Filed under: Chicago, Minnesota, White Sox, Twins, AL Central, Breaking News

When you hear about a guy going 8 1/3 innings without giving up a single hit, it’s usually safe to assume he had a pretty good night, right? Maybe most of the time, but not always. Here’s Twins beat reporter La Velle E Neal III in his blog for the Star Tribune on what he saw:

If Gavin Floyd had pulled off a no-no against the Twins on Tuesday it would have been the sloppiest, most unjust no-hitter that I can remember.

Floyd was far from overpowering. In fact, I sent Joe C. a text message around the fourth inning remarking how Floyd couldn’t get ANY breaking pitches or his change up, over for strikes. I was convinced that the Twins would sit on the fastball and start pounding him. […] The Twins should have hit this guy. I know its easy for me to write that from my position but geez….

(Joe C., for those non-Twins fans reading this, is Joe Christensen, a fellow reporter for the Star Tribune.) Looking at the box score, Floyd walked only three guys while throwing 62 strikes in 105 pitches, so either he was getting more of the plate than Neal is giving him credit for or the Twins will swing at anything (which is more or less an organizational philosophy).

In any case, even if Floyd doesn’t have complete command of his pitches, it’s hard to deny that he’s at least been (very) effectively wild. This is the second time that he’s thrown at least 7 1/3 innings without a hit, and on the year he has a paltry 2.50 ERA while allowing batters to hit just .149.

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