Mariners 7, Twins 1: A Game of Two Bullpens

[Cory Moen]

Image courtesy of © Nick Wosika-Imagn Images

Box Score
Starting Pitcher: Joe Ryan - 6 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K (88 pitches, 62 strikes (70.5% strikes))
Home Runs: Byron Buxton (7)
Lowest WPA: Cole Sands (-0.21), Tristan Gray (-0.16), Victor Caratini (-0.13)
Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)

Coming off a win in game one of the series, the Twins turned to Joe Ryan to face off with Logan Gilbert and the Mariners. Ryan was dominant early. He got into a little trouble in the third inning, giving up two hits and having runners on first and third with one out, but then struck Cal Raleigh out before getting Julio Rodríguez to ground out to end the inning. 

In the bottom half of the inning, the Twins got singles from Royce Lewis and Byron Buxton, but were unable to push a run across. The game remained scoreless until Byron Buxton led off the bottom of the fifth inning with his seventh home run of the season—and second of the series. 

Alas, the third turned out to be a better microcosm of the night than the fifth was. The Twins were only able to get one run while Logan Gilbert was in the game, but they did force him to throw more pitches than he would have liked. Gilbert lasted five innings and threw 92 pitches. That got the Twins into the Seattle bullpen, but the bullpen turned out to be up to that lengthy task.

The Mariners got a couple of two-out hits in the top of the sixth, tying the game on a Josh Naylor single. They broke the tie after a leadoff double from Randy Arozarena in the top of the seventh, which chased Ryan from the game. Mariners second baseman Cole Young got the two-out single off Kody Funderburk that, as it turned out, opened the floodgates.

The Twins bullpen had an unfortunate eighth inning, giving up three hits and three runs.

Josh Naylor got his third hit of the night (a three-run home run off Cole Sands), giving the Mariners a four-run lead. Check out the bat flip. 

Meanwhole, the Twins offense was virtually lifeless against the Mariners bullpen, mustering one hit over four innings against four separate Mariners relievers. Eduard Bazardo, Gabe Speier, Matt Brash and Cooper Criswell all threw a scoreless frame, without the traffic and sense of danger Gilbert seemed to deal with all night.

Added to the roster before the game, righty Luis García made his Twins debut and gave up two runs in the top half of the ninth inning, on a two-out double by Rodríguez. Garrett Acton hit the injured list just minutes before the first pitch, with a shoulder strain, so García might be needed for a while. On the other hand, the team might swap him out for another fresh arm after his underwhelming team debut.

What’s Next?

The Twins will look to bounce back and win game three on Wednesday afternoon against the Mariners. Taj Bradley (3-1, 2.91 ERA) will face off against George Kirby (4-2, 2.97 ERA). 

Bradley has been a bright spot for the Twins this year and will look to get back on track after giving up six runs against the Tampa Bay Rays in his last start. Kirby will look to continue his very good start to the year, most recently giving up two runs over six innings versus the St. Louis Cardinals. First pitch is scheduled for 12:40 PM CT.
 

	FRI	SAT	SUN	MON	TUES	TOT
Morris	0	0	0	40	0	40
Orze	10	9	0	0	0	19
Topa	0	0	10	0	0	10
Rogers	0	15	0	14	0	29
Banda	7	0	9	0	0	16
Funderburk	0	0	20	0	15	35
Garcia	0	0	0	0	23	23
Sands	0	0	7	0	13	20

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[Parfigliano]

Bullpen 3 IP 6 H 5 ER.  

[D.C Twins]

This bullpen is bad... no, not bad... awful....no, not awful... horrific... no, not horrific.... an unmitigated epic disaster....YES it is settled... an Unmitigated Epic Disaster (trademark pending)

[knothole61]

How about packaging Lewis and Wallner for some decent relievers? A change of scenery could be good for both of them and the pen is a disaster. I think someone might take a chance on Lewis because there really is great potential trapped inside by, I believe, his psyche.  

[Sampson5]

Call up rojas let him take actions spot he at least has the stuff to be great . The mid vet journey man route is always boring and predictably goes terribly 

[knothole61]

I'm increasingly disappointed by Caratini. There's a pretty big hole in the lineup when he spells Jeffers. I know one can't expect too much from a back-up catcher but I'm tired on watching him flail away at the plate, of late. 

[Parfigliano]

11 minutes ago, knothole61 said:

I'm increasingly disappointed by Caratini. There's a pretty big hole in the lineup when he spells Jeffers. I know one can't expect too much from a back-up catcher but I'm tired on watching him flail away at the plate, of late. 

He's Piazza compared to last year running Vazquez out there almost half the games

[soyouresayingtheresachance]

No offense to Garcia, but I have zero interest in watching a 39yo veteran see if he has 1 more season in him. Get Rojas back up here or someone else with, hopefully, a future on the team. 

