Reds 2, Twins 1: Wasted Opportunities Sink Twins in Winnable Game

[Matt Braun]

Image courtesy of Nick Wosika-Imagn Images

Box Score
Joe Ryan: 6 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K
Home Runs: None
Bottom 3 WPA: Luke Keaschall (-.360), Victor Caratini (-.150), Matt Wallner (-.130)
Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)

The lefty menace continues. Aren’t southpaws an endangered species? Well, the Twins must exist in some sort of statistical oddity; lefties aplenty have been abound, as Minnesota manager Derek Shelton could carve “Buxton, Martin, Keaschall” into rock and make up the rest of his lineup later. No matter: the lineup has feasted on those deemed devilish in a previous time. Would Friday be more of the same?

Joe Ryan took the mound for the Twins, and he was Joe Ryan-y from the get-go, perfectly dotting the outside corner to Matt McLain to highlight a 1-2-3 first frame. Then it was Brandon Williamson’s turn. He of a much less heralded nature—blame the reputation of Trimont for that—found his outs with less sex appeal; two of them were flyouts of 340+ feet. But, they were outs all the same. And our game was off and running.

The first three frames flew by at an alarming rate, totaling perhaps all of 30 minutes. Rob Manfred, somewhere—likely a corporate meeting or stuffy shindig where everyone knows how to properly spell “hors d'oeuvres”—licked his lips and rubbed his hands. The only serious action occurred in the bottom of the third when Minnesota loaded the bases just for Luke Keaschall to strike out looking on a pitch that was a strike by a gnat’s eyelash. Even the robots couldn’t help our poor friend from Watsonville. 

Did the failed run-scoring attempt spook Ryan? It’s possible. He dazzled McLain once more before Elly De La Cruz got on top of one of his signature top-shelf fastballs and slammed the offering off the right field wall. The hit alone wouldn’t have been much of a problem if Sal Stewarter’s routine grounder to Ryan Kreidler didn’t result in the third baseman dirting the throw to first, forcing Josh Bell to awkwardly scoop, and accidently reject the throw with a reverse-snowcone. Eugenio Suarez then pounced on a lethargic breaker. The gapped double plated both runners.

The fifth might exemplify Minnesota’s offensive struggles. Or maybe not. This author isn’t sure. He’s only in the seventh as of writing this sentence. In any case, the team’s first three batters walked, setting up Austin Martin to break the shutout with a sacrifice fly. Then Luke Keaschall hit into a double play. Both batters acted on the first pitch. A swift and unsatisfying ending to what appeared a promising inning, even if a run did score.

 

The eighth came and went. No dice. A runner reached second. Matt Wallner lined out to center. So it goes. Emilio Pagán entered in the ninth. Hmm. He pitched a scoreless frame that ended with a Byron Buxton groundout. So that apparently goes as well. The out concluded what was a meager output by a lineup that had been prone to outbursts entering the game; hopefully, Saturday goes better. 

Notes:

Austin Martin's .500 OBP leads the league (minimum 50 PA).

Byron Buxton played in his 916th game as a Twin, tying Tom Brunansky for the 21st most in team history. He's 39 away from equaling Brian Dozier.

Joe Ryan's six strikeouts give him 747 in his career, the 14th-most in team history. Scott Baker is next with 770. 

Post-Game Interview:

 

What’s Next?
The Twins and Reds face off again on Saturday in a mid-day sojourn, with first pitch arriving at 1:10 PM. Taj Bradley will start opposite Andrew Abbott. 

Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

	SUN	MON	TUE	WED	THUR	FRI	TOT
Morris	67	0	0	0	0	0	67
Topa	12	0	0	13	0	11	36
Orze	0	23	0	12	0	0	35
Sands	0	0	15	0	0	20	35
Acton	0	33	0	0	0	0	33
Banda	0	0	0	24	0	0	24
Funderburk	0	0	0	14	0	8	22
Rogers	0	0	22	0	0	0	22

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[Wedman13]

Can we please get Wallner out?  Brooks Lee led off 3 innings.  Brutal.  You cannot win with  Rf'er with this production.  We have a decent shot this year but you simply cannot have a prime offensive position with these numbers (going on 2 years).  Bring up anyone.  Not negative, it's winning baseball.  Let him go be Ortiz elsewhere

[Vanimal46]

My patience is running out on Wallner... E-Rod is hitting the ball just as hard as Wallner's peak in St Paul. He needs to figure it out within the next week or else it's time to replace him, 

[h2oface]

I hope you all got a picture of the standings when the Twins were 11-7. 

