Dodgers 4, Twins 3: Checking Out

8 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

Sell.

Sell and get what we need , if we trade one of Jax or Duran  , we better be trading for high quality players that can fill a ML position of need right away  ...

The free agents to be trades will probably amount to fringe players to audition  ...

59 minutes ago, h2oface said:

ALL missed calls are horrid. Even if they benefit the favored team. It changes every game. ALL MISSED 

The sad thing is…
A 90-year-old grandma in a wheelchair could sit on her couch at home and still call a better game than the average MLB umpire behind the plate.

And that’s the truth.

Until MLB finally implements automatic balls and strikes—and gives an umps in the booth the authority to quickly reverse bad calls, this junk will never end. Never.

Fans are tired of hearing about the "human element" when it’s really just a fancy way of defending poor judgment. We’ve got the technology. We’ve got the angles. There’s zero excuse for letting blown calls dictate games in 2025.

Fix it then MLB. Your umps suck! 
 

44 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

They literally got Ryan for a rental. 

Good call ...

Stewart pitched.

As @USAFChief has kept hammering away today, this loss started last night when Rocco left Duran in a 5-run lead to pitch a second inning and thus made him one of the last pitchers available today.  Had Duran only been used for one inning last night, he would have thrown 12 pitches and easily available for today.  With that being said, I still may have asked him if he could get one out and brought him in for Ohtani or Ruiz if you're still hell bent on IBB Ohtani.

Other concerns I had during the game included:

1.  Taking out Paddack after 78 pitches.  I understand that there were two lefties in the next three and it screams Coulombe, but Paddack had just collected 2K's and a lineout in 12 pitches and went through the toughest part of the lineup in the 6th (Betts, Ohtani, and T. Hernandez).  Let Paddack go until he was in trouble, and you could have had both Coulombe and Varland warming up for matchup concerns.

2.  PR Keirsey Jr right away.  While this was rendered moot eventually when the bases were loaded, this isn't my biggest complaint although it did take out our best hitter this afternoon. (Dodgers eventually did the same thing by taking out T. Hernandez for Ruiz)

3.  Willi.....oh WIlli.  When the Dodgers can't find a pitcher who can throw a pitch over the plate, you hit the first pitch that he throws and weakly ground into a double play thus killing the rally.

4. Since Duran was not available (see above), I would have flip-flopped Jax and Stewart.  In my perfect world, Duran would have been available since he wasn't uselessly wasted for 2 innings last night.  Jax would have faced Ohtani, T. Hernandez, and Freeman in the 8th in a more familiar position in the lineup and the game.  Stewart in the 9th would have faced a weaker part of the lineup and I would have seen if Duran could go at all today with the day off tomorrow and have him ready to get 1 or 2 outs if Stewart was in trouble.  

Notice in all of this there is no blame on the umps.  We will have to see how the Ump Scorecard grades this, but my eyeballs suggest it was fairly evenly called on both sides.  The only frustrating part was that his strike zone seemed to wander as the game progressed, but it was still called evenly.  Had we executed point #1 and #3, we're not talking about a bad check swing call.  As according to the rule book, there is no such thing as a bad check swing call, but that is another argument for another day.  Fix the rule and you'll hear me complaining about it like I like to complain about everything else as a fan. 🙂

5 hours ago, DocBauer said:

I watched the end of the game and turned away. 

I was so disgusted when I saw an UGLY obvious strike 3 call from the umps on Betts I left. The video shows him a good foot or foot and a half beyond the plate. I mean, it's so obvious anyone with decent eyesight and integrity would have called it a strike. 

Just ridiculous!

Doc, most on here are taking a "high road" of sorts and pointing to many other things that the Twins failed to do that resulted in defeat, and the fact that "there is no check swing rule in baseball" and therefore (apparently) one cannot condemn the ump for ignoring a rule that isn't a rule, or something like that. Well...I agree with you 100%. However you slice it, that was an egregious no call. If you want to see the worst, and most significant, check swing no call, watch the video of game #7 of the 1960 World Series. Pittsburgh catcher Hal Smith, with a 1-2 count in the last of the 8th, (2 outs, 2 on, Bucs down by 1) gave a full 3/4 swing on a Jim Coates pitch that was called a ball. On he very next pitch he hit a 3-run homer. Without that there's no tie in the 9th and no legendary Mazeroski walk off. I know that the no call was not the only factor in the Twins' loss...I also know that it was wrong. 

