Spring Training Audio Diary: Pablo's Debut, Kepler Beats the Shift, Nick Sings Badly

[Nick Nelson]

Today's Caretaker-only audio diary offers everything you need to know about Monday's spring training game against the Red Sox, all in under 18 minutes.

After getting back from Monday's 4-1 loss to the Red Sox at JetBlue Park, I sat down to record some thoughts from the game, touching on topics such as:

• Pablo López's strong Twins debut, in which he struck out three over two scoreless frames.
• Jorgé López's slightly less impressive spring training debut, which was marred by command issues but did see him touch 97 MPH on the gun. (Which he was pleasantly surprised with.)
• A good day for Max Kepler, who batted leadoff and managed to sneak a ground ball single past the now-limited infield shift.
• A smattering of thoughts on other players like Austin Martin, Nick Gordon, and Red Sox starter Kutter Crawford who has an 80-grade pitcher name.

I also for some reason attempted to improvise a theme song for this newly developed audio diary feature, and that didn't go so well. If you wish to avoid it, I recommend skipping the first 10 seconds or so.

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[strumdatjag]

Austin Martin made a real. Ice offensive play on a ground ball in the first. 

[Schmoeman5]

Kepler beat the shift, but dropped a routine fly ball in foul territory, that fortunately didn't cost them. It looks like Gallo is shortening his swing for more contact. Farmer made 3 baserunning errors in 1 inning.  He didn't run hard on a pop-up that fell in the infield. Then almost got doubled up on a Taylor line-out.  And then should have advanced to 3rd on a Larnach single. Twins baserunning needs work. Lopez 1 looked good.. Lopez 2 will get there. Jax did fine. Overall pitching was OK, but after the 6th inning the defense was reminiscent of little league is what I observed.

[h2oface]

4 hours ago, Schmoeman5 said:

Kepler beat the shift, but dropped a routine fly ball in foul territory, that fortunately didn't cost them. It looks like Gallo is shortening his swing for more contact. Farmer made 3 baserunning errors in 1 inning.  He didn't run hard on a pop-up that fell in the infield. Then almost got doubled up on a Taylor line-out.  And then should have advanced to 3rd on a Larnach single. Twins baserunning needs work. Lopez 1 looked good.. Lopez 2 will get there. Jax did fine. Overall pitching was OK, but after the 6th inning the defense was reminiscent of little league is what I observed.

Thanks for some truth.

I also noticed that they went 0-9 with RISP. I hope that is not season prep.

[oregontwin]

1 hour ago, Schmoeman5 said:

Kepler beat the shift, but dropped a routine fly ball in foul territory, that fortunately didn't cost them. It looks like Gallo is shortening his swing for more contact. Farmer made 3 baserunning errors in 1 inning.  He didn't run hard on a pop-up that fell in the infield. Then almost got doubled up on a Taylor line-out.  And then should have advanced to 3rd on a Larnach single. Twins baserunning needs work. Lopez 1 looked good.. Lopez 2 will get there. Jax did fine. Overall pitching was OK, but after the 6th inning the defense was reminiscent of little league is what I observed.

Yeah, I too was disappointed in the Farmer lack of hustle. Maybe we write it off to a game that won't count for him. We'll see when the season starts. Still, a bad example for players who can't afford to emulate his effort.

[Schmoeman5]

Not being  a smart ass here, but is there a place to sign up for caretaker content? And is that the cost?

[Vanimal46]

4 minutes ago, Schmoeman5 said:

Not being  a smart ass here, but is there a place to sign up for caretaker content? And is that the cost?

https://twinsdaily.com/subscriptions

Tell them Vanimal sent you for $0 off. 

[Schmoeman5]

17 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

https://twinsdaily.com/subscriptions

Tell them Vanimal sent you for $0 off. 

Haha. Will do. Thanks Vanimal46

[DocBauer]

First time out, can't complain about either Lopez. ONE APPEARNACE, at least J Lopez got out of his struggle. I'm taking that as a positive. Looks like SWR struggled some. Do we even care at this point? Farmer should be smarter, even in ST, but at least he went 2 for 3. OMG, Kepler went 2 for 3! LOL

What, 4 or 5 games in now? Nothing to see of importance right now. At least nobody stepped on a rake and hurt themselves. LOL. Absolutely nothing to be concerned about.

