Article: TOR 7, MIN 5: Twins Can’t Recover After Another Poor Start by Lynn

[Tom Froemming]

Lance Lynn gave up six runs over five innings, but the Twins showed plenty of signs of life in a comeback attempt that ultimately fell short. Max Kepler and Eduardo Escobar continued to carry the team, and it was a solid night for the bullpen, but in the end the Twins fell short in all three aspects of the game.Snapshot (chart via FanGraphs)

Download attachment: Snapshot430.png Download attachment: WinEx430.png

Something clearly isn’t right with Lynn. He walked five more batters over five innings Monday night, though I guess to be fair one of those was intentional. That gives him 23 walks in 23 2/3 innings so far this season. He walked five or more batters twice in 33 starts last year. He’s already done that in three of his first five starts for the Twins this year.

 

Lynn’s poor start allowed Toronto to build a 6-1 lead, but the Twins showed some life, mounting a comeback. Escobar hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the fifth, the Twins scratched across another run in the sixth and Kepler hit a two-out RBI double in the seventh to pull within one run of the Blue Jays.

Eddie Rosario committed a two-base error to open the ninth inning, opening the door for Toronto to pick up a huge insurance run. Brian Dozier also committed an error in the ninth, but luckily Kepler made a beautiful diving catch to bail the rest of the defense out that inning.

Dozier was 0-for-5 with three strikeouts, giving him six Ks in his last two games. He’s 4-for-34 (.118) with four walks over his last eight games. He has one extra-base hit over that span, a double.

 

It was another Twins loss, but unlike much of the rest of the games over this slump, there were quite a few positives. Escobar and Kepler continued to play well. Max ended the evening 3-for-5 with a couple of doubles and a triple. One of those two outs he made was on a ball scalded at 104.7 mph for a lineout to center field.

 

The bullpen was really good. Trevor Hildenberger pitched two perfect innings, striking out a pair of batters. Ryan Pressly ran into some trouble, but he got five outs and the only run he gave up was unearned. John Curtiss, making his 2018 debut, entered the game with runners on first and second in the ninth inning and retired the only batter he faced.

 

Robbie Grossman picked up another couple of hits, as did Mitch Garver. The Twins had the tying run at second base when the final out of the game was recorded.

 

Garver had a bit of an adventurous night behind the plate. He was charged with a passed ball that allowed a run to score and made this curious play:

It certainly appeared as though Mitch could’ve easily picked that ball up and tagged the runner heading home. Instead, that’s how Toronto scored their first run. But, sticking with the positive tone I’m trying to end this on, Garver also made a great play to throw out a runner attempting to steal second base in the eighth inning.

Postgame With Molitor

Bullpen Usage

Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days:Download attachment: Bullpen430.png

Next Three Games

Tue vs. TOR, 7:10 pm CT

Wed vs. TOR, 12:10 pm CT

Thu at CHW, 7:10 pm CT

 

Last Three Games

CIN 8, MIN 2: Berrios Bombs as Twins Drop Series to Cincy

MIN 3, CIN 1: Losing Streak Snapped as Odorizzi Delivers Quality Start

CIN 15, MIN 9: It Got Even Worse

 

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[Platoon]

I never miss your recaps, they are much appreciated. And it has to be hard to write them after two weeks of this kind of baseball. And since you were in positive mode today, I will pick up the seemingly negative slack. But I don't consider it negative, more pragmatic. Does Molitor have any idea how many hits RG and Garver have to get to make up for their lack of defense. Grossmans has been brutal for so long we will leave that dead horse unbeaten today. But Garver has been horrific. His fundamentals are just plain lousy. Not only did he give up those two runs, but with the he bases loaded he one handed a short hop pitch just to his right hip area, never got down to block it at all. He caught it, but it wasn't due to any overt effort. You just cannot catch in MLB that way. He does seem to be able to throw. But watching him catch is almost painful.

[Old Twins Cap]

Rosario looks bored in LF. Terrible body language. Four errors -- happy he gets the right zip code on his throws.

 

F-Rod Experience -- throw my FB by Garry Sanchez at age 41.

 

Leading the league in un-executed DPs. 

 

What is up with Dozier? No arm. Now going into one of those half-season funks with the bat?

 

Go down the list, Morrison, Sano, Castro, this team is a living breathing strike-out. Soggy, slow and defeated before even taking the field.

 

And the pitching-- Phil Hughes, Lance Lynn, Tyler Duffy-- historically bad stuff.

 

We are so far from being able to compete with good teams, so, so far.

[Tom Froemming]

 

I never miss your recaps, they are much appreciated. And it has to be hard to write them after two weeks of this kind of baseball ...

 

But Garver has been horrific. His fundamentals are just plain lousy. Not only did he give up those two runs, but with the he bases loaded he one handed a short hop pitch just to his right hip area, never got down to block it at all. He caught it, but it wasn't due to any overt effort. You just cannot catch in MLB that way. He does seem to be able to throw. But watching him catch is almost painful.