[Jacksson]

Keaschall BLEW the game.

[thelanges5]

0-4 w/RISP and 9 LOB - this offense has been feast or famine. Good job by the pitching staff today.

[Blyleven2011]

A tough game too lose  , it was winnable , lots of fly balls and not enough situational hitting  ...

Everything about the game was cold ...

At least wallner didn't challenge a swinging strike tonight  ...

[knothole61]

Great pitching, bad hitting, and bad uniforms! Sad...

[Kevin Sheehan]

I'm too old to be a stat geek but my eyes tell me that the top of the order should be Martin, Luke and BB. Look at their speed to first and BB's ground ball %. Luke is slightly faster than AM but his GB% isn't crazy but he has a better shot at beating  a DP. Batting BB first takes our top baserunner exposed to to DP. it makes no sense to me.

Martin

Luke

BB

Bell

Then who gives a F%>k?

Am I missing something?  You guys are far better than my 63 years of watching my former Senators. I'd appreciate some analysis. Thanks

[JADBP]

2 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

My patience is running out on Wallner... E-Rod is hitting the ball just as hard as Wallner's peak in St Paul. He needs to figure it out within the next week or else it's time to replace him, 

It was time to replace him about 15 months ago!!!

[Doctor Gast]

This might bother some anti-platoon fans, but it's well past the time to DFA Outman, bring up Fedko & see what he can do. Wallner is ok against RHPs but LHPs?! We've lost too many winnable games so far. We need all the wins we can get. Teams are exploiting our lopsided  LH hitting lineup. When will Keaschal show up?

[Peter]

Hate the one run loss!!!! Bats/runs went dry but it was bound to happen!!! Still in first place and that’s all that matters!!! Let’s get win today and even series-as always let’s go Twins!!!

[umterp23]

Roster construction is awful and has been since off season acquisitions. 40 man you have 6 LH outfielders to 4 RH guys. Outman is on 26 (LH) man for what reason have no idea. Larnach, wallner make up the other 2 in outfield. They missed opportunity to bring up Culpepper to generate a buzz, but played it safe with career .140 swinger at the plate, Kreidler. The illusion of a 1st place team with what we have, is just that an illusion.

move outman and Clemens (even Wagaman) off 40 man if needed. Royce who I’m not sold on at all comes back, move Kreidler back down. Bring up Fedko and send Wallner down to figure it out, if that is even possible. Bring Culpepper up to play short, platoon Lee at 3rd with Royce and Lee when Culpepper needs a break. Culpepper and Lee can platoon at 2nd when Keaschall needs one Just give us something to get excited about is an easy ask but mgmt won’t do it.

[CRF]

Ryan gets the shaft again. He deserves much better than he's getting from this team. The D let us down again. Yeah, the throw to 1st was low, but that ball should have been caught by Bell. That doesn't change the fact that we had no offense at all. I'm ready for Wallner to go bye bye too. 

[HarmonK03]

I get all the comments about Wallner, I am getting frustrated with him as well and I have been a fan of his.  But I don't think we will be facing 50% LH pitching the rest of the year, that just doesn't hold up over a full year.  So to make roster decisions based on this stretch is just not the smart thing to do.  I still think Wallner could do ok against LH pitching but not when that is all he is facing.  Any LH hitter we would have put out there during this stretch, their numbers would be down as well.  Maybe they need to mix in Larnach more to be the token LH bat in these lineups.

 

[Bodie]

7 hours ago, Blyleven2011 said:

A tough game too lose  , it was winnable , lots of fly balls and not enough situational hitting  ...

Everything about the game was cold ...

At least wallner didn't challenge a swinging strike tonight  ...

And people think I'm hard on Minnesota's favorite son...

But,!,!,!  Someone has quietly pulled Wall-e aside to explain he is no longer allowed to challenge, right?  RIGHT??  RIGHT???

[DJL44]

Why do people want to skip over four outfielders on the AAA depth chart to bring up a mediocrity like Fedko?

If Wallner is struggling the obvious first move is to give some of his playing time to Larnach. Alan Roden doesn’t have extreme platoon splits in AAA. Gabriel Gonzalez is a RH bat who can field almost as well as Wallner. Rodriguez has looked ready this spring. Fedko would be who I try after I try all of those other options and possibly the waiver wire as well.