[AlwaysinModeration]

7 hours ago, jkcarew said:

I’m glad there is a way to contribute to the site like this—there is a lot of work that goes into it and I enjoy reading the range of content, including the comment sections.  It’s also an entertaining community.

[Twodogs]

13 hours ago, Schmoeman5 said:

Kepler beat the shift, but dropped a routine fly ball in foul territory, that fortunately didn't cost them. It looks like Gallo is shortening his swing for more contact. Farmer made 3 baserunning errors in 1 inning.  He didn't run hard on a pop-up that fell in the infield. Then almost got doubled up on a Taylor line-out.  And then should have advanced to 3rd on a Larnach single. Twins baserunning needs work. Lopez 1 looked good.. Lopez 2 will get there. Jax did fine. Overall pitching was OK, but after the 6th inning the defense was reminiscent of little league is what I observed.

Speaking of little league, I was astonished when a Red Sox player tagged up and scored from 2nd on a fly ball to center.  I mean they hopefully are embarrassed with those types of results from major league ballplayers.  

[Seth Stohs]

6 minutes ago, Twodogs said:

Speaking of little league, I was astonished when a Red Sox player tagged up and scored from 2nd on a fly ball to center.  I mean they hopefully are embarrassed with those types of results from major league ballplayers.  

It happens. It was late in the game. There was a high sky, and Keirsey made a nice catch to stay with it, and then it the wall . He threw it in and there was a throw home. I think Caleb Hamilton just deserves a lot of credit. 

[tarheeltwinsfan]

Great theme song. I vote we add it before all audio presentations. Or not. 

[Doctor Gast]

This is early ST so I'm happy with Pablo and Kepler progress yet it's time to work things out & get in a groove. Still a lot of ST games left to do that.

[Twodogs]

9 hours ago, Seth Stohs said:

It happens. It was late in the game. There was a high sky, and Keirsey made a nice catch to stay with it, and then it the wall . He threw it in and there was a throw home. I think Caleb Hamilton just deserves a lot of credit. 

Yeah, I don't really care when in the game it happens and it really doesn't matter how high the ball was hit.  It was a poor play and that should never happen.  I mean we are just fans but if the coaching staff makes these types of excuses then we are going to hear a lot of excuses this season.  It's obvious with a play like that, that either their heads weren't in the game or they didn't care, either way that needs to be corrected.  Hopefully the coaching staff got on them about that because plays like that will lose a lot of ballgames.  I am fully expecting to not see anyone tag up from second and score on a fly ball again this season.  I mean it wasn't a strong throw to the cut, it was ho hummed to the cut because I'm pretty sure he didn't think the guy was going to try and score.  So yeah it was a heads up play by the Red Sox player or maybe the 3rd base coach?   But again that shouldn't happen.  After a couple of poor plays and a snowball fight I hope the Twins left feeling a little disappointed with their play in the field.  I expect that they will be better and sometimes it may take a poor play like that to wake them up and get after it a little bit better.  Again I get that it's spring training but I can't get used to hearing excuses for plays like that.  

[PatPfund]

I got a big laugh out of the theme song, especially after the mini-cliffhanger 'di- ah- (where is he going?!?!) rees' (phew!). If Martin can field like that at 2nd on a regular basis, I'm very intrigued.

I'm not coincidentally concerned about one of my favorite Twins, Polanco. After Buxton last year, I believe pretty much nothing the Twins say about injuries (Byron was clearly hurt all year, and the coverup did nothing but buy him crap from fans, and ended with him having surgery. On the knee that was hurt all year.) Given my decades of experience with balky body parts, if Polanco is still limited by his knee after almost enough time off to recover from ACL surgery, it reeks of an ongoing issue for the coming season. And despite his totally undeserved reputation for not getting hurt, Jorge has repeatedly been hurt (he just stayed off the IL), and the injuries have hobbled his output. 

We'll need a backup 2B, and Martin looks plausible. Miranda's shoulder is also concerning (especially if he is playing in the WBC), and having Farmer/Solano/Gordon to help might work after all. (Otherwise, it seems like we have one too many "Swiss Army Knives".

[Schmoeman5]

On 2/27/2023 at 8:48 PM, Vanimal46 said:

https://twinsdaily.com/subscriptions

Tell them Vanimal sent you for $0 off. 

Easy peezy Vanimal. And thanks for the 0% discount. Funny thing. When I did mention you I got infinite question marks as a reply