2 Twins most to blame for ALDS loss to Astros

[RpR]

Twins: Players most to blame for ALDS loss to Astros (clutchpoints.com)

Moderator note -- balance of this post has been deleted because members are not allowed to cut and paste an entire article from another website due to copyright concerns.  You can still read the article by clicking the link above.

 

[Hawkeye Bean Counter]

Royce Lewis should not be on the list.  

As to Gray it happens,  it wasn't a horrible outing but wasn't great,  however we were never going to win that game.  We had 1 run in that game.  Gray could have pitched a gem and we still lose the game.   

Game 4 -  main culprits  1. Thielbar 2 run home run.    2. Ump that called 3rd strike on Kepler.  Any batter not named Julien or Lewis.  No hits although Polanco and Correa both had rips.   

Game 3 Kiriloff,  without the error I think that game could have gone much differently

Game 1 I felt was a throw away game so not going to really place any blame here.   

For me Kiriloff and his 0 for how many and the error rises to the top of my list.  2nd is Thielbar          

Julien definitely has some things to clean up and improve,  but he is our best professional hitter right now.   

[FlyingFinn]

1 hour ago, RpR said:

2. Royce Lewis

You would rate someone who someone who went 3 for 16 with 2 homers worse than a cleanup hitter who went 3 for 15 with no homers and no rbi's?

[USAFChief]

15 minutes ago, FlyingFinn said:

You would rate someone who someone who went 3 for 16 with 2 homers worse than a cleanup hitter who went 3 for 15 with no homers and no rbi's? You should try hide your rookie bias a little better.

I don't think the OP was written by the OP poster...

 

[RpR]

17 minutes ago, FlyingFinn said:

You would rate someone who someone who went 3 for 16 with 2 homers worse than a cleanup hitter who went 3 for 15 with no homers and no rbi's? You should try hide your rookie bias a little better.

I did not rate any one at any level.

[FlyingFinn]

10 minutes ago, RpR said:

I did not rate any one at any level.

Sorry, didn't catch that. My apologies.

[rv78]

 

Wow, let's pick on the rookie. How about Kepler who is making a ton more money than Lewis, has a ton more experience than Lewis and was worse? He ALSO had 7 K's and didn't account for a run in any way shape or form. NO HR, NO RUNS SCORED, NO RBI'S. Sure, Lewis had some bad at bats in critical situations but there were other guys in the lineup, like Kepler that contributed nothing in the way of run production. 

[glunn]

I believe that the losses were a team effort and don't see the point of assigning blame to particular players.

Also, for purposes of discussion, my sense if that Lewis did well for a rookie coming off a hamstring injury and Thielbar had one bad pitch.

 

[Rod Carews Birthday]

That article has a pretty weird take on things.  It seems to say since Lewis had ridiculous expectations after the WC series, he didn’t go off on the Astros.  There is plenty of blame to go around but this is silly.  

[wabene]

Blame is a game that no one will pay to watch.

[IndianaTwin]

Why do we need to jump to finding blame? They won a few. They lost a few. Baseball happens. 

[Schmoeman5]

Shirley Shirley bow birley fanana Nana fo firley fee fie moe mirley. Shirley. The Blame game. 

[tony&rodney]

The Astros won the series 3 games to 1 versus the Twins. The idea of blame, blame, blame is simply lame, lame, lame.

Weak.

[IaBeanCounter]

I believe Houston won because they made all the defensive plays and the pitches.  Their previous playoff experience made the difference.  

[strumdatjag]

AK’s error and Sonny’s tough start.  

[RaoulDuke]

There is a ton of collective blame to go around.  Wallner/ Kepler/ Jeffers/ Taylor/ Solano/ Kirilloff/ Castro all struggled.  Polanco had one big hit/ Lewis cranked some homers but was over matched in a lot of other at bats/ Julien worked walks and hit but struggled on the bases. Really the only solid performer on offense was Correa.  

Riding Lewis in the 3rd spot was dumb, it should have been Correa.  Multiple potential rallies ended with the man with 60+ post season rbis on deck in favor of a rookie and Kepler. 

