Article: TOR 7, MIN 4: WHAT IS HAPPENING!?!?!?

[Tom Froemming]

This is getting hard to believe. The Twins lost another game Tuesday night, and this one was a killer. They jumped out to a 2-0 lead and were even up 4-3 in the eighth, but the bullpen couldn’t hold the lead, the defense was atrocious and the Blue Jays took advantage of miscues in the 10th inning.Snapshot (chart via FanGraphs)

Download attachment: Snapshot51.png Download attachment: WinEx51.png

New game, new thing to worry about. Let’s turn our attention to Addison Reed.

 

Reed entered the eighth inning of this game with the Twins leading 4-3. He walked the leadoff man, gave up a double and then a sacrifice fly to tie it up. He managed to work out of the inning, sandwiching an intentional walk between two strikeouts.

 

Reed has now given up four earned runs over his last five innings pitched. His main issue was with location tonight, as he threw just 11 of his 23 pitches for strikes, but there is also an alarming trend with his fastball velocity.

 

Reed averaged 90.5 mph on his fastball and topped out at 91.6, per Baseball Savant. Here’s a month-by-month breakdown of his fastball velocity since the start of last season via Brooks Baseball:

Download attachment: ReedVelo.jpeg

Uh-oh.

 

The game remained tied thanks to Fernando Rodney working around some suboptimal defense to pitch a scoreless ninth. John Curtiss, making his 11th career MLB appearance, was tasked with keeping things afloat in the 10th inning. To say things didn’t go well would be an understatement, but to be fair it wasn’t all on Curtiss

 

The inning opened with Kevin Pillar smashing a double into the gap. He would later steal third without a throw and then score the go-ahead run on a wild pitch. The Blue Jays scored a second run on a hot grounder that Gregorio Petit, who was playing in, failed to field cleanly. Then just for good measure a third run scored on another wild pitch.

Ouch. Three runs and the Blue Jays only had to hit one ball out of the infield.

 

This game actually got off to a great start, as the Twins took a 2-0 lead in the first inning thanks to Joe Mauer’s first homer of the year and an RBI double by Eddie Rosario.

Kyle Gibson was cruising along until he gave up a couple of runs in the fifth to tie the game. He finished the night with six strikeouts over five innings, giving up those two runs on five hits and a couple walks.

 

Ryan Pressly gave up a homer to give Toronto its first lead of the night, but it was short-lived. Rosario blasted a go-ahead homer, scoring Eduardo Escobar.

Another positive note was that Petit went 2-for-4 in his Twins debut. And guess what? It’s Fernando Romero day tomorrow! So … everything’s still really, really, really great in Twins Territory. Really great.

 

It’s still early, right?

 

Right?

 

Bullpen Usage

Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days:

Download attachment: Bullpen51.png

Next Three Games

Wed vs. TOR, 12:10 pm CT

Thu at CHW, 7:10 pm CT

Fri at CHW, 7:10 pm CT

 

Last Three Games

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

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

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

 

More From Twins Daily

Twins Minor League Report (5/1): No Hitter In Cedar Rapids Upstages Gonsalves Performance

Can Fernando Romero Spark The Twins?

Sano to DL, Petit Promoted, Enns Designated, Kinley Returned

Royce Lewis is Finding His Stroke

Something Has Clicked with Eduardo Escobar

 

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[Mike Sixel]

Speechless.

[rghrbek]

Once Pillar stole 2nd, well Curtis started to have that deer in headlights look, and it got worse.  I like his arm, but wow that was a meltdown

[Danchat]

 

I want to criticize optioning Curtiss back to AAA already... but I don't know, all of the young arms have looked awful, so I'm not sure what can be done. 

 

With the defense being so awful, I'm not sure I can be confident with Romero's first start. Especially with Grossman somewhere in the outfield.

[ashbury]

It's never good when Yakkity Sax is the background music of choice.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

If Molitor lets Gibson pitch the 6th, the relievers are all pushed back an inning.

