Make It Official! Twins 13, White Sox 7: Twins Jump Out Early, Hold On for Sweep

[jorgenswest]

1 minute ago, DJL44 said:

They can send Dobnak down any time they want a different pitcher. Varland on Friday is likely.

Should they try to set the rotation so that the top 3 start against Cleveland? If so, they need a solution for Wednesday and a 27th man starter for Friday.

[DJL44]

6 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

Should they try to set the rotation so that the top 3 start against Cleveland? If so, they need a solution for Wednesday and a 27th man starter for Friday.

I would be trying to beat the Cubs. Worry about today's game. Setting the rotation is for the playoffs.

[IaBeanCounter]

13 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

Should they try to set the rotation so that the top 3 start against Cleveland? If so, they need a solution for Wednesday and a 27th man starter for Friday.

With the offday on Thursday why not have a BP game on Wednesday with Dobnak as the opener and let him go 2-4 innings.  He has been a starter at StP, he may perform better as a starter than a reliever.  If he fails, send him back down and call up a fresh arm and the 27th man for Friday.

[jmlease1]

I'm glad we weren't the ones to break the ChiSox streak, especially since we're the last team they beat. They can get well against someone else. (or not, since some of their vets seems to have quit on the club in august)

Sweeping teams isn't easy in baseball. even historically bad teams win 1 out of 3 and even rotten teams can have everything come together for a day. While we should expect the Twins to beat the ChiSox, getting a sweep is a good work. eventually this streak will end, but no one wants to be the team they finally get a W against.

[IaBeanCounter]

On Benintendi's double, I thought the ground rules were if a ball gets lodged anywhere, its a ground rule double.  Is this incorrect?

[JD-TWINS]

13 hours ago, mnfireman said:

Double dip on Friday, probably Varland unless Paddack is ready to go.

Both SWR (4 days) rest & Ober (5 days rest) would/should be ready to go Friday, I would think? My assumption is they stick with regular guys for Cleveland & bring in Varland next Tuesday, when really squeezed for options. Already enough stress on the Pen with a doubleheader - Varland seems like a risky starter in that scenario………no “givens” with anyone though, I guess?

Henriquez or somebody may be up to help with innings this weekend.

[Whitey333]

Nice to sweep the series even if it is the lowly White Sox.  But if we are being honest here we would have lost two of the three games had we played a decent team.  We played rather poorly.  

[bean5302]

1 hour ago, Dman said:

I agree, but yesterday I felt embarrassed for him.  Multiple non competitive pitches a foot off the plate.  Walking the number 9 batter. When he went in zone he got crushed and he couldn't even finish his inning and had to be replaced. If it's gonna take the level of smoke and mirrors it looks like it is going to take he's not gonna make it at the MLB level. 

I will say every reliever has their bad outing.  Jax and Duran have walked guys and been punished for it.  Alcala got hit yesterday. Bad outings happen.  Maybe he was too jacked up and over throwing or mentally just not focused enough.  Whatever the case he won't survive many more outings like that with the Twins in a playoff race.  He needs to prove he belongs and that outing against essentially a AAA club did not help him at all.

Yeah, but both doubles were on competitive pitch locations, in fact, the one to Vaughn was in a spot Vaughn has struggled with good sequencing. Dobnak left the game with 2Ks and a 1.67 FIP. The walk was bad, he was all over the place, but certainly no worse than we've seen from quite a few guys this year on a single batter.

There haven't been enough pitches to grade his stuff much, but in the tiny sample size, Dobnak's change up has been absolutely filthy in terms of Stuff+. His sinker has been terrible (out of whack from history) and his slider's been serviceable.

I'd want to see more before I declare him unchanged hot garbage.

[Mike Sixel]

38 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

I would be trying to beat the Cubs. Worry about today's game. Setting the rotation is for the playoffs.

This  win the games in front of you. 

[Alex Schieferdecker]

Definitely think the shine might be coming off SWR. He was coasting above his peripherals and now some of his flaws are manifesting in actual runs instead of near misses. Still important for the Twins, but looking more like the #4-5 guy that people expected.

Hopefully Festa, who has #1-2-3 potential. can continue his upward trend and begin to pick up SWR's slack.

