Final: Diamondbacks 5, Twins 4: Comeback Thwarted Late

[TwinsDr2021]

I am not a huge fan of Rocco; would I have liked Ryan to come back out, yes I would have, but with the way Alcala has been pitching, it made perfect sense to bring him and set up Duran and Jax for the 8th and 9th. I am not going to complain about that decision.

As for Buxton, if he catches that ball it would have been an amazing play. It certainly looked like he was aware that he was running at a high speed and was going to hit the wall pretty hard (which he did anyway) but I think we should be happy he was self aware enough to get into a position to protect himself.

[terrydactyls]

36 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Who threw the ball off line to first allowing 3rd run to score last week? (Lewis) …..should have been 3rd out in inning.

Who got thrown out at 3B when tagging up at 2B in the 10th inning? (Lewis)

Who walked #9 hitter with 2 outs last night? (Alcala)

Off top of my head, these 3 of last 4 one run losses that have zero to do with the Manager.

Quit using facts in an attempt to derail someone's "I hate Rocco" rant.  Reality has no place in today's world.

[mnfireman]

My biggest question on that "triple" is: Why didn't Buxton flip the ball to Kepler instead of throwing a horrible dribbler to Castro? Possibly keeps runners at second and third (I know, Barnhart singled), and maybe changes how Ryan pitches to Barnhart. 

[Parfigliano]

2 hours ago, wabene said:

Maybe TD should start charging for emoji usage. First one per post is free, next one is 25¢, third one 50¢, 4th one 75¢ and so on. If we had to we could crowd source Peter.

Gotta have a discount if you buy in bulk....say 8 for a dollar.

[MMMordabito]

Did I get it right for one run losses?

[bean5302]

2 hours ago, bighat said:

Agree that few would have got to that ball. 

But he did. And he dropped it. 

That's a play Buxton makes most of the time. It was an error. 

Look up the definition of error.
https://www.mlb.com/glossary/standard-stats/error

Definition

A fielder is given an error if, in the judgment of the official scorer, he fails to convert an out on a play that an average fielder should have made.

I'm no Buxton apologist, but the average fielder doesn't make that play. That play is very similar to "The Catch" by Willie Mays.

[bean5302]

37 minutes ago, terrydactyls said:

Quit using facts in an attempt to derail someone's "I hate Rocco" rant.  Reality has no place in today's world.

Funny thing about "facts" there are a lot of them and you can pick and choose which ones you use.

I imagine Baldelli's status will work itself out naturally this year with Falvey's contract ending.

[USAFChief]

I think Buxton would tell you he should have caught that triple by Suarez. He got there in time. Simply didn't make the catch.

He also got a poor jump on Carroll's single off Alcala. I think that ball gets caught by most MLB CFers, most of the time. It wasn't that shallow and hung up a pretty long time.

I've been asking for a new manager since last season, but I had no problem with last night's pitching decisions. 

Alcala has always had command/control issues. That's part of the package. That was his 13th BB allowed in 26 IP this year.  But given pen construction, he's one of the better options.

In any case Ryan's start was way more responsible for the loss than Alcala.

And score more runs. The magic number in MLB is 5. Don't sleep walk through the first five innings so often. 

 

[Doctor Gast]

2 hours ago, stringer bell said:

Not so much this month. With Miranda around to DH, he hasn't been DHing against RH pitching. It is an opportunity to play him more behind the plate (with less Vázquez), but so far Rocco has resisted that temptation and stuck with alternating the two catchers. 

Last year when Correa had a bad year hitting & Castro was hitting well. I didn't hear anyone say that Castro should be playing more often at SS. Vazquez is a much better catcher than Jeffers, Vazquez should play at least 50% at catching. Jeffers is a much better bat than Vazquez that's why Jeffers has so many more ABs than Vazquez. Jeffers gets worn down & it affects his playing. They started to limit his DH duties, & after a while, his hitting has returned. Catching is a very demanding position, I wouldn't start advocating more innings for Jeffers to catch. I'd say Jeffers is very fortunate that we have Vazquez to limit his innings otherwise Jeffers would tank if he had to catch any more innings on a steady basis. Now Vazquez is hitting better, I'd suggest Vazquez catching more to keep Jeffers fresh so he can keep hitting at the capacity we know he can.

[Doctor Gast]

I didn't see any of game because I was in bed before the game started. To say the least I was diappointed.

[Old Crow]

4 hours ago, Karbo said:

Very few would have gotten to that ball, but he did. I thimk 90% of the time he holds onto that.

95% of the time.

[bean5302]

3 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

Last year when Correa had a bad year hitting & Castro was hitting well. I didn't hear anyone say that Castro should be playing more often at SS. Vazquez is a much better catcher than Jeffers, Vazquez should play at least 50% at catching. Jeffers is a much better bat than Vazquez that's why Jeffers has so many more ABs than Vazquez. Jeffers gets worn down & it affects his playing. They started to limit his DH duties, & after a while, his hitting has returned. Catching is a very demanding position, I wouldn't start advocating more innings for Jeffers to catch. I'd say Jeffers is very fortunate that we have Vazquez to limit his innings otherwise Jeffers would tank if he had to catch any more innings on a steady basis. Now Vazquez is hitting better, I'd suggest Vazquez catching more to keep Jeffers fresh so he can keep hitting at the capacity we know he can.

Positional value for catchers is +12.5 runs. 1.25 WAR.
Defense for Vazquez is currently projecting as +20.0 runs. That's 2.00 WAR over a full season.
His bat has been worth -53.0 runs over a full season. Yes. That's not hyperbole. His bat directly loses 5 games for the Twins this year vs. an average AAA player.

Christian Vazquez is not a viable MLB player. The Twins should be looking for a back up catcher so they can DFA Vazquez.

[bighat]

21 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Look up the definition of error.
https://www.mlb.com/glossary/standard-stats/error

Definition

A fielder is given an error if, in the judgment of the official scorer, he fails to convert an out on a play that an average fielder should have made.

I'm no Buxton apologist, but the average fielder doesn't make that play. That play is very similar to "The Catch" by Willie Mays.

Take off your Twins-colored glasses. 

This isn't 2019 Buxton. About 90% of center fielders in baseball get to that ball. It's hard to have a serious conversation with you about baseball if you're not grounded in reality.