The Minnesota Twins are baseball's worst team, and you would expect a bad team to struggle on the road. What has been almost totally unexplainable thus far in 2011 is how awful the Minnesota Twins have been at Target Field.
The Twins have played just 18 of their 48 games this season at Target Field, and while they are 11-19 on the road, they've posted just five wins at home this season to account for their overall record of 16-32. Tuesday's victory over the Seattle Mariners was the first win the Minnesota nine had garnered in front of the hometown crowd in one full calendar month, with their last win coming against the Cleveland Indians on April 24.
Over the weekend, the Twins will host a Los Angeles Angels team that has exactly the same record at home as they have on the road. The Angels are 13-13 at home, and 13-13 on the road in 2011, but have dropped six of their last seven away from Anaheim. The Angels have also scored a total of just one run in their last three road games.
Tonight, Minnesota will send right-hander Scott Baker (2-3, 4.12 ERA) to the mound. Baker's last start was on Saturday, as he allowed three runs on seven hits in five innings pitched in Minnesota's 9-6 loss to Arizona, a game in which they had a 6-2 lead that they blew late. In nine career starts against Los Angeles, Baker is just 1-5 with an ERA of 5.01. He will be opposed by rookie Tyler Chatwood (3-2, 4.06 ERA). Chatwood got a victory in his last start, holding the Atlanta Braves to just one run in seven innings on Sunday, but got bombed in the start before that as he allowed five runs and seven hits in just 2.1 innings in the Angels' 14-0 loss to Oakland.
First pitch from Target Field is scheduled for 7:10 PM Central time at Target Field. As always, Twinkie Town will have all the action for you in their Game Thread, and we'll have the recap here for you when things have finished up.