Sonny Gray had a great year but benefited from a lot of luck and it finally blew up in his face at the worst time. 

The pen was mostly a real positive outside of Thielbar blowing a game and Maeda/ Ober giving up some in mop up duty.

Gold stars to Lopez/ Correa/ Duran/ Jax.  Silver stars to Lewis/ Julien/ Pagan/ Paddack/ Taylor (for his defense).

 

[Linus]

1 hour ago, IaBeanCounter said:

I believe Houston won because they made all the defensive plays and the pitches.  Their previous playoff experience made the difference.  

This. Houston made the plays and we didn’t. It’s a team game. Blaming individuals after the fact means you don’t understand that. 

[jctwins]

The collective batting order constantly swinging for the fences and refusing to try to get a base hit gets the blame.

[NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin]

It's baseball, it's pointless to try and blame players for underperformance in a four game stretch against one of the toughest teams in the league. 

In theory, star players should help put the team on their backs and make the difference in a small sample size. The Astros have more and better stars, and I believe that is why the won.

Give Julien, Lewis, Lopez, and Ryan time to turn into top-5 players at their positions, and hopefully, Buxton/Correa can return to form in the coming years. No sense in laying into a guy like Kirilloff, Wallner, or Theilbar for a rough several games.

[Aerodeliria]

7 hours ago, Hawkeye Bean Counter said:

Royce Lewis should not be on the list.  

As to Gray it happens,  it wasn't a horrible outing but wasn't great,  however we were never going to win that game.  We had 1 run in that game.  Gray could have pitched a gem and we still lose the game.   

Game 4 -  main culprits  1. Thielbar 2 run home run.    2. Ump that called 3rd strike on Kepler.  Any batter not named Julien or Lewis.  No hits although Polanco and Correa both had rips.   

Game 3 Kiriloff,  without the error I think that game could have gone much differently

Game 1 I felt was a throw away game so not going to really place any blame here.   

For me Kiriloff and his 0 for how many and the error rises to the top of my list.  2nd is Thielbar          

Julien definitely has some things to clean up and improve,  but he is our best professional hitter right now.   

I agree with your assessment; although, Julien was also the victim of balls called strikes at least twice that I saw,

[Battle ur tail off]

I wouldn't be putting blame on anyone, but wanted to mention that Julien and Lewis are both stars. And they both played excellent this postseason, especially for rookies. Royce's one at bat was a killer, but the guy hit 4 stinkin HR in 6 games. 

Julien took mostly great at bats every time he went up to the plate and was on base alot. This guy has an eye like Joe Mauer but has more power. It will be fun to watch these 2 guys mature, and I will hope we don't see a sophomore slump next season from either of them. 

[stringer bell]

The postseason consisted of six games. A really small sample size. Not many guys hit as well as their regular season and a few pitchers struggled. Ober allowed two big HRs in Game 1 and Sonny allowed two for the first time since he came to the Twins. 
 

All season strikeouts were a huge problem and it only magnified in the playoffs. It is especially tough to string together hits in the postseason. ThecTwins got a lot of walks, but not enough big hits. 

[DocBauer]

It was my work. I had to work most of the series and only caught bits and pieces live. 

On top of that, I didn't attempt to get a rush for a delivery of new Homer Hankie to be sent to Omaha.

It's my fault....I let everyone down.

[ashbury]

It was my fault.  On our family game thread in the ninth inning of that last game, when Polanco was at bat, Bashbury typed "hip-hip?" and I foolishly responded "George!".

[insagt1]

It was a total team 'effort'. Can't pin it on any one or two players. They averaged over 12 k's every game. The overall hitting was very bad. Match that with a team that goes to the ALCS every year, and its kind of a mismatch. EVen when they are not cheating, Houston is a very good team, that knows how to pivot, to adapt, and to take advantage when presented with enough opportunities.

It was no disgrace losing to them, What it WAS however, was just plain disappointing, because losing sucks!