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    Marlins 4, Twins 1: Woof


    Hans Birkeland

    With their season in the balance, the Twins welcomed the National League's worst team, featuring a manager who knows he won't return for 2025. Of course, they lost easily, driving a stake further into the heart of a depressing season.

    Image courtesy of © Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images

    Twins Video

    Box Score:
    Starting Pitcher:
    Bailey Ober: 5 IP, 8 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 7 K (89 Pitches, 58 Strikes, 65.1%)
    Home Runs: None
    Bottom 3 WPA: Ober (-.217), Kyle Farmer (-.110), Ryan Jeffers (-.083)
    Win Probability Chart (Via Fangraphs):

    image.png.0fc9b44cb39f32e1c788c3103f24b121.png

    If the Twins' season was a single game, they fell behind early but bounced back and carried an eight-run lead into the fifth. They allowed two runs in that inning, two more in the sixth, two more in the seventh, and two more in the eighth. Another run scored in the ninth, and they now faced a deficit for the first time since May. Fortunately, they had Bailey Ober pitching on "Bark at the Park" night. Unfortunately, the Miami Marlins have been a trap team their entire existence.

    Miami started Ryan Weathers, the former San Diego top prospect and son of former Reds closer, David Weathers. He throws hard from the left side and has had some success this year. The Twins rolled out a 100% righty lineup with their season on the line and threatened in the first. Carlos Correa hit a screaming double over the center fielder and Byron Buxton was hit by a pitch. Carlos Santana then popped out and Royce Lewis was retired on a sharp line drive (107 MPH) right to right fielder Jesus Sanchez.

    Ober was ready to cruise against one of the worst lineups in baseball, but what Miami lacks in star power they make up for in post-hype prospects that really aren't that bad, Weathers included. The second began with a homer from Jonah Bride off a fastball at the top of the zone that Miami's DH got on top of, something you rarely see with Ober's fastball when located well. Oh well, solo home runs won't kill you. Except Ober then hit Derek Hill with a pitch with two outs, allowed a bloop hit to Otto Lopez and then left a pitch up in the zone to light-hitting catcher Nick Fortes, who smacked a single the other way to score the game's second run. Ober was clearly frustrated and threw another mistake to Xavier Edwards, who doubled to left-center to score two more runs. In the blink of an eye, the score was 4-0.

    Ober's velocity was down a bit, sitting at 90 MPH and dipping into the 80s at points. He also left a few cutters hanging in the middle of the zone (see above), and not all of them were hit, or even swung at. In short, it could have been worse.

    The Twins put traffic on in most innings, and with one out in the third, Lewis rifled a base hit through the left side to score Buxton, who had reached on an infield hit and advanced on a Santana walk. The trouble was that Kyle Farmer hit into an inning ending double play. It's funny, but Farmer is kind of who you wanted to see in that situation, with his recent hot-hitting and career-long ability to punish left-handed pitching. As the Twins and their fans have learned, when your season is circling the toilet, you can't un-flush.

    Correa delivered his second hit in the fifth with one out, and Buxton doubled to the corner to put runners on second and third with Santana up facing a lefty. The Twins first baseman was retired on a foul pop up and Lewis tapped to third to waste another opportunity.

    Ober gutted his way through five innings, but walked Derek Hill to start the sixth and was removed for the Twins new best pitcher, Scott Blewett, who quickly got a double play ball and got through the inning unscathed.

    Matt Wallner was called upon to pinch hit in the sixth and struck out while being frozen on a breaking ball, He then grabbed his side and was removed from the game. That is one injury this team cannot afford; Wallner has been their only effective and healthy hitter for a while now.

    Willi Castro led off the seventh with a 3-2 single, but Brooks Lee tapped out, Correa struck out, and Buxton flied out to end whatever threat there was.

    A last flicker of hope was extinguished in the eighth. Santana led of with a walk against tough righty Anthony Bender. Trevor Larnach, hitting for Wallner, laced a single to center following a lineout from Lewis. Jeffers then popped out for the twelfth time in his last eleven at-bats, and the inning was left to the forgotten Edouard Julien, who hadn't taken a plate appearance in a week. One thing I've noticed about Julien is that his opposite-field fly balls are just about ten feet shorter than last year and right on queue, he flew out short of the warning track to end the inning.

    Cole Irvin pitched a scoreless inning despite himself (two walks, one wild pitch).

