eveland is a rookie 24-year old who has had mixed results in his stint with the Athletics. He has an ERA of 4.30, a 1.48 WHIP, allows 0.45 HR/9, 4.4 BB/9, and 6.27 K/9.

He is a south-paw and has a fastball that is essentially ineffective. Opponents are batting .281 against his fastball, which usually tops out at around 91-92 and remains the same throughout his start. His slider is his best pitch and opposing batters are only hitting .111 against it. He throws it at 82-84 mph and as a result strikes out a lot of batters. Eveland also has solid curveballs and changeups.

As a whole, opponents are batting .231 against Eveland. He likes to throw outside and low to both right- and left-handed batters.

The Twins have had very poor success against unknown hurlers, so let’s hope this is the exception. Minnesota needs to get some baserunners on early and establish themselves as a team to fear.

Game Two: Kevin Slowey vs. Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer is another young pitcher who has made both good and bad starts this year. He has an ERA of 5.95, a 1.373 WHIP, allows 2.28 HR/9, 4.11 BB/9, and 7.3 K/9.

He has just recently been called up from Triple A Sacramento and has limited sample size. He does have three main pitches; a fastball, slider, and changeup. His changeup is proving to be the most effective as opponents are batting only .150 against it. His fastball tops out at 91-93 mph but is hit for a .303 average. His slider is getting roughed up the most as opponents are ripping it for an average of .364.

Opponents are batting .289 against Meyer overall, certainly not good at all. With Slowey’s irradictness on the road lately, expect many baserunners in a potential shootout.

Meyer doesn’t attack hitters and throws the majority of his pitches on the outside of the plate. Like said above, the Twins cannot allow Meyer to look like Rube Waddell. (If you don’t know who Rube is…look him up.)

Game Three: Francisco Liriano vs. Dallas Braden

Braden is a 24-year old youngster already entering his second year with the Athletics. He has also been inconsistent and has compiled an ERA of 4.13, a 1.341 WHIP, allows 0.95 HR/9, 3.01 BB/9, and 5.34 K/9.

He has a decent slider which allows him to strikeout as many batters as he does. Opponents are hitting .167 against his slider. He has a slow fastball that he can only get to 87-89 mph, which opponents are batting .319 against. He also has a curve and a changeup - both of which are marginally effective - in his repetoire.

When everything is included, batters are hitting .288 against Braden. He sticks with the trend of the previous two pitchers and doesn’t throw much inside the plate.

Game Four: Scott Baker vs. Gregory Smith

Smith is another young pitcher, 24-years old with no major league experience prior to 2008. He has an ERA of 3.90, a WHIP of 1.351, allows 0.93 HR/9, 4.19 BB/9, and 5.5 K/9.

Smith is one of the anchors of this extremely young Oakland rotation, and his numbers have proven it. He will be the toughest challege the Twins face during this series. Smith does not have a speedy fastball by any stretch of the imagination - only topping out at 87-89 mph. Opponents are batting .266 against it. His most effective pitch is his changeup, which is being hit at a .197 clip. He also has a solid slider and a decent curve.

Opponents are batting .238 against Smith as a whole.

This entire series is filled with no-name pitchers from Oakland. The most obvious key to this series is to step up and actually get buisness done against a young pitcher. Minnesota roughed up Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, and other superstars, but they always seem to struggle against these inferior pitchers. That needs to change if the Twins want any chance at all in any of these games.

All of these pitchers have relatively slow fastballs, but manage to strike out a lot of batters. The veteran position players, such as Mauer, Morneau, Redmond, and even Punto will need to show their younger teammates how to hit against these pitchers.