[Vanimal46]

34 minutes ago, karcherd said:

I get all the comments about Wallner, I am getting frustrated with him as well and I have been a fan of his.  But I don't think we will be facing 50% LH pitching the rest of the year, that just doesn't hold up over a full year.  So to make roster decisions based on this stretch is just not the smart thing to do.  I still think Wallner could do ok against LH pitching but not when that is all he is facing.  Any LH hitter we would have put out there during this stretch, their numbers would be down as well.  Maybe they need to mix in Larnach more to be the token LH bat in these lineups.

 

He’s not exactly lighting it up against RH pitching either. .216 BA with a .715 OPS 

[jmlease1]

Seriously, people are blaming Wallner for last night's lost when Luke Keaschall had that performance at the plate? (BTW, he missed on a challenge too something people seem to be perpetually mad at Wallner about) Keaschall stunk at the plate yesterday and has been bad for a month. They desperately need him to hit LHP and he's simply not getting it done (while being even worse against RHP). While I still think Keaschall will be a good player, he was bad last night, was the single biggest reason they lost, and it's really not very close.

Wallner wasn't good (but at least he reached base) but if anyone is going to take heat right now it should be Keaschall who simply isn't doing the job he's supposed to be doing and that they need him to do.

Ryan was good, so it's disappointing to get him so little support. Heck, even the bullpen got it done. Shame to have such an offensive shortage when the pitching was there. But you need more than 5 hits. Keaschall had plenty of opportunity and didn't get it done...which is a story we're seeing a lot of right now. A .541 OPS is awful; he's the worst hitting regular on the team right now and the only one with a lower OPS is the appropriately named James Outman. Ouch.

Keaschall needs to get it together or when Lewis comes back he might be looking at taking a trip to Saint Paul for a re-set.

[DJL44]

18 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

Seriously, people are blaming Wallner for last night's lost when Luke Keaschall had that performance at the plate? (BTW, he missed on a challenge too something people seem to be perpetually mad at Wallner about) Keaschall stunk at the plate yesterday and has been bad for a month. They desperately need him to hit LHP and he's simply not getting it done (while being even worse against RHP). While I still think Keaschall will be a good player, he was bad last night, was the single biggest reason they lost, and it's really not very close.

Wallner wasn't good (but at least he reached base) but if anyone is going to take heat right now it should be Keaschall who simply isn't doing the job he's supposed to be doing and that they need him to do.

Ryan was good, so it's disappointing to get him so little support. Heck, even the bullpen got it done. Shame to have such an offensive shortage when the pitching was there. But you need more than 5 hits. Keaschall had plenty of opportunity and didn't get it done...which is a story we're seeing a lot of right now. A .541 OPS is awful; he's the worst hitting regular on the team right now and the only one with a lower OPS is the appropriately named James Outman. Ouch.

Keaschall needs to get it together or when Lewis comes back he might be looking at taking a trip to Saint Paul for a re-set.

Keaschall has continued to play subpar defense too. It isn’t just his arm injury.

[Matt Braun]

Keaschall left the population of Macedonia stranded on base, yet people are complaining about Wallner? Fascinating. 

[HarmonK03]

28 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Keaschall has continued to play subpar defense too. It isn’t just his arm injury.

Yeah he has all of 60 games in the majors and they moved him around in the minors.  So of course he is a finished product.  Give him time and keep him there and let him improve.  This moving everybody around and then being surprised they don't have immediate success when they come up should not be a surprise.  Players can work at it and get better but you have to give them time.  So quit with the talk of having him play in the outfield and let him get his reps at 2B.

[David Maro]

Time to honest here the defense on this team is terrible. And adding to it by playing Bell at 1st makes it worse. Talk about a lazy attempt on the short hop throw. If C4 was still on the team how would anyone want Bell at 1st,with all the throws he made. This shows that they need to score 6 or more to win and that's not happening every game. 

[DJL44]

11 minutes ago, Matt Braun said:

Keaschall left the population of Macedonia stranded on base, yet people are complaining about Wallner? Fascinating. 

The same people are fixated on Wallner every game. 

[JD-TWINS]

10 hours ago, Wedman13 said:

Can we please get Wallner out?  Brooks Lee led off 3 innings.  Brutal.  You cannot win with  Rf'er with this production.  We have a decent shot this year but you simply cannot have a prime offensive position with these numbers (going on 2 years).  Bring up anyone.  Not negative, it's winning baseball.  Let him go be Ortiz elsewhere

He has options - he started ‘23 & ‘24 worse than this ………he’d go down for up to 10 weeks and then shine the rest of the year.

Something needs to change w/Wallner……… Brooks is reverting back to the .600 OPS - weak contact - no upside defensive guy at SS.

