Lance Lynn gets the start Friday night when the Minnesota Twins continue a four-game series with the Baltimore Orioles at Target Field.
Lynn’s 2018 season has not gone anywhere near the way he may have envisioned when he hit the free-agent market for the first time last fall Authentic Artturi Lehkonen Jersey , ending a six-year run with the Cardinals.
Instead of landing a lucrative, multi-year deal he went unsigned until late in spring training, when he agreed to a one-year, $12 million contract with the Minnesota Twins — approximately $5.4 million less than he would have earned under the Cardinals’ one-year qualifying offer he turned down last November.
After an abbreviated spring camp, Lynn got off to an abysmal start. He went 0-3 in his first five outings, posting an 8.37 ERA in those contests but finally got into a groove when the calendar flipped to May. He went 5-2 with a 2.88 ERA over his next nine turns.
Lynn, who is 5-7 with a 5.49 ERA for the season, continues his hit-or-miss season Friday after losing his last two starts. He is fresh off his worst outing of the season when he allowed seven runs on five hits and three walks, failing to get out of the second inning in an 11-10 loss at Wrigley Field on Sunday.
Cubs pitcher Jon Lester homered off Lynn during a disastrous second inning that also included Lynn failing to cover first on a routine grounder, which kept the inning going long enough for the Cubs to take a big lead.
“We gave them an extra out http://www.greenbaypackersteamonline.com/aaron-jones-jersey ,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said of Lynn’s gaffe. “I think that was the biggest thing that stuck out to me. An offense like that, outs when you don’t get them, that was problematic to me. The arithmetic says that was an extra five runs because of that particular play.”
Lynn is 1-1 with a 7.30 ERA in three games (two starts) versus Baltimore.
The Twins snapped a six-game losing streak in the series opener Thursday night and, in turn, extended the misery for the Orioles, who have lost three in a row and 10 of their last 11.
They’ll turn to Dylan Bundy (6-7, 3.75 ERA) to snap the skid. Baltimore plans to activate the right-hander from the disabled list Friday and get him back on the mound for the first time since suffering a sprained left ankle June 23.
He went 3-7 with a 4.46 ERA through his first 12 starts of the season but got hot in June, posting a 1.98 ERA while going 3-0 in four starts before suffering the injury while running the bases after collecting his first big league hit.
His return comes as the Orioles need to decide a course of action ahead of the trade deadline. At 24-62, Baltimore owns the worst record in baseball and will almost certainly be a seller as the deadline approaches.
The 25-year-old Dylan is in his third full big league season and still has three more years of team control, making him an intriguing candidate for a motivated buyer.
The Twins’ Logan Morrison has two home runs in 15 at-bats versus Bundy Womens DeSean Jackson Jersey , who is 0-2 with a 3.60 ERA in four career games (three starts) versus Minnesota. Bundy faced the Twins in his first start of this season, giving up five hits over seven shutout innings in Baltimore’s 3-2 victory on March 29. Artie Burns and Joe Haden don’t believe the Pittsburgh Steelers have a clear-cut No. 1 cornerback.
The two feel they share that role.
Haden has been a top cornerback in the league throughout his career and Burns, a 2016 first-round pick, feels like he’s starting to come into his own as he enters his third season. The two hope a full offseason and training camp together can help a young group of Steelers defensive backs regain some swagger.
”Right now, I’m just trying to show him the way I go about my business,” Haden said. ”Training camp is one of the biggest spots where we can see growth and we can see what the offseason did.”
Haden spent his first seven pro seasons in Cleveland. He feels an entire spring of organized team activities and minicamp with Burns and the Steelers will only prove beneficial as the team works through training camp and the preseason.
”I’m trying to understand the whole defense, not just the corners and safety, but also the linebackers and defensive linemen,” Haden said. ”I’m just trying to get the whole system from the ground up and get an overall grasp of the defense.”
Cleveland released Haden on the eve of the 2017 regular season and the Steelers immediately acted. They quickly signed the two-time Pro Bowl cornerback with the hope he could give a young secondary an instant jolt.
”Having a veteran guy in your room that got to the level everybody wants to get to,” Burns said Jack Mewhort Jersey , ”you kind of sit back and think that you can learn from him to get to that point.”
The Steelers did just that last season.
Pittsburgh ranked 16th against the pass in 2016, but Haden provided a necessary boost as the Steelers ended fifth in passing yards allowed. A 45-point outburst by Jacksonville in the AFC divisional playoff marred an otherwise strong season.
”I think the communication was the biggest thing for us, just no blown coverages,” Haden said. ”In the Jacksonville game, there were a couple times where people were just running free. We have the ability, we have the players, we just have to be on the same page and make sure everybody’s covering their man.”
That has been the focus for Burns. He has carried a noticeably different, more confident swagger during training camp practices. He’s still locked into regular one-on-one practice battles with four-time All-Pro wide receiver Antonio Brown, a daily matchup Burns welcomes.
It has already paid off for the third-year cornerback.
Burns jumped Brown’s slant route during the team’s first padded practice and picked off Landry Jones’s pass in the end zone. He also jumped a Ben Roethlisberger pass and came up with an interception that would’ve been returned for a touchdown.
Burns said that sort of intuition comes with experience.
”You can feel the speed of the receiver,” Burns said. ”A play can only go for so long, so once you figure out the timing of it, that’s when you have a chance to make a play on the ball.”
Burns seeks similar game-changing plays alongside Haden in the secondary this season.
”(Haden) is helping us in certain situations that he has already been put in before,” Burns said. ”That’s what Joe is doing for us.”
NOTES: Coach Mike Tomlin said Brown was sent to Pittsburgh to be evaluated for a ”minor, day-to-day” injury. Brown missed the previous two practices with his undisclosed injury. Tomlin wouldn’t say what sort of injury. … S Morgan Burnett (hamstring), Sean Davis (groin), T.J. Watt (hamstring), Vance McDonald (foot) and Alejandro Villanueva (undisclosed) also missed practice on Thursday.