Injuries Already Testing the Twins' Depth

[ashbury]

Oops. Wrong thread this time.

[tony&rodney]

The Twins made really solid decisions to trade for Farmer and Taylor and then to add Solano and Castro. Despite these additions, the team desperately needs some bats to step forward. Gordon, Wallner, Kepler, and Gallo are all looking overmatched. Correa, Buxton, Miranda, Larnach, Farmer, and Taylor are mostly battling but having a difficult time. Julien is pretty new and adjusting slowly in a situation where contact is needed. Polanco and Kirilloff don't appear to be real close, a week or two at the earliest. Who knew that the catchers would be the strength of the team of the position players?

The pitching, on the other hand, is looking really tough. The Twins need to recognize their strengths and limitations and play accordingly. The best scoring opportunity today was when Julien bunted (hoping for a hit) Taylor into scoring position. Unfortunately Correa missed two pitches in the zone, but it felt like an opportunity to score. The lack of moving runners along via contact or bunting and the refusal to hit and run or attempt to steal a base now and then is handicapping the team. We can point out issues of team speed but when the Yankees and many other teams hit and run and send runners aggressively with no more speed (I'm looking at Rizzo and Cabrera as examples), it is easy to see a massive hole in team strategy. I'm ok with a player taking a rip or two, but with two strikes winning teams shorten their stroke and go the opposite field. Witness the recent White Sox series for the positive effects of putting the ball in play. Winning baseball uses more than the three outcomes or massive upper cut swings where contact is a mathematically inferior outcome. The Twins must discover the lost arts of successful baseball to complement their much improved pitching staff.