 

[Peter]

Ugly loss-let’s get win and take series today 

[Linus]

This loss epitomizes what many of us were expecting. Good starting pitching, feast or famine offense and a non-existent bullpen. TPs decision to try and win is looking pretty silly about now. 

[thelanges5]

7 hours ago, Parfigliano said:

Bullpen 3 IP 6 H 5 ER.  

Batters 0-10 w/RISP, 9 LOB

[umterp23]

Caratini is Vázquez 2.0.  What a bad pickup for the cost.  Could he turn it around and be respectable, sure but twins made their bed at the backup position by not drafting well at the position and development of who they did draft. 
 

enjoy Jeffers for a couple more months and he will be gone at trade deadline most likely.

[Bangkok Twins Fan]

6 hours ago, soyouresayingtheresachance said:

No offense to Garcia, but I have zero interest in watching a 39yo veteran see if he has 1 more season in him. Get Rojas back up here or someone else with, hopefully, a future on the team. 

 

I'd welcome that move!

[HarmonK03]

35 minutes ago, umterp23 said:

Caratini is Vázquez 2.0.  What a bad pickup for the cost.  Could he turn it around and be respectable, sure but twins made their bed at the backup position by not drafting well at the position and development of who they did draft. 
 

enjoy Jeffers for a couple more months and he will be gone at trade deadline most likely.

They signed Caratini because he could also play 1B.  They are so focused on positional flexibility they don't seem to evaluate whether the player can play one position well or even if they can be a valuable contributor to a winning team. 

They need to shift their focus and not be so focused on positional flexibility.  One utility player is fine but you don't need a whole roster of them.

[DJL44]

I got to attend this one in person. 

Gilbert was nasty and the Twins approach was to go after the first strike they saw. Not that effective in hindsight.

Randy Arozarena made a lot of fans tossing baseballs into the crowd. Not sure if they will have any left to play today’s game.

Larnach had a good evening with a double off the wall and a nice catch in LF. We can stick with this OF.

Cole Sands got lit up. Everything hit hard.

I still can’t believe Kody Clemens is still the starting first baseman. A big part of their struggles on offense is patching together first base with a utility fielder and a backup catcher. Meanwhile, Naylor is destroying baseballs and flipping bats for the Mariners.

[Riverbrian]

Our bullpen is crafty. A little too crafty is my concern. 

For comparison against our peers: 

The Twins Rank 22nd in Team ERA: 4.40

The Bullpen ranks 25th in Bullpen ERA: 5.13

The Starters rank 11th in ERA: 3,93

[DJL44]

27 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

The Bullpen ranks 25th in Bullpen ERA: 5.13

Somehow there are a handful of bullpens worse than the Twins.

[Blyleven2011]

16 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Somehow there are a handful of bullpens worse than the Twins.

Japan , Korea,  Mexico  , TAKE YOUR PICK ...

[JD-TWINS]

PEN is not good - no doubt.

Caratini & Bell have come back to earth and are headed further south - disturbing from 2 guys that started VERY well.

Offense though - runs scored over last 7 days per game ……. 2-8-2-2-1-11-1……one win …… potentially, the ONLY game the PEN actually played a part in the outcome was last Thursday………..however, opposition got 7 runs while Ryan was in the game (3 unearned) last Thursday.

There are 3 guys that shouldn’t be on the roster at this point & 2 others that are borderline “playable”. Can’t have success with this level of very little contribution from 5 of 13 guys.

Wallner - Outman - Clemens need to be changed out! They are not going to get better with more opportunities!

Keaschall OPS+ 55 ……. Caratini OPS+ 59

 

Absolute worst case for changes - Outman & Wallner (fake an injury if you’re Matt - whatever)

 

[Jasper]

     TIME TO SEND DOWN LEWIS, OUTMAN, AND WALLNER, WE NEED TO SCORE 10 RUNS A GAME TO HAVE A WINNING CHANCE WITH THIS BULLPEN. ANY 3 AAA  GUYS WOULD BE AN IMPROVEMENT LET THE KIDS GET SOME EXPERIENCE. DOES POHLAD GO TO ANY OF THESE GAMES?

[Riverbrian]

44 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Somehow there are a handful of bullpens worse than the Twins.

26. Cardinals

27. D-Backs

28. Royals

29. Angels

30. Astros

[CRF]

As usual...Ryan pitches well, but gets no run support. 

[DJL44]

Keaschall had a decent game yesterday too. They’re going to need to let him make adjustments in the majors.

