Game Thread Twins @ Astros, 7:10pm CDT 4/23/2019

[bighat]

Huge DP there, nice work fellas. Let's tie this one off quick.

[wsnydes]

That inning could have been much worse. Way to work out of a mess!

[wabene]

Times are changing, I'm super happy to see Garv Sauce leading off! Hot bats at the top!!

[Brock Beauchamp]

Well crud. Floodgates....engaged.

Or maybe not.

[Mill1634]

Nice job to maneuver his way through that. Need more runs offense.

[Don Walcott]

Pineda looks good. Don’t forget we’re up against a great offense here.

[bighat]

 

I lived in Milwaukee for a year. They’d open the roof a decent percentage of the time but god, don’t go to a ballgame during one of those 80 degree high humidity, might drizzle days. The entire place is a sauna and pure misery.

Retractable roof stadiums suck. Even when they’re open, the nature of the design forces walls around the stadium, killing air movement.

And then you get situations like tonight in Houston where there’s no excuse not to have the bloody thing open, yet it’s closed.

 

Yeah I lived in Madison for a few years when Miller Park opened, went a plenty of games with my buddies. I recall those humid rain games you mentioned. Roof leaked, too! Steam room. Zero character. Also, when they close those "slats" out there beyond center field the ambiance just falls flat. It's like you're in an arena football stadium or something. I was so happy when the Twins just went with the open roof concept.

[twinssporto]

 

Pineda looks good. Don’t forget we’re up against a great offense here.

Astros are a Championshipy team (adjective used by La Bombo yesterday)

[Mill1634]

How is Angel still an MLB ump. His zone is HORRID. 

[bighat]

I hate to pile on the ump here, but sweet lord these calls are horrible. Also, waiting for Marwin to hit is getting a bit old. We'll be seeing Astudillo tomorrow without question.

[ashbury]

I lived in Milwaukee for a year.

I drove in Milwaukee for a year, one day.

[Mill1634]

 

I hate to pile on the ump here, but sweet lord these calls are horrible. Also, waiting for Marwin to hit is getting a bit old. We'll be seeing Astudillo tomorrow without question.

I would agree with this 100%, but it is in Houston. Not that it should matter, but maybe he wants him to play 3 in front of his old crowd. I expect Astudillo to be in the lineup somewhere though. 

[ashbury]

Astros are a Championshipy team (adjective used by La Bombo yesterday)

La Bombo is pretty adjectivy sometimes.

[bighat]

Soft-tossing lefhanded junkballer twisting up the Twins...reminds me of days gone by.

 

C'mon Big Mike, nice clean 1-2-3 here.

[twins_89]

 

I hate to pile on the ump here, but sweet lord these calls are horrible. Also, waiting for Marwin to hit is getting a bit old. We'll be seeing Astudillo tomorrow without question.

 

When the Twins signed him I thought Gonzalez was supposed to be a decent hitter, but he's be truly awful so far this season. At this point I think the Twins almost have to give Astudillo a lot of the starts at third until Sano is back.

 

Also, I'd agree the ball and strike calls are terrible. It seems like every call on the edge (or 6 inches off the edge) is completely random.

[twinssporto]

Who ever said Garver couldn't frame pitches better than Castro?

[wsnydes]

Who ever said Garver couldn't frame pitches better than Castro?

He's still a work in progress, but he's definitely improved since this time last year. Kudos to him for working on his craft.

[ScrapTheNickname]

Twins need 5 more runs?

[wickedslider]

I missed Pineda's other starts but I thought I read that his FB velocity had been around 92 or so, down from his pre surgery velocity of 95. But I see him hitting 94-95 tonight so maybe I had bad info, or has he really improved his velo over his past few starts?

[ScrapTheNickname]

Two negative trends among all the positive ones: Kepler keeps pulling everything, and grounds out softly a lot. Gonzalez bats like my mother.

[bighat]

Unreal with these calls right about now!

[DiscGolfer]

cleveland lost to the worst team in baseball tonight, no hit through 6 too.

[ScrapTheNickname]

I just read an article in which Angel Hernandez claims that he makes four missed calls per game. The article said in fact he makes five times that many. Tonight surely the number is much higher. A travesty.

[twins_89]

Twins hitters need to be more aggressive at the plate. They've watched too many good first pitch strikes and then get burned trying to take pitches slightly off the plate.

[bighat]

 

 

Two negative trends among all the positive ones: Kepler keeps pulling everything, and grounds out softly a lot. Gonzalez bats like my mother.

 

Don't forget Kepler hit .224 last year, fifth worst among qualified hitters in the AL.  Only Chris Davis, Joey Gallo, Kole Calhoun and Kyle Seager were worse in 2018.

 

We can play with stats, BABIP, exit velocity, launch angle, etc...but 532 AB is a large sample size.

[Danchat]

Pineda has made it over the 4 inning mark... but things are pretty iffy right now.

[ashbury]

Don't forget Kepler hit .224 last year, fifth worst among qualified hitters in the AL.  Only Chris Davis, Joey Gallo, Kole Calhoun and Kyle Seager were worse in 2018.

 

We can play with stats, BABIP, exit velocity, launch angle, etc...but 532 AB is a large sample size.

You have to keep in mind that Max is German. .224 in Metric is .300 here.

[Mill1634]

Pineda playing with fire a lot tonight, just a matter of time before he get burnt. 

[bighat]

Welp, if Pineda can get out of this inning tied 3-3 we'll have to view that as a win for now. I shudder to think what Houston is going to do to this bullpen when the time comes. A shame the Twins' bats have just disappeared since the 1st.

[ashbury]

I never noticed how far Altuve stands from the plate.