Game Thread "escape" Twins vs White Socks, 12:10pm cdt 7/7/2021 ad

[sampleSizeOfOne]

Yes i like pitching Pineda

and that catch in the rain.

as we're still watching baseball

though our team's down the drain

Then get up for this noon game

and see how our team plays

it might be quite the same

as what this song says:

 

White Socks:

0. Lance Lynn (R) P

1. Tim Anderson (R) SS

2. Gavin Sheets (L) 1B

3. Jose Abreu (R) DH

4. Brian Goodwin (L) RF

5. Adam Engel (R) CF

6. Leury Garcia (S) 2B

7. Jake Burger (R) 3B

8. Billy Hamilton (S) LF

9. Seby Zavala (R) C

 

Twins:

0. Michael Pineda (R) P

1. Luis Arraez (L) 3B

2. Jorge Polanco (S) 2B

3. Trevor Larnach (L) LF

4. Nelson Cruz (R) DH

5. Alex Kirilloff (L) 1B

6. Max Kepler (L) RF

7. Nick Gordon (L) CF

8. Ben Rortvedt (L) C

9. A. Simmons (R) SS

 

And sorry to subject you to poor parodyin' skilz...

[wsnydes]

You spelled "Sox" correctly in the title! ?

[wsnydes]

I like seeing Larnach and Kirilloff hitting at the heart of the order.  Nice glimpse into the future.

[Otto von Ballpark]

White Sox designated Adam Eaton for assignment today, to make room for another Adam with a 5-letter last name beginning with "E" (Engel).

Eaton hasn't been good, but this is kind of surprising, given Eaton's status ($8 mil contract, opening day #2 hitter) and the current state of their roster. Sadly for Twins fan, it's probably a good move for the Sox!

[Otto von Ballpark]

18 minutes ago, sampleSizeOfOne said:

And sorry to subject you to poor parodyin' skilz...

I like the idea!

Maybe it could be about a team looking for a better SP, and a pitcher looking for a better team to join, but they wind up answering each other's trade request and they laugh about it.

[Dave The Dastardly]

The Strib reporting that Pineda has been activated also mentioned that Lance Lynn is one of four former Twin pitchers that made the All Star game this year.

"Lance Lynn will be on the mound for Chicago. The righthander is 8-3 with a 2.02 ERA and is one of four former Twins pitchers (Liam Hendriks of the White Sox, Kyle Gibson of the Rangers, Ryan Pressly of the Astros) who are All-Stars this season."

In the meantime, we're sending a DH.

Makes you feel confident about our chances of "improving" the Twins pitching staff by trading Berrios and/or Rogers, doesn't it? Minnesota Twins - best MLB minor league team.

[Mike Sixel]

1 minute ago, Dave The Dastardly said:

The Strib reporting that Pineda has been activated also mentioned that Lance Lynn is one of four former Twin pitchers that made the All Star game this year.

"Lance Lynn will be on the mound for Chicago. The righthander is 8-3 with a 2.02 ERA and is one of four former Twins pitchers (Liam Hendriks of the White Sox, Kyle Gibson of the Rangers, Ryan Pressly of the Astros) who are All-Stars this season."

In the meantime, we're sending a DH.

Makes you feel confident about our chances of "improving" the Twins pitching staff by trading Berrios and/or Rogers, doesn't it? Minnesota Twins - best MLB minor league team.

Lynn didn't want to be here....what should they have done? He was also on a one year deal. 

At the time, did ANYONE want to keep Gibson for the cost they'd have to pay? How good was Gibson between now and then?

Pressley was dealt.....I was on the fence on that one for sure. 

Hendriks? Did anyone see him becoming the highest paid FA RP in a class?

I get it, the FO hasn't been great at long term pitching acquisition and development, but it is hard to blame them on any of these other than Pressley, imo.

[RickOShea]

Isn't the date wrong for today's game thread?

[Brock Beauchamp]

30 minutes ago, Dave The Dastardly said:

The Strib reporting that Pineda has been activated also mentioned that Lance Lynn is one of four former Twin pitchers that made the All Star game this year.

"Lance Lynn will be on the mound for Chicago. The righthander is 8-3 with a 2.02 ERA and is one of four former Twins pitchers (Liam Hendriks of the White Sox, Kyle Gibson of the Rangers, Ryan Pressly of the Astros) who are All-Stars this season."

In the meantime, we're sending a DH.

Makes you feel confident about our chances of "improving" the Twins pitching staff by trading Berrios and/or Rogers, doesn't it? Minnesota Twins - best MLB minor league team.

Hendricks left a million years ago.

Gibson left in free agency and no one really wanted him back.

Pressly was traded for a decent return, the jury is still out on that.

Lynn was a free agent jackass who didn’t want to be here and the feeling was mutual.

[Dave The Dastardly]

20 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

Lynn didn't want to be here....what should they have done? He was also on a one year deal. 

At the time, did ANYONE want to keep Gibson for the cost they'd have to pay? How good was Gibson between now and then?

Pressley was dealt.....I was on the fence on that one for sure. 

Hendriks? Did anyone see him becoming the highest paid FA RP in a class?