Keaschall to right (maybe left w/Martin in Right?) - Lee to 2B - Kriedler/Gray platoon at SS (maybe Culpepper in a month?) - Lewis back to 3B when healthy in 7-10 days.

2 LH hitting Outfielder from AAA………Outman needs to be displaced first!

[JD-TWINS]

Wallner gets picked on here every day at TD, this is a paraphrase from someone above:

Why?

.183 BA

41% K rate, down from 48% ten days ago - LEADS baseball with 33 K’s

OPS+ of 74 ……, Clemens OPS+ 75

OBP .275 ………. .338 Slug%

Outman’s WAR with ZERO HITS & 2 Walks is -.400 ……….. Wallner’s WAR is -.600 (read that twice & try to justify him playing every day)

If he was from anywhere else in the Union other than Minnesota fans would be clamoring for him to be sent down!!! He has options - let him go try to fix himself with some help in St Paul

Running him out to RF daily is not working.

[Wedman13]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

The same people are fixated on Wallner every game. 

People tend to expect more from a 28 year old right fielder than a 23 yr old 2nd baseman who hasn't been in the majors for even a year.  But it's an opinion board.  You can be satisfied with MW all you want.

 

 

[jorgenswest]

The Twins lost by a run. It happens. The game had me listening and entertained until the end.

I think it is too early to send Keaschall or Wallner for a reset in AAA. They might be headed that way. Wallner’s performance dropped last year so it isn’t just this small sample. He doesn’t help with the glove so they really need to get his bat right. Keaschall’s slash stats were not in line with his poorer contact numbers last year. He is on the other side of that now though the contact numbers have also dropped. I would give them two more weeks.

It might not be too early to move Martin from platoon to every day player. Second base might be the eventual spot. I would give him a couple starts there in the next few weeks as Keaschall tries to figure it out. 

[Western SD Fan]

I believe multiple things can be a problem at the same time.  I didn't watch the game live but did when I got home. Keaschall is definitely in a phase where he needs to move farther down in the lineup.  Keaschall left seven of the nine on base including twice with the bases loaded and one of those times with less than two outs.  As for his defense, I have the same question that I do for Lee.  Is there someone currently better that is ready to take over that position?  I don't think there is and I'm willing to wait him out and see if he can improve before I replace him.

There was also a comparison to Keaschall about his ABS challenge in the 3rd inning.  Some context is in order.  Keaschall's ABS challenge was on a 2-2 pitch with the bases loaded and two outs that clipped the inside corner of the strike zone.  For example, the April 1st game against the Royals, Wallner burned a challenge in the first inning with two out and nobody on.  I don't have a problem with Keaschall's ABS challenge since the situation was at an important point in the game.

I have been highly critical of Wallner because it appears like he has no real approach at the plate and just looks lost.  His walks and HBP are driving his OBP, not his ability to hit the ball.  Wallner currently is Joey Gallo with worse defense, and we all know how much we loved Gallo on TD.  Wallner's defense has deteriorated to the point that I'm willing to try Larnach out in the field just because I would prefer his bat, even against LHP.  Even with all of that, I'm not ready to give up on Wallner yet, but it is quickly looking like he needs a reset, possibly in St. Paul.

In case you don't like my comparison to Joey Gallo, here is a comparison to Wallner this season vs. Gallo's season with the Twins.  I understand that this is still early in the season, but sometimes criticisms are still warranted.  

[HarmonK03]

2 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

He has options - he started ‘23 & ‘24 worse than this ………he’d go down for up to 10 weeks and then shine the rest of the year.

Something needs to change w/Wallner……… Brooks is reverting back to the .600 OPS - weak contact - no upside defensive guy at SS.

Keaschall to right (maybe left w/Martin in Right?) - Lee to 2B - Kriedler/Gray platoon at SS (maybe Culpepper in a month?) - Lewis back to 3B when healthy in 7-10 days.

2 LH hitting Outfielder from AAA………Outman needs to be displaced first!

Decide where Keaschall is going to play and let him play there, you have to let him try and master a position.  Any plan where Kriedler and Gray get regular AB's is a poor plan.  Go with the upside of youth, meaning Culpepper if you want to move off Lee at SS.  I think you need to give Lee more time, he has actually started to hit, he has had one bad game and you say he is reverting back to weak contact.  There were no real good consistent AB's from anyone in the lineup last night.  So the whole team should be criticized, picking out one or two players for the game, you have nine to choose from.