[mnfireman]

I think the goal needs to be 2 of 3 against the Cubs, split with Cleveland and 2 of 3 against KC. 3 of 4 against Cleveland would be awesome, but not if it comes at the expense of losing to the Cubs or KC.

[USAFChief]

22 minutes ago, IaBeanCounter said:

On Benintendi's double, I thought the ground rules were if a ball gets lodged anywhere, its a ground rule double.  Is this incorrect?

It wasn't lodged. That stupid gap at the base of the OF wall is bigger than a baseball and isn't considered lodged.

But it does beg the question "why is that gap there in the first place?"

[USAFChief]

1 hour ago, jorgenswest said:

Can they option Wood Richardson and then bring him back as the 27th man on Friday? I know there is a 15 day rule but I think there is an exception for injury or 27th man. If that is the case they could consider bringing up Varland to start Wednesday. They would need to believe that the success he has had in his last four starts (22 2/3 IP, 13H, 27K, 9BB).

• wed - Varland
• fri - Ryan/Woods Richardson 
• sat - Ober
• sun - Lopez
• mon - Festa
• tue - Varland

The result would be there best three starters lined up against Cleveland. They would need to give Varland another start over Woods Richardson against Texas. I am not sold that giving a pitcher an extra day or rest or even skipping a start has any lasting impact but there would be an extra day or two for Ryan and Ober and longer rest for Woods Richardson.

Can they manipulate the 27th man in this way? Should they?

Edit: this doesn’t work for Varland. He pitched Saturday. They would have to do a bullpen day or bring up someone like Plutko for Wednesday to get the top 3 against Cleveland.

 

I'd guess Varland gets a start on Friday as the 27th man.

[bean5302]

9 minutes ago, Alex Schieferdecker said:

Definitely think the shine might be coming off SWR. He was coasting above his peripherals and now some of his flaws are manifesting in actual runs instead of near misses. Still important for the Twins, but looking more like the #4-5 guy that people expected.

Hopefully Festa, who has #1-2-3 potential. can continue his upward trend and begin to pick up SWR's slack.

It all depends on how much shine you thought was on him. He certainly looks like a serviceable #4-5 starter to me, and considering he was a total afterthought coming into the year, that's a big win.

Festa didn't exactly push his way onto the roster from AAA this year (4.03 ERA / 3.95 FIP vs minor leaguers). Not sure what makes you think he's got playoff caliber starter potential at MLB? He's certainly looking a heck of a lot better now that he's not terrified of issuing a walk.

[Dman]

22 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

Yeah, but both doubles were on competitive pitch locations, in fact, the one to Vaughn was in a spot Vaughn has struggled with good sequencing. Dobnak left the game with 2Ks and a 1.67 FIP. The walk was bad, he was all over the place, but certainly no worse than we've seen from quite a few guys this year on a single batter.

There haven't been enough pitches to grade his stuff much, but in the tiny sample size, Dobnak's change up has been absolutely filthy in terms of Stuff+. His sinker has been terrible (out of whack from history) and his slider's been serviceable.

I'd want to see more before I declare him unchanged hot garbage.

Yeah I like that pitch to Vaughn as well.  Sometimes you just lose those battles.  I also liked watching him battle back to K the first guy who he totally locked up on that pitch.  The non-competitive walk after that really irked me and down the middle to Robert who was swinging at low and away outside pitches was a head scratcher for me and those two at bat's were where he got into trouble IMO.  After the Vaughn double even though a good pitch it became too much and his day was done.  

I am a Randy believer, but he needs to be better than he was to stay IMO. I'm not sure they played to his strengths with the pitch sequencing and while I get the strategy of going wide on pitch in an at bat just to give a guy another look walking a guy with a .212 BA is not a recipe for success.  He can't afford to mess around at this level.  Needs to be on his game.  There is no one on base if you need to groove one. groove one. A free pass is on the pitcher IMO. A couple of mistakes after the walk (unforced error)  ended his day before the job was done and cost two runs.

[USAFChief]

27 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

Yeah, but both doubles were on competitive pitch locations, in fact, the one to Vaughn was in a spot Vaughn has struggled with good sequencing. Dobnak left the game with 2Ks and a 1.67 FIP. The walk was bad, he was all over the place, but certainly no worse than we've seen from quite a few guys this year on a single batter.