[Tom Froemming]

Fernando Romero will be the 20th pitcher the Twins use already this season. Cleveland has used 13.

 

I get the desire to keep fresh arms in the bullpen, but it's difficult to see where they're gaining any kind of an advantage from it at this point. All the guys who've remained on the roster still seem worn out and all the guys shuttling from Rochester/the waiver wire seem to be getting trounced anyway.

[Danchat]

 

If Molitor lets Gibson pitch the 6th, the relievers are all pushed back an inning.

Yes, but it's likely Gibson was out of gas and he probably doesn't get out of that inning without bullpen help. It was (and is) a lose-lose proposition for Molitor.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Yes, but it's likely Gibson was out of gas and he probably doesn't get out of that inning without bullpen help. It was (and is) a lose-lose proposition for Molitor.

Possibly. But I wanted Gibson to go back out. It was the 5-6-7 batters. Molitor has got to let starters go longer.

[KirbyDome89]

 

 

I want to criticize optioning Curtiss back to AAA already... but I don't know, all of the young arms have looked awful, so I'm not sure what can be done. 

 

With the defense being so awful, I'm not sure I can be confident with Romero's first start. Especially with Grossman somewhere in the outfield.

It would have been nice to see Curtiss get some work in lower leverage innings before being booted.

[h2oface]

If this keeps up, the Twins will soon be in last place and MOY will be MOR.... Manager of the Rear!

[USAFChief]

That 10th inning was an embarrassment to the entire organization. Decent legion ball teams know how to defend 1st and third. Jr high teams.

 

Kendrys Morales wandered off first base, and the Twins were too frightened, or confused to throw the ball.

 

For Pete sake. That is not major league baseball.

[Gagne Fan]

Going to be in trouble tonight out of the pen

Essentially have 2 1/4 arms available....

Hildy, Rogers and Duke

[bighat]

So my girlfriend's brother went to Romania a few months ago. It snowed, and he was pretty excited because it was the first time he's ever seen snow! How about that, eh?  Say, anyone ever been on a safari? I think it would be cool to see a rhino up close, in the wild. But then again, I wonder if the other tourists would ruin it. I mean, I went to Playa del Carmen this past winter and absolutely would never go again, just too many touris......what's that? Baseball? What's baseball?

[Tommygun921]

How can any organization be this bad at developing home grown pitching? Berrios is the best since who??? And he's about as inconsistent as they come. Seems like the Cleveland Browns and quarterbacks.

[Vanimal46]

Not a good sign at all if Reed is gassed by May 1st.

[Taildragger8791]

Possibly. But I wanted Gibson to go back out. It was the 5-6-7 batters. Molitor has got to let starters go longer.

 

Gibson was laboring to get through most of his 5 innings, and was already at 96 pitches. His track record is pretty terrible when he’s allowed to go back out after a game like that. Most posters here would lampoon Molitor for letting him go out and inevitably start a circus for the bullpen to clean up.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Gibson was laboring to get through most of his 5 innings, and was already at 96 pitches. His track record is pretty terrible when he’s allowed to go back out after a game like that. Most posters here would lampoon Molitor for letting him go out and inevitably start a circus for the bullpen to clean up.

I was watching. I didn't think he was gassed. They lost, and Molitor/Twins gets lampooned anyway.

[Riverbrian]

 

Possibly. But I wanted Gibson to go back out. It was the 5-6-7 batters. Molitor has got to let starters go longer.

 

Molly is a canary in the coalmine. If Molitor starts letting his starters go longer. We will know that he has lost faith in the bullpen. 

 

At that point... in won't matter. 

 

 

[twinfan]

When things are going bad, there is almost nothing you can do to fix it but just hope it fixes itself. We have had some key injuries, relief pitchers have no command and are walking first batters (you can never do that), Morrison has been a bust (even worse than Park- wherever he is), the defense has been like watching a little league game (this is the most surprising thing) and the starters have been lousy (except for Gibson). 