    Trends:

             
      Healthy Hurt    
    Performing        
    Contributing        
    Low Impact        
    IL/Minors        
             
    C Ryan Jeffers 📉 Christian Vazquez 📉    
    1B Carlos Santana 📉 Alex Kirilloff 📉 Jose Miranda 📉  
    2B Edouard Julien 📉 Kyle Farmer 📈'    
    3B Royce Lewis 📈      
    SS Carlos Correa 📈 Brooks Lee 📉    
    LF Matt Wallner 📉 Trevor Larnach 📈 Austin Martin 📉  
    CF Byron Buxton 📈 Manuel Margot 📉 DaShawn Keirsey Jr. 📈  
    RF Max Kepler 📈      
    UTIL Willi Castro 📈 Michael Helman 📈    
    SP Pablo Lopez 📉 Bailey Ober Joe Ryan 📉 Chris Paddack 📈
    RSP David Festa 📈 Zebby Matthews 📈 Simeon Woods Richardson 📉  
    CR Jhoan Duran 📉 Griffin Jax 📉    
    SR Brock Stewart 📉 Cole Irvin 📉 Cole Sands 📈  
    MR Caleb Thielbar 📈 Scott Blewett 📈 Michael Tonkin 📈 Louie Varland 📈
    LR Josh Winder 📉 Ronny Henriquez 📈 Brent Headrick 📉 Diego Castillo 📈
     

     

     

    What’s Next: Simeon Woods Richardson (5-5, 4.00 ERA) opposes Edward Cabrera (4-8, 5.12 ERA) as the Twins play out the string. Cabrera has great stuff and an incredible change-up, and was the subject of Twitter-based trade speculation last off-season, In reality, he has struggled with injuries and command in his brief career, but also scouts should throw out positive results against the Twins in the past month.

    Postgame Interviews:
    (Coming soon)

    Bullpen Usage Chart:

      FRI SAT SUN MON TUE TOT
    Tonkin 14 0 37 0 25 76
    Headrick 0 0 60 0 0 60
    Irvin 0 0 25 0 19 44
    Blewett 12 0 7 0 20 39
    Sands 16 0 20 0 0 36
    Thielbar 10 0 17 0 3 30
    Durán 20 0 0 0 0 20
    Varland 13 0 0 0 0 13
    Jax 8 0 0 0 0 8

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    Marek Houston

    Cedar Rapids Kernels - A+, SS
    The 22-year-old went 2-for-5 on Friday night, his fourth straight multi-hit game. Heading into the week, he was hitting .246/.328/.404 (.732). Four games later, he is hitting .303/.361/.447 (.808).

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    Featured Comments

    59 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

    Right now, I’d rather watch the Thursday night NFL game tomorrow than see a bunch of guys who have quit.

    I don’t know if they’ve quit…maybe a few have. Hard for me to distinguish between folding under the pressure/stress, just plain failing, and giving up. The sheer completeness and all-encompassing scale of the collapse suggests almost everyone is experiencing at least one of the above…but impossible for me to tell who falls where.

    I get the frustration, that’s for sure.

    3 hours ago, Aggies7 said:

    To be fair, I changed my comment to be less smarmy.
     

    I’d like us to be a good team. We do have a horrible record against good teams. 7-21 against NYY, Baltimore and Cleveland. 
     

    That’s bad. Having the tiebreaker over two other teams that also don’t deserve to keep playing is pretty meaningless.

    Don't deserve to keep playing? 

    The rules state that 6 teams will qualify from each league. 9 from each league will not. 3 division winners and 3 best records of the non-division winners. Currently the best record in the American League is 92 wins. The Twins have 81.

    11 wins over the course of 157 games is one win over 14.27 games. There is currently a 4 game difference with Houston. Our opponent if we can somehow grab that 6th seed. So Houston has one more win every 39.25 games. We also would have the tiebreaker against them after taking 4 of 6 from them. 

    One extra win every 39.25 games. That's like looking at a crack in the sidewalk while you and others stand at the edge of it claiming it's the Grand Canyon. 

    Don't deserve to keep playing. Everybody is playing 162 games. The Win Loss Records are ****ING Close. 

    I reject whatever logic you and others are using to subjectively define deserving. 

     

    23 hours ago, Aggies7 said:

    You make a good point, but for me it’s about cheapening the playoffs. Does MLB want to be like the NHL and NBA, who have reduced their regular seasons to basically meaningless games by allowing every team around .500 to qualify? MLB plays more games than any other league by far. If you can’t get yourself 10 or so games above .500 after SIX MONTHS of playing, I’m sorry but you aren’t good enough.