Thank you for reading. These are definitely more fun when the team is winning, but what can you do? At least April's over, I guess.

 

I'm a big Garver supporter, but I agree that he didn't look great, and it was for more than just those two plays that really stood out. He wasn't getting his body in front of pitches, as you mentioned, and appeared to get his signals crossed up multiple times.

 

Rosario looks bored in LF. Terrible body language. Four errors -- happy he gets the right zip code on his throws ...

 

What is up with Dozier? No arm. Now going into one of those half-season funks with the bat?

Dang, I didn't realize that was already four errors for Rosie. Fewer than 30 OFers had more errors than that all of last season.

 

I wonder if Dozier's not 100%. He's not moving around great, either. Along with the error, he dove for a ball to his left in the eighth I thought he typically would have been able to field on his feet. He also booted it, allowing the runner to get an infield single. 

[mikelink45]

I am a big believer that attitude has a very large impact on a team and Rosario may be the window into team feelings.  Right now Escobar and Kepler are the two who really look competitive.  Mauer would not be one of the bad attitude guys, but he never shows fire, he is just Joe.

 

However, the FO was going to take charge of attitude with Hunter, Cuddyer, Morneau...and I do not remember how many ex-Twins who could infuse the team with positive energy.  Has anyone seen them around the team the last two weeks?  Are they simply telling stories and entertaining the FO?

 

I  said that the team turn around was still Terry Ryan's team.  The team on the field right belongs to this FO - and I was not a TR fan, but I have not become a Falvine fan either. 

[Tom Froemming]

 

I am a big believer that attitude has a very large impact on a team and Rosario may be the window into team feelings.  Right now Escobar and Kepler are the two who really look competitive.  Mauer would not be one of the bad attitude guys, but he never shows fire, he is just Joe.

 

However, the FO was going to take charge of attitude with Hunter, Cuddyer, Morneau...and I do not remember how many ex-Twins who could infuse the team with positive energy.  Has anyone seen them around the team the last two weeks?  Are they simply telling stories and entertaining the FO?

 

I  said that the team turn around was still Terry Ryan's team.  The team on the field right belongs to this FO - and I was not a TR fan, but I have not become a Falvine fan either. 

You can tell even from a distance there's some not great vibes around this team right now. Nobody likes losing. I agree that psychology/mentality probably plays a bigger role in things than we even realize, but I feel like you can only accomplish so much in the clubhouse. This team needs a blowout victory, an easy day at the office just to loosen everybody up.

 

There are a lot of players who may have carried over some negative feelings from over the winter, which can't help. The majority of the free agents brought in were expecting to have signed for more. Dozier was dissatisfied with any extension talks that happened, he's obviously a big figure in the clubhouse. I also think there's something missing on the pitching side with Ervin out.

 

There are a ton of players on this club who are in their contract year. That can motivate some guys, it can cause others to put too much pressure on themselves.

 

The most encouraging thing I saw last night from an attitude perspective was Max Kepler being fired up about his ninth inning double, showing some emotion while looking toward the dugout and trying to energize some of his teammates.

 

Max has always seemed like a pretty chill guy, but this team needs a kick in it's arse and I think the best place for that to come from is an everyday player who's on a hot streak like Max is right now. Hopefully he delivers a big hit early in tonight's game and continues to try and light a fire under the rest of the guys, but he and Escobar can't do it all by themselves.

 

Obviously the pitching has been bad, but if the offense gets rolling that takes a lot of pressure off everybody both on the mound and in the field.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I'm a big Garver supporter, but I agree that he didn't look great, and it was for more than just those two plays that really stood out. He wasn't getting his body in front of pitches, as you mentioned, and appeared to get his signals crossed up multiple times.

He single-handedly lost a couple of strikes for his pitchers last night. He was stabbing at the ball far too often.

 

And coupled with his defensive gaffes, I'm not sure what to think about Lynn's line. It wasn't good but Lance should have been either out of an inning or pitching through a much better situation had Garver not had an epically bad baseball game last night.

[jorgenswest]

I don’t think anyone really expected Garver to be more than a below average defensive catcher this year. He is going to have bad games. He certainly will be exposed by a pitcher that isn’t close to hitting the target.

[jmlease1]

Garver definitely needs some work on his defense and general catching, but it's nice to see his bat starting to get it going. he may have had some tough games behind the dish early but at least he's swinging the bat. Castro has been horrific at the plate.

 

Lynn has been a dumpster fire all year to date and even if you give him some bonus points for Garver's mistakes, he still pitched poorly last night. I don't know if it's in his head or what, but Castro caught him the last two games and he stunk in both of those too.

 

Really nice to see Kepler playing well. He's shot way ahead of Rosario on the development scale and is really looking like a keeper.

[bluechipper]

Hildenberger finally got his sinker sinking last night. That could be a huge help to the bullpen.

[Mike Sixel]

If you missed it on the fangraphs....thread here.....there is a long read on Lynn on rotographs.