The good thing is that the division is very weak and even Cleveland is not playing well. However, I don't think we will ever catch them even when we start to win again. Now the questions are a)which Twins team is the real one (the first 13 games or the recent games)? and are we already out of the Wild Card contention? 

With the Yankees/Red Sox battle and the Angels/Mariners battle, we may be toast for this year.

[Riverbrian]

I'm hoping that someone in that locker room has called a team meeting or is about to call a team meeting. 

 

The last thing they should do is wait for it to correct itself naturally. It will... but it might take a little while. 

 

I've always assumed that players are human beings. If they are human beings... you got some pretty pissed off people in that locker room and they might be quietly pissed off and that could lead to... I don't give a damn attitudes. 

 

Look at the anger that spills out on this website... The players are not a collection of stats... they are humans... they have emotions just like we do. 

[laloesch]

I'm speechless after this one. This is not a .500 team they are that bad. Wow! Was 2017 really that big of a fluke season for this club? Seems hard to believe. One thing is for certain the pitching has been and still is the achilles heel of this organization and it's been 6+ years since 2011! This is why when you commit to a rebuild you FULLY COMMIT instead of trying to fool the fans with happy talk, dumpster diving and a patchwork of retread free agent starter signings, which is what Terry Ryan pulled for yearsss...Hopefully Romero does well and while they are at it finally start calling up some of the other youngsters such as Gonsalves, Littell, Slegers, etc., and get them badly needed major league experience. We need options.

[LeatherAntenna]

Do we need some new sabermetric guys?

[Tomj14]

 

If Molitor lets Gibson pitch the 6th, the relievers are all pushed back an inning.

I was surprised he let Gibson finish the 5th, so I knew there was no chance of him coming out for the 6th.

 

I would have him come out for the 6th, but Molitor knew if anybody gets on base he will pull him so let a Relief Pitcher start the inning.

 

Basically they don't let a starter, star a new inning if they have over 90 pitchers, and they wonder why the bullpen is terrible.

[Taildragger8791]

 

I was watching. I didn't think he was gassed. They lost, and Molitor/Twins gets lampooned anyway.

 

Then I guess it was a lose-lose proposition because we simply don't have enough pitching to get through the game. That's kind of where this team is right now.

[mikelink45]

So glad Romero is coming up, would have liked Curtiss to stay and continue to develop - its not like he is blocking some good bullpen arms.  Gibson has regularly blown up if left in too much - credit Molitor for observing this..

 

Okay lets call out Garvin and Guardardo.  Bert Blyleven and Morris are consultants, LaTroy is a special assistant, and I do not know who else in the office and minor leagues.  If, as one comment states, we are not developing our arms, we have to ask why not and who is to blame?

 

Gonsalves, Littell need to follow Romero.  Lets get the lumps out of the way and really develop a rotation. 

[gunnarthor]

Uff-da.

[lukeduke1980]

 

 

Okay lets call out Garvin and Guardardo

With a 9+ era from the bullpen during this skid there has to be something systematically wrong here. 

[Number3]

A Little League game is 6 innings. A starting pitcher in Little League is usually expected to finish. So a Major League pitcher making multiple 9 figures with 4 days rest can't go more than 5? Who do the Twins acquire, a bunch of candy back sides? Buxton gets headaches, Sano carries too much weight for his frame and body structure, their best "stuff" pitcher gets tired after having to do his job for 5 innings once a weekl. Speaks for itself.

 

Anyone could have " seen (the possibility) of this coming. That is why this team was such an unknown going into this season. Now its becoming a known.

[chaderic20]

Sorry, I can't figure out how to actually get the gif to display here, so here's just a link to what I believe is the current situation in the FO.

 

https://media.giphy.com/media/z9AUvhAEiXOqA/giphy.gif