Flashes of the Twins Rotation Depth

2 runs in 4 innings. With great results like that maybe Rocco will let him stretch out to 4 1/3 innings in his next start.

I thought Thorpe pitched better than his stat line indicates. Now if he can tick up the fastball speed to separate his pitches he will probably be even more successful.

After reading the 4th paragraph I was wondering if I was reading about baseball or in some statistics class. I know this is in the minority on this site but this type of stuff is hurting baseball. Baseball needs more action for fans not over analysis. Reusse recently wrote a great article on Baldelli that symbolizes the problems with baseball. Baseball needs more excitement to keep up with football and basketball. The other day I watched hockey instead of baseball and in the past that never would happen.

After reading the 4th paragraph I was wondering if I was reading about baseball or in some statistics class. I know this is in the minority on this site but this type of stuff is hurting baseball. Baseball needs more action for fans not over analysis. Reusse recently wrote a great article on Baldelli that symbolizes the problems with baseball. Baseball needs more excitement to keep up with football and basketball. The other day I watched hockey instead of baseball and in the past that never would happen.

I live in the country, mostly wooded 12 acres with a creek running through it. That means a lot of wildlife and that means raccoons dropping by. They bust up my wife's bird feeders, steal the occasional chicken, throw open my grill so they can lick up the grease (thanks for that by the way), dig up the potted plants on my deck, raid the vegetable garden, etc. etc. Basically a major pain in the patootie.

Anyway, I once made the mistake of asking two of my brothers-in-law, both avid hunters and one a retired infantryman who got into shooting scrapes in both Somalia and Afghanistan, what was the best Raccoon Eradicator I could buy. For the next half hour I was deluged with footpounds, muzzle velocities, trajectories, grains of powder, etc. etc. They both felt pretty pleased with themselves by the time they finished though my brain had gone dormant about one minute into the conversation.

So I went home and continued to eradicate raccoons with my trusty .22 Ruger. Aim, squeeze the trigger and dispose of the bodies. That's all I need to know. And I don't think the coons care how many footpounds hit them.

My point is, let the statistics guys, like my two gun nut brothers-in-law, do their thing because that's what makes them happy and guys like me and you can just gloss over all those arcane stats and just talk regular baseball stuff because that's all we need to know to hit our target.

I think too Thorpe too was a victim of bad defense.

I see no evidence in pitching depth in the rotation or the bullpen. We needed two more proven arms but our FO knew better. Now it’s going to be like a couple years ago when they had to cut half the bullpen in June.