[wavedog]

One obvious and inconsequential comment on the game - Starting pitcher win and loss records don't matter like they did 20+ years ago and that likely is a good thing.    Ryan ended up getting tagged with the loss after his runner scored the winning run but who really cares - that is not how starting pitchers are evaluated - we all would consider he pitched a good game going 6 innings and giving up 2 runs.   While I do miss a little bit the responsibility for winning and losing that came with being the starter - no one today would look and want to pin this loss on Ryan - we would like to give it to the bullpen.   

[David Maro]

Plain and simple this is a bad baseball team period. Everyone saw and knew this before the season started. And looking at the attendance of the home games. And yes the weather has been a problem,but with them playing bad baseball that's a problem as well. It's time to cut bait on some of the under performers and bring up the youth. That would maybe help bring the attendance back to the stadium.

[Road trip]

9 hours ago, soyouresayingtheresachance said:

No offense to Garcia, but I have zero interest in watching a 39yo veteran see if he has 1 more season in him. Get Rojas back up here or someone else with, hopefully, a future on the team. 

 

I was just thinking Garcia is a useful name to remember when playing Immaculate Grid, as he's played for about a third of the teams in MLB at this point.  Otherwise he brings very little entertainment value, or more importantly, hope for a better Twins future bullpen.

[darwin22]

1 hour ago, Jasper said:

     TIME TO SEND DOWN LEWIS, OUTMAN, AND WALLNER, WE NEED TO SCORE 10 RUNS A GAME TO HAVE A WINNING CHANCE WITH THIS BULLPEN. ANY 3 AAA  GUYS WOULD BE AN IMPROVEMENT LET THE KIDS GET SOME EXPERIENCE. DOES POHLAD GO TO ANY OF THESE GAMES?

Agree with your position to a large extent.  Only exception would be Lewis as ownership is too stubborn to admit Lewis has regressed and mistakenly believe a Lewis demotion would hurt attendance.

Outman be DFA'ed immediately when Fedko getting a promotion as his RH bat could help and he does offer position versatility at 1B and in OF.

Wallner:  What do you say?  Not ready to give up on him, but his future a starting RF and LH bat is on very thin ice.  He does have an option left.  No reason to cite stats as he's done NOTHING!

Resulting move:  Promote E-Rod today!!  After 2 bombs last night, his bat is MLB ready.  Lets get him up here as our new starting RF.

[mickster]

The BP not being good was a pretty much known thing once it was blown up last year.   I was thinking back on all of the trades. and how I feel about them now:

1.  Jax trade - do it again; yes

2. Castro, Columbe - yes do them again as they were not resigning

3.  Duran - I hated this one at the time and do miss him at the end of games.  However Abel and Tait have promise and I think I would do this one again.

4. Varland - bad, bad, bad.   Him back now and I think we have a couple of more wins.

5.  Correa trade - got rid of money: but how would we look with him having his 2026 year and playing SS for us.   Maybe another win or two.  The money dump didn't bring back anyone so we could have kept him.

 

So 4/5 not done and we may be at .500.

 

[JD-TWINS]

57 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Keaschall had a decent game yesterday too. They’re going to need to let him make adjustments in the majors.

Why?

Why does he NEED to & why is it best for him to make adjustments “in the majors”?

If a guy plays 26 games a month and he has 3-4 “decent games”, he’s not getting it done anywhere near a needed level. His Slug% is like Team has a pitcher hitting in his spot.

I like Luke - think he’s got a great future. Can’t help but like his attitude and style of play………..he’s got 7 stolen bases through April 28! There’s value for sure!! He needs a re-set over 2-3-4 weeks to get more comfortable. I realize he’s a wound up guy but he sure seems to be bringing an anxious (anxiety filled) look to the plate.

[JD-TWINS]

18 minutes ago, mickster said:

The BP not being good was a pretty much known thing once it was blown up last year.   I was thinking back on all of the trades. and how I feel about them now:

1.  Jax trade - do it again; yes

2. Castro, Columbe - yes do them again as they were not resigning

3.  Duran - I hated this one at the time and do miss him at the end of games.  However Abel and Tait have promise and I think I would do this one again.

4. Varland - bad, bad, bad.   Him back now and I think we have a couple of more wins.

5.  Correa trade - got rid of money: but how would we look with him having his 2026 year and playing SS for us.   Maybe another win or two.  The money dump didn't bring back anyone so we could have kept him.

 

So 4/5 not done and we may be at .500.

 

Is $35M worth another win or two? He’s not able to play SS with back & feet ailments. He’s not a high level offensive player anymore. To me, that was the most obvious and BEST move……….. gotta SPEND the $25M saved though or it’s a detriment to the roster!!! Didn’t do that!

Rojas will be as good or better than Varland over time. As I’ve said many times here, if Louie was from Kenosha it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Loved Louie as well but the talent trades is not a bad move for the organization.