CLE 4, MIN 1: Lots of Traffic, Just One Run

Dozier needs to sit on the bench or bat 8th in the lineup, Garver and Wilson needs to be demoted, Morrison needs to bat 7th in the order. Mauer needs to swing the bat and swing it much earlier in the count. Astudillo and Saywer need to be promoted. I've seen enough.

I took the family to see Infinity War while this was happening--(not?)surprisingly packed on a rainy Sunday/Father's Day two months after it opened.

Seems like Thanos snapped his fingers and half of all Dads who are baseball fans were disappointed today.  The odds of the Avengers defeating Thanos were something like 1 in 14 million; surely the Twins still have a chance.

Tomorrow, Berrios v. Sale--THAT is THE season defining game, the must win of must wins, Rocky Balboa in the 14th round-back flat against the wall type of stuff.  I hope Berrios didn't just read that sentence.

I agree with mikelink45 - we can rip Adrianza and Garver all we want, but that's low-hanging fruit. Morrison is batting .188 with 7 home runs. Were it not for Chris Davis' nosedive in Baltimore, Logan Morrison would be the biggest disappointment in baseball right now. I'm not sure where the recent warm and fuzzy treatment of Morrison has come from, people saying things like "over his last 15 games he's hitting .239" like that's supposed to be a good thing. The guy was supposed to hit 30 HR and drive in 90 runs, he's been absolutely awful and a black hole in this lineup. Where are the 3-hit games? The multi-homer games? The hot streaks? A real shame to drop this game today, the Twins still aren't making up much ground and they are still way below .500. Great individual play from Escobar again, but he's getting zero help. Molitor's shaking up the lineup, but it's something he should have done last month.

Odorizzi is giving Romero a run for his money as the worst of the starting 5. Glad they've got Berrios, Lynn, and Gibby going against the Red Sox. Unfortunately they're going against Sale, Price, and Porcello.

The way it works over the course of a season is a team needs three, four, maybe five guys to have career years if you want to make a run at the Division, or even to the Series.

Others can have average years and you still turn out okay.

Twins have Escobar and Rosario laying down track.

No one else is even close to their career norms, maybe Adrianza. 

We ain't going anywhere special.

Dozier is something like 3 for his last 38. You can't keep throwing him out there every day when he is hitting like that.

Your last sentence hits it ... it's why I'm a fan ... you never really know what will happen. But it's also frustrating when the weirdness affects your team in a not-so-optimal way. Such is life.

 

But the starting rotation ... what will happen when Santana is back? Guess that could be its own thread discussion and not sure when that will be so that could affect the answer ... who I would switch out today might not be the same in two weeks.

I agree with both paragraphs.  As interesting as statistical analysis has made baseball, if the games followed the numbers I wouldn't need to watch.  Dreaming on a big trade or an explosion from Dozier is the carrot that keeps me going.

I'm thinking if Santana came back today, Romero would go to AAA.  In two or three weeks, all things being equal, it might be Romero to the bullpen.

If Garver goes 1-4 all year, he's a catcher that hits .250. that would be a huge success compared to most catchers, especially for what is basically a first year player. What, exactly, do people expect?

A significant part of his value as a batter last year was his 13.5% walk rate. Walks don’t translate well to the majors particularly when he hasn’t shown power yet.

I still expect to see his power to emerge as he improve in pitch recognition. With the increase in power I think his walk rate will go up. A bat like Chris Iannetta’s is valuable at the catcher position as long as the defense is close to average.