There haven't been enough pitches to grade his stuff much, but in the tiny sample size, Dobnak's change up has been absolutely filthy in terms of Stuff+. His sinker has been terrible (out of whack from history) and his slider's been serviceable.

I'd want to see more before I declare him unchanged hot garbage.

Stuff+?

He looked like a position player up there lobbing in eephus pitches. 

Dobnak isn't an answer. 

[jorgenswest]

1 hour ago, USAFChief said:

I'd guess Varland gets a start on Friday as the 27th man.

My guess too but not really my question. I wonder what is best. Should they arrange their top 3 to throw in that series?

In September of 2022 the Twins were 1.5 games behind Cleveland with a stretch of 11 games where they would see them 8 times. Sonny Gray and Joe Ryan were their best starters. In the opening 3 games series Baldelli started Bundy, Archer and Winder while the Guadians put up their top three starters. All Twin losses. Ryan and Gray got starts against a weak Royal team in between. In games 4-6 Ober, Varland and Winder were starters. All losses. Finally Ryan got a start in the 7th of 8 games against Cleveland. They won but it was far too late. Gray and Ryan could have and should have started four of those games.  

[USAFChief]

37 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

My guess too but not really my question. I wonder what is best. Should they arrange their top 3 to throw in that series?

In September of 2022 the Twins were 1.5 games behind Cleveland with a stretch of 11 games where they would see them 8 times. Sonny Gray and Joe Ryan were their best starters. In the opening 3 games series Baldelli started Bundy, Archer and Winder while the Guadians put up their top three starters. All Twin losses. Ryan and Gray got starts against a weak Royal team in between. In games 4-6 Ober, Varland and Winder were starters. All losses. Finally Ryan got a start in the 7th of 8 games against Cleveland. They won but it was far too late. Gray and Ryan could have and should have started four of those games.  

Truth: I don't know what's best. I'd probably not overthink it.  I'd start Varland, not need to mess with the roster and scramble later.

It's an interesting question though. I wonder what Cleveland will do. They're in the same boat. Three game series starting today, off Thursday. 

 

[bean5302]

2 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Stuff+?

He looked like a position player up there lobbing in eephus pitches. 

Dobnak isn't an answer. 

Yeah, Stuff+ is a tool which quantifies movement, velocity, location, etc in terms of how effective pitches are in against batters. It takes into consideration movement of offspeed/breaking pitches vs. the fastball as well. Supposedly Stuff+ is very quick to become reliable in terms of results and it's more predictive of results as a whole. I use it as a kind of quick double check.

Dobnak's changeup seems insane because it looks like his sinker, but has crazy amounts of drop. Honesty, if Dobnak had a decent four seamer, that changeup might be unhittable.

He's throwing 92mph sinkers. Not exactly an Eephus pitch, even if it's not Jhoan Duran out there. Dobnak's average fastball is higher than Ober, for example. His changeup has been dropping 10" more than league average (ultra elite). The slider at 83mph is middle of MLB velo for that pitch and it's movement is above average.

[TwinsDr2021]

18 hours ago, Parfigliano said:

Its obvious Benintendi is completely uninterested in putting in even minimal effort.  He's just showing up for the paycheck.

If I was the manager he would have been pulled after the effort he put on Vazquez double in a 4 - 2, while I was very happy that it dropped it was absolutely embarrassing to watch.

[Parfigliano]

2 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Yeah, Stuff+ is a tool which quantifies movement, velocity, location, etc in terms of how effective pitches are in against batters. It takes into consideration movement of offspeed/breaking pitches vs. the fastball as well. Supposedly Stuff+ is very quick to become reliable in terms of results and it's more predictive of results as a whole. I use it as a kind of quick double check.

Dobnak's changeup seems insane because it looks like his sinker, but has crazy amounts of drop. Honesty, if Dobnak had a decent four seamer, that changeup might be unhittable.

He's throwing 92mph sinkers. Not exactly an Eephus pitch, even if it's not Jhoan Duran out there. Dobnak's average fastball is higher than Ober, for example. His changeup has been dropping 10" more than league average (ultra elite). The slider at 83mph is middle of MLB velo for that pitch and it's movement is above average.

No question his pitches move.  He has MLB stuff he needs to keep it away from the middle of the plate.

I wouldnt give up on him.  I hope the Twins dont.