Would have bet on just this result as soon as Jax was announced for the 9th... 

But I'm "a hater", so being right doesn't count, and a fan so there is no joy in being correct. 

11 hours ago, USAFChief said:

As for today's game, might have been nice to have your closer available. 

Too bad he was needed for 2 innings yesterday to close down that 1 run win. 

Eh Rocco?

Well he did use what, 5 or 6 BP guys in game 2.  An eventual blowout win.

It is modern MLB  baseball... and statistically proven superior! To quote Master Baldelli, you've got to "trust the process ."

A disastrous loss that basically puts the nail in the season, which sucks. Team needed a good road trip, instead they fumbled it. Hate seeing it.

Nice to see Royce finding his form again, at least and maybe Paddack's outing gets someone hot for him that they'll overpay. But not much good to find when they look like they have to be sellers now.

I guess that will make some people happy? Next ownership probably cleans house and Rocco gets fired if a deal gets done by the end of the calendar year or so. Feels like some people would prefer anything that got the current group fired, including losing.

Kiersey as a pinch runner helped a little this game, but when he came up with an opportunity to hit, all I could think was we'd be better off with Jerome Kersey in that position.

Twins 12-17 in 1 run games and 23-34 against teams >.500

IMO walking Ohtani was the absolute right call. The Dodgers TV crew said the same exact thing, you have to walk him (Lets not forgot he has hit a homer in 5 straight games). 

I agree with those people that say the bullpen use the prior day was a big problem, it seems like Jax and Stewart aren't great in back to back days. 

As far as the umps go and missed called, it is part of the game, they missed a strike 3 call on Wallner, but I guess Wallner felt bad because  he struck out on the next pitch out of the zone. They missed another strike for Glasnow that cost him I think it was 6 or 7 more pitches, but he overcame (or was allowed to) and pitched 7 innings (106 pitches), IMO Roberts seen how well he was pitching and new how bad his pen is and said I have faith in this guy, and it worked, will it always probably not. 

This series also reminded me why it is important just to get into the playoffs because anything can happen (Rocco usually makes it harder🤷‍♂️) in a short series. 

Finally how many of the Twins batters take the same approach as Freeman does there? (My son said here comes a homer, and I said no way he is too smart of hitter to try for a homer when a slap single to left wins the game) Bader should have caught that (Which I haven't seen anybody talk about), or played it different but......

10 hours ago, USAFChief said:

A computer called strike zone is coming, simply because of the little box on TV screens. That little invention has created a monster, and it often isn't even correct. The top of that box is sometimes belt high.

It doesn't matter if the ASZ is accurate as long as it's consistent pitch to pitch. The players will adapt. The key is eliminating the mistakes, as well as any potential bias, conscious or unconscious.

It really aggravates me when the announcers defend a bad call because the pitcher was wild on earlier pitches, or the ball isn't where the catcher set up.

Individual umpires have "their" strike zone. It's no different.

8 hours ago, terrydactyls said:

Watching Jax pitch the last half inning today, a thought came to me.  I'm thinking that Jax really likes playing in Minnesota and he knew he was pitching as an audition for the Dodgers.  So he imploded intentionally so that the Dodgers would lose interest in trading for him.  Pretty clever.

Sure, why not...and the Twins deliberately lost 2 of 3 in Colorado because they really, really want the White Sox record of futility last year to remain the gold standard.

11 hours ago, Sjoski said:

 

The sad thing is…
A 90-year-old grandma in a wheelchair could sit on her couch at home and still call a better game than the average MLB umpire behind the plate.

And that’s the truth.
 

This is absolutely, positively false.  MLB umps average about 95% accuracy in a game that involves chucking a ball a hundred miles an hour 60 feet away.  They are actually astoundingly accurate, and are only getting better.  

Grow up.  The Twins lost because they are a bad team.  Blaming umps is for losers, denigrating them is childish.

0-2 pitch to Ohtani ....and you give up a gopher ball ????  Twins pitchers are clueless..dont think there's much between the ears at times... to hitters like Ohtani and Judge ..you always throw the unintentional ..intentional walk..nothing ever on the plate ..if you walk them ..so be it