Make It Official: Twins 9, Astros 3, Jose Miranda Makes History; Brooks Lee Bashes First Career Homer

Quite the smörgåsbord today! Let's feast:

Every batter in today’s lineup has a season OPS above .700. Six of them are .800 or better, with Castro, Jeffers and Buxton reaching that standard during the game. The Twins now trail only the Dodgers, Orioles and Yankees in team OPS this season. If the Twins stay healthy, that percentage may yet increase. No need right now for a bat via trade.

Alcalá and Sands came up huge in their relief appearances against a very good hitting team. Ryan deserves plenty of credit for 110 pitches and fortitude under pressure. Great final inning by Thielbar, too.

Miranda has failed to reach base in his last one plate appearance, alas. But he was on base for the previous thirteen and tied the MLB record for consecutive at-bats with a base hit. Bravissimo, José.

At full strength, these Twins are very good at playing baseball. And they play only one more road series this season against a team with a better record.
 

Nice win Twins!  Congrats Miranda.  We'll done.  Gotta love Brooks Lee.  He looks like the real deal.  Maybe this trade deadline it's time to think about trading a veteran or two as it appears some of our prospects look ready to stay.  Let's win on Sunday and take the series before heading to Chicago to takeon the white sox.

A pretty cool stretch we have going here.  

Miranda having the second best stretch of hitting games I've ever seen a Twin have.  1st is still Mauer going 14/15 in a series against the Royals in...2006 I think? 

Sure is great to see all that green behind some of our better relievers.  Nice rest now, another one at the ASB.  

Bring in a good, young, cost controlled SP at the deadline.  I don't want anything else.

2 minutes ago, IndianaTwin said:

My prediction is Winder. If you look above, you see that they've played the last couple days with a nine-man bullpen.

I agree. The only thing odd about that is that it wasn't done for today's game as Winder had zero chance of pitching today after that many pitches on Friday. With that timing, I wonder if they would really bring Wallner up for 1 or 2 days and then return him to St. Paul, as they couldn't recall him without an injury. I'm guessing Martin goes down on Monday with Paddack taking his place.

38 minutes ago, Patzky said:

I'm obsessed with getting Fedde from the White Sox.

I like him, but IDK, he's not young, cost or team controlled. I'd much rather cash in a nice chunk of prospect equity and bring in a SP building block.  

This was a big win for Ryan, Congratulations!

A big day for Lee. Congratulations on your 1st HR! 

A very big day for Miranda. Congratulations on your record!

We're gonna need a bigger chicken for this dinner. 

Wonder what other ballplayers think of Jose Miranda's streak of hits. They work all their lives to get consistent contact. It's one of the hardest things in all of sports, hitting a ball that's just under three inches in diameter with a bat whose diameter is slightly bigger...

Except the ball is travelling between 75 and 103 miles per hour, so you have under half a second to decide whether to swing, and where. 

Oh, and the spin can be anywhere from 0 to about 3000 RPM. Meaning that it can curve a couple feet before you make contact.

Oh, and it can be anywhere inside a rectangle about the size of a kitchen trash can. 

Oh, and sometimes they throw the ball right at you. 

They actually did hit Miranda with a pitch, and he still got a couple more hits. They finally got him out on a routine fly ball, which means he hit the last one pretty well, too. 

What Miranda did was far more rare than bowling a 300 game, or pitching a no-hitter. There's no way he can do something like that again.

Is there?

Curious to see if there is a Wallner call up. He was out of the Saints lineup for the past two days. Hate to see Martin go. 

4 hours ago, Joe A. Preusser said:

A pretty cool stretch we have going here.  

Miranda having the second best stretch of hitting games I've ever seen a Twin have.  1st is still Mauer going 14/15 in a series against the Royals in...2006 I think? 

Sure is great to see all that green behind some of our better relievers.  Nice rest now, another one at the ASB.  

Bring in a good, young, cost controlled SP at the deadline.  I don't want anything else.

 

3 hours ago, jimbo92107 said:

What Miranda did was far more rare than bowling a 300 game, or pitching a no-hitter. There's no way he can do something like that again.

Is there?

None. Odds are nobody will go 12-12 again in our lifetime.

The best hitters in history batted about 420 at their peak. Now…multiply 0.42 by itself 12 times. The result is infinitesimal….not even a fraction of 1/100th of one percent. Last one was 72 years ago. And batting averages are trending down…so.

Truly unbelievable.

4 hours ago, Joe A. Preusser said:

I'd much rather cash in a nice chunk of prospect equity and bring in a SP building block.  

Starting pitchers worth putting in a Twins uniform at the high cost will be very dear in price. Gilbert, Kirby, Miller, Crochet, and even Luzardo will not come without screams and gnashing of teeth. Some combination (I have no idea how many or what combo) of guys like Jenkins, Rodriguez, Lee, Festa, Lewis, or others would be the ask. Who among Twins fans will part with Lewis, Wallner, and Varland for someone like Kirby? Who do the Twins count as an untouchable among the players in the organization?

The only one (among those with options) I want to see Wallner up for is Larnach. Not that Larnach has been horrible. But, with the way the roster is currently performing, those two are completely redundant. It’s not like the club is starving for another left-handed corner outfielder, nor are they currently starving for offensive production.

Meanwhile, Martin is a handy little right-handed, contact-hitting, base-running, walk-taking, defensively-flexible, widget in the toolbox.