Minnesota Twins

A pitchers duel in tonight’s game kept the two best power hitting teams in the league quiet ... until the bullpens came in. Byron Buxton tied it to cap a late push and send the game into extra innings, but errors were too much for the Twins to overcome.

Nearly every team in Major League Baseball uses some variation of pitch tracking technologies to analyze their pitchers.

By now, you have undoubtedly heard that the Minnesota Twins have gone all-in on the Rapsodo craze. However, if you are not entrenched in a team's analytics department or pitching staff, you may not know what that provides. Fortunately, this past spring our high school baseball program had the luxury of having our pitchers throw under the watchful, data-collecting eye of a Rapsodo device.

Here’s what we discovered.

Baseball has many things that are an integral part of game. Unfortunately, chewing tobacco has been tied to baseball for as long as the game has been played. Like most things in baseball, change is slow and grueling. Players can still be seen with a dip in their mouth even though 16 of the 30 MLB stadiums have banned the use of smokeless tobacco. It’s still part of the game and the Twins are no stranger to tobacco use.

Each passing day that goes by gives us another opportunity to see that the Minnesota Twins bullpen could use some help. Trevor May picked up his first save of the season last night as Taylor Rogers was on the shelf. Needing the back-end guys to get a break, acquiring a quality upgrade is a must for the front office. Today’s target is Nationals closer Sean Doolittle.

The Twins were able to use a late inning push to improve to 44-21 and retake their lead as baseball's best. The Twins score three runs in the bottom of the eighth to take a one-run lead. Taylor Rogers was unavailable due to a stiff back, so it was Trevor May who was given the ninth tonight. He passed the test.

Miguel Sano has played in 17 games for the Minnesota Twins in 2019. He missed the beginning of the season rehabbing from an Achilles injury, and joined the club in the middle of May. Through his first 75 plate appearances Sano has fanned 28 times while drawing nine walks. Each of those strikeouts has drawn the ire of Twins fans and stirred up a vocal minority suggesting the club deserves more. They are wrong, it doesn’t matter, and the slugger has been great.

It's no secret, the Twins will be seeking bullpen help as the trade deadline approaches. The current group of relievers have helped get the Twins where they are, but let's face it, there is plenty of evidence that suggests upgrades are required. Who may be available? Today, we'll take a look at Padres closer Kirby Yates.

Minnesota missed out on the Craig Kimbrel sweepstakes, but the Twins will certainly have opportunities to add other impact relievers before July’s trade deadline. The Twins have been able to do more than survive with their current bullpen situation. However, bullpen arms and bullpen usage are critical when it comes to winning games in October.

Here are 10 relievers who Minnesota could target before the trade deadline.

Every Sunday night, I publish these Week in Review columns. Each of the first 10 editions reported a winning record from the previous seven days, chronicling this club's incredible consistency. Today, that streak finally comes to an end, as the Twins went 3-3 last week on the road.

But it still wasn't a losing stretch, and offered plenty of positives amid glimmers of legitimate concern.

Today’s contest was the last of a long 10-game road trip and Minnesota was looking to finish strong, with a 6-4 record. They had the right guy on the mound in Jake Odorizzi, who has been nothing short of dominant all season, but even more so as of late. Over his last seven starts prior to today, Jake was 6-0 with a 0.65 ERA and 16 1/3 scoreless innings.

During the 2018 Major League Baseball draft Oakland dipped down into the Division 2 ranks and selected Gus Varland from Concordia University St. Paul. Mark “Lunch” McKenzie isn’t unfamiliar to working with big league talent. He’s been involved with USA Baseball for over two decades, has a half century of coaching experience, and had both Jake Schmidt (2009) and Bryan Lippincott (2012) selected in the amateur draft. A year later, Varland’s brother Louie was the top candidate to go and Minnesota nabbed him with their 15th round selection.

Kyle Gibson struggled to finish off the Tigers in the second inning, the Twins’ lineup was uncharacteristically quiet against a Detroit staff maneuvering through a bullpen game and Matt Magill made sure there was no drama in the ninth inning. In between all that, Ryan Eades pitched two scoreless innings in his major league debut.