I get it, the FO hasn't been great at long term pitching acquisition and development, but it is hard to blame them on any of these other than Pressley, imo.

Not blaming the FO as much as faulting the entire organization from minor league coaches all the way thru the major league team and including the FO. And not just the current FO. It was just a few years ago that there were like 8 or 9 ex-Twins players on the All Star team and only one "real" Twin. Now we have four ex-Twins pitchers on the AS team and we can't even get one of our own. Gotta be organizational failure. Or maybe something in the water.

[Danchat]

1 hour ago, Otto von Ballpark said:

White Sox designated Adam Eaton for assignment today, to make room for another Adam with a 5-letter last name beginning with "E" (Engel).

Eaton hasn't been good, but this is kind of surprising, given Eaton's status ($8 mil contract, opening day #2 hitter) and the current state of their roster. Sadly for Twins fan, it's probably a good move for the Sox!

I did think that deal for Eaton didn’t make sense, especially with the other bats they have in their org. 

Also, Seby Zavala... sounds like a randomly generated name to me. Apparently his full name is Bernardo Sebastian Zavala.

[wsnydes]

Every time I hear someone say Seby Zavala, I hear Telly Savalas.  It always takes me a second to process that.

[Brock Beauchamp]

6 minutes ago, Dave The Dastardly said:

Not blaming the FO as much as faulting the entire organization from minor league coaches all the way thru the major league team and including the FO. And not just the current FO. It was just a few years ago that there were like 8 or 9 ex-Twins players on the All Star team and only one "real" Twin. Now we have four ex-Twins pitchers on the AS team and we can't even get one of our own. Gotta be organizational failure. Or maybe something in the water.

There was definitely a healthy dose of organizational failure previous to 2016 in regards to pitching. They spent two HIGH first round picks on pitching and neither hit the majors in Minnesota. That in itself is a monumental, colossal failure. They also released guys like Hendricks who later went on to great things.

But this front office? Hard to say. They took over a broken org before the 2017 season, started drafting players, then lost an organizational MiLB season in 2020. Their results have been unimpressive thus far, no doubt, but we're only part of the way through the race.

[wsnydes]

Nice toss, rook!

[wsnydes]

Good start for the bats!

[wsnydes]

And yet another RISP wasted.

[Mike Sixel]

62% likely a team scores at least one run in that situation....ugh.

[Otto von Ballpark]

3 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

62% likely a team scores at least one run in that situation....ugh.

[Dave The Dastardly]

Whoops! No escaping that!

[wsnydes]

I wonder how many times this team has wasted a RISP only to give up a run the very next half inning.  It seems to be very common.  Rather demoralizing.

[PDX Twin]

Either Buxton in CF or Rosario in LF catches that double. Twins pitching is awful, but the gloves aren't helping.

[RickOShea]

One of Polanco's, "I could care less" throws to first base.

[Mike Sixel]

2 minutes ago, PDX Twin said:

Either Buxton in CF or Rosario in LF catches that double. Twins pitching is awful, but the gloves aren't helping.

I wonder if Kepler shouldn't be in LF at this point? Which one requires more ground to cover in TF? Larnach is never going to be a great fielder, it seems. 

[Cap'n Piranha]

36 minutes ago, Dave The Dastardly said:

Not blaming the FO as much as faulting the entire organization from minor league coaches all the way thru the major league team and including the FO. And not just the current FO. It was just a few years ago that there were like 8 or 9 ex-Twins players on the All Star team and only one "real" Twin. Now we have four ex-Twins pitchers on the AS team and we can't even get one of our own. Gotta be organizational failure. Or maybe something in the water.

I haven't done the math, and don't have the time to do so, but I would guess a healthy percentage of each year's all-star team are players not on their first MLB team.

[Dave The Dastardly]

Burger works a 6 pitch count than singles. What a ham!

 

The Kepler goes down on three pitches. The new Sano?

[wsnydes]

1 minute ago, Mike Sixel said:

I wonder if Kepler shouldn't be in LF at this point? Which one requires more ground to cover in TF? Larnach is never going to be a great fielder, it seems. 

Without looking at the field dimensions, I'd say LF has more area to cover.  RF is tough though because the outfield wall has five different materials to learn how the ball comes off of them.  Plus the weird overhang.  I'm not so sure that's a great spot for him either.

[Mike Sixel]

Just now, wsnydes said:

Without looking at the field dimensions, I'd say LF has more area to cover.  RF is tough though because the outfield wall has five different materials to learn how the ball comes off of them.  Plus the weird overhang.  I'm not so sure that's a great spot for him either.

Well, he's going to play someplace.......though not sure where the ideal spot is at this point. 

[Aggies7]

Lol Lynn just carved us up that inning

[wsnydes]

Just now, Mike Sixel said:

Well, he's going to play someplace.......though not sure where the ideal spot is at this point. 

Agreed.  His glovework has been disappointing, to say the least.

[Cap'n Piranha]

Ok, I made myself super curious, so I went and looked.  On this year's  all-star team, 7 of the 22 hitters, and 7 of the 12 pitchers are on at least their second big league team.  That's just under 42%.