CIN 8, MIN 2: Berrios Bombs as Twins Drop Series to Cincy

Hmmm...good news...hey, Castro pulled his OPS over .500!

OK, seriously, I got nuthin'.

Wait, I know!  We just went 1-9, but we're only 5 back in the Wild Card race!

OK, yeah, nuthin'.

28th in ERA (5.26, just ahead of Reds and ChiSox), next to last in WHIP (1.50, just ahead of ChiSox).

Not exactly what we were expecting.

Rogers really needs to be sent down with Duffey.

All I can say is 'Ugh!' I really can't watch this anymore.

It's ok the game is over.

Bring on Curtiss. He might walk some guys but at least he won't throw frisbees down the middle of the plate.

Went to today's game. Wind was cold and Twins were even colder. Twins showed no desire to compete in this game, much less win. At  least 3 fairly easy DP opportunities and not a one completed. Berrios made hitters feel right at home throwing what appeared to be batting practice. If Buxton and Sano are the heart and soul of this team, we could be in for a  tough time since we can't keep them healthy and on the field. 

Pretty much has to be Curtiss, right? 40-man is full, and Moya, Busenitz, and Slegers are still ineligible for recall. Mejia is hurt, Enns has struggled this year, and I'm guessing they wouldn't promote Romero for pen duty yet.

That would be my hunch, too. Although, maybe they saw "enough" from Hughes to move him to the pen and they'll call Romero up to take that rotation spot.

Unlikely, but one can dream.

Where are the "pace" posters now? I think, without doing the math, it must be over 100 losses now.... But fear not, pace is just a fantasy, a figment of one's imagination. There is no pace.

Gotta take a break for a week to go up to Fresno and catch 3 just scheduled Neil Young and Crazy Horse shows at a small theater. Maybe I am the bad luck guy, and they will prosper if I don't watch.   

I would occasionally post pace of play.   Mostly last year because posters were so certain the Twins would have to win X amount of games to get the 2nd wild card with X meaning the Twins had to win 70% or so of their remaining games when they had the lead and had gotten the lead by winning 53%  of their games.   This year it was because posters seemed to not appreciate a 5-4 record.   This losing streak probably won't change how people feel about .500 record or a little better but maybe it should.      Twins now have to win .55 of their games to get to last years record.   Doable, but they have to right the ship.   Maybe shows how valuable Buxton and especially Santana are to this team.  

With each loss, Buxton is probably getting further and further inside his own head.  The only thing that can make this worse is to have him come back and go on one of his horrid stretches at the plate.

With the exception of Max, and Berrios half of the time, the young "core" is not looking the part.  Injuries, inconsistency, flat out suckiness.  

Can Molitor survive this swoon?

Was at Saturday's game and one of the notables was that in the seventh inning Dozier reached on an infielder's error but he did nor run hard to first, essentially trotted there and only reached base because of the error.

With each loss, Buxton is probably getting further and further inside his own head.  The only thing that can make this worse is to have him come back and go on one of his horrid stretches at the plate.

 

I have been silently worrying about this exact same thing.

Bux wasn't exactly on fire when he went to the DL. He's got a terrible history of poor starts, and if you factor in the Twins' early season schedule plus all this missed time...well, the writing's on the wall. Buxton is basically going to be starting over from Day 1 upon his return. The Twins are going to have to stick with him, in order to get him back up to speed.

This team can't afford yet another cold bat, but they absolutely have to stick with Buxton no matter what. In short: the only way this Twins team can keep their season alive is if Byron Buxton and his bad toe comes out on fire in the batters box upon his return.

Whooo baby!  We've lost 10 of our last 12.  To put it in perspective, how often do the Twins sweep another team?  Not often.  Just to offset this swoon, we would have to win 10 of 12.  In order to do that, we would have to sweep two series (3 games), and win 2 of 3 of two more series.  During the course of a baseball season, we can do that.  We don't have to go on a streak right now.  What we need to do right now, is start playing .500 baseball.  Stabilize the rocking ship, then put it into gear.  All is not lost...yet.

Maybe that final two months last year was the fluke for this roster. Not this bad but closer to a 78 win team than a 90 win team.