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Impressions after the Sunday game in Cleveland

ashbury

Entry posted by ashbury ·

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After watching the Twins today in Cleveland, several impressions come to the forefront.

 

First, the pitching seems to be no better than last year, and quite possibly even worse. The starter, Nolasco, stunk it up with 5 runs in only 4 innings, and could not seem to locate his pitches to save his life. The bullpen quickly coughed up two more runs, a performance that could put a game essentially out of reach by the halfway mark.

 

The defense was also laughable, with somebody inexperienced manning left field, after Willingham departed the game with an injury (thankfully the diagnosis was no broken bone, just day-to-day), unable to make the simplest plays. The team was fortunate to have no unearned runs to tack onto the tally against them.

 

And the hitting? Florimon, the afore-mentioned Bartlett, Hicks and Escobar combined for 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position through the game. Factor that in with an aggregate o-fer by the 2B, LF, CF, and SS positions, and you would hardly be surprised to be told that the Twins were shut out again.

 

I believe it was the Orioles in 1988 who established a major league record by losing their first 21 games to start the season. Though it's early, are the Twins in danger of eclipsing that mark in 2014? Based on this account of this game one would be hard pressed to say no.

 

It would be easy to assume that this debacle in Cleveland was the nadir of the Twins 2014 season, but with 156 games to go I am not confident in predicting that this will even be their worst game this year.

 

Yes, I am giving fair warning: IT COULD BE WORSE.

 

Go Twins.

8 Comments

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Jim H

Jim H 127

Posted

You do realize the Twins won? If anything the Cleveland pitching was worse than the Twins, they couldn't throw any strikes. It is probably a little early to write "sky is falling" articles. Especially since the Twins are 3 and 3. Let's wait a couple of weeks, maybe after the weather settles a bit, then you can write about how the sky is falling.

Kirbek

Kirbek 52

Posted

A win is a win.

 

Given that, the pitching did stink and the decision to keep Bartlett over Presley is looking iffy.

jorgenswest

jorgenswest 10,631

Posted

My impressions...

 

Good at bats. Plouffe and Colabello seem to be taking much better at bats this year. Lots of walks. Knocked out Masterson in less than 4 innings. Fien, Burton and Perkins did well. Some key double plays. Going home following a .500 road trip. Took a road series from a playoff team.

 

I enjoyed the the first week. Good to have baseball back.

savvyspy

savvyspy 219

Posted

Honestly the pitching should catch up once it warms up a bit. These are tough conditions to pitch in. I don't think we'll know exactly what we have until a couple trips through the rotation.

 

They need to get Bartlett off this roster. He's an embarassment.

 

Otherwise the lineup has been kind of interesting. Kubel, Plouffe, and Colabello have been great. Suzuki has done ok as well.

 

They have at least be entertaining to watch so far.

Seth Stohs

Seth Stohs 27,890

Posted

As I was reading the blog too, my thought was, "He does realize they won the game, right?" So yeah, there will be plenty of worse games than this one.

ashbury

ashbury 60,706

Posted

As I was reading the blog too, my thought was, "He does realize they won the game, right?" So yeah, there will be plenty of worse games than this one.

 

Uncle. :)

twinsin17

twinsin17 13

Posted

Yes, there were some negatives about the game. Mainly pitching and a misplaced infielder doing what he is asked to help the team. But as rough a game as Nolasco had pitching, Masterson was worse. Give our bats some due credit! Colabello, Plouffe, Kubel and both catchers are smacking the ball and Mauer is coming around. So far we are hitting much better than I anticipated coming out of spring training.

ashbury

ashbury 60,706

Posted

Apparently my satire of the glass-is-always-half-empty outlook didn't work so good.

 

Oh well, live and (not) learn.

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