    It’s never going to change because it makes money for the league. And sure, it adds the Cinderella NCAAB vibe to see a team like Arizona go all the way to the World Series. But the MLB playoffs are and have always been a crapshoot. Arizona was not a better team than the dodgers last year. I hate that a team is rewarded for having a good couple weeks when a team ran the league for 6 months and gets bounced so quickly.

    I was excited to see if the twins could win a couple postseason games or take a series back when they were like 15 over .500. Right now, I’d rather watch the Thursday night NFL game tomorrow than see a bunch of guys who have quit.

    Way more people agree with you than they care to admit. No one watched the Rangers vs the Diamondbacks. But at least the Rangers won 90. 

    On 9/25/2024 at 5:35 PM, Aggies7 said:

    You make a good point, but for me it’s about cheapening the playoffs. Does MLB want to be like the NHL and NBA, who have reduced their regular seasons to basically meaningless games by allowing every team around .500 to qualify? MLB plays more games than any other league by far. If you can’t get yourself 10 or so games above .500 after SIX MONTHS of playing, I’m sorry but you aren’t good enough.

    It’s never going to change because it makes money for the league. And sure, it adds the Cinderella NCAAB vibe to see a team like Arizona go all the way to the World Series. But the MLB playoffs are and have always been a crapshoot. Arizona was not a better team than the dodgers last year. I hate that a team is rewarded for having a good couple weeks when a team ran the league for 6 months and gets bounced so quickly.

    I was excited to see if the twins could win a couple postseason games or take a series back when they were like 15 over .500. Right now, I’d rather watch the Thursday night NFL game tomorrow than see a bunch of guys who have quit.

    I'm not sure about the NHL, but if MLB wants to survive, they need to do everything they can to emulate the NBA and NFL. Old school fans may not like it, but once enough of the old school fans are gone, there aren't currently enough 'new school' fans to keep the game afloat.

    And that's 100% on the owners who most want to maximize short term profits.

    2 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

    I'm not sure about the NHL, but if MLB wants to survive, they need to do everything they can to emulate the NBA and NFL. Old school fans may not like it, but once enough of the old school fans are gone, there aren't currently enough 'new school' fans to keep the game afloat.

    And that's 100% on the owners who most want to maximize short term profits.

    So the product gets watered down to keep its existence? Yay.

    11 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

    You just said you tuned out MLB to watch NFL. Why are you watching that one if it's watered down?

    How is the NFL watered down? If anything, it’s the only sport where expanded playoffs make sense (not that I think they should have expanded) since they don’t play even half the league. 32 teams and each team plays what, 14 other teams? The NBA and NHL are watered down. And they play half the games MLB does.
     

    The dodgers finished 16 games ahead of Arizona last season and the dbacks knocked them out. No way you could realistically make an argument that Arizona was better, as a whole. That would get a big “SSS” in any other argument on here.

    On 9/25/2024 at 9:32 PM, Riverbrian said:

    Don't deserve to keep playing? 

    The rules state that 6 teams will qualify from each league. 9 from each league will not. 3 division winners and 3 best records of the non-division winners. Currently the best record in the American League is 92 wins. The Twins have 81.

    11 wins over the course of 157 games is one win over 14.27 games. There is currently a 4 game difference with Houston. Our opponent if we can somehow grab that 6th seed. So Houston has one more win every 39.25 games. We also would have the tiebreaker against them after taking 4 of 6 from them. 

    One extra win every 39.25 games. That's like looking at a crack in the sidewalk while you and others stand at the edge of it claiming it's the Grand Canyon. 

    Don't deserve to keep playing. Everybody is playing 162 games. The Win Loss Records are ****ING Close. 

    I reject whatever logic you and others are using to subjectively define deserving. 

     

     

    On 9/25/2024 at 9:32 PM, Riverbrian said:

    Don't deserve to keep playing? 

    The rules state that 6 teams will qualify from each league. 9 from each league will not. 3 division winners and 3 best records of the non-division winners. Currently the best record in the American League is 92 wins. The Twins have 81.

    11 wins over the course of 157 games is one win over 14.27 games. There is currently a 4 game difference with Houston. Our opponent if we can somehow grab that 6th seed. So Houston has one more win every 39.25 games. We also would have the tiebreaker against them after taking 4 of 6 from them. 

    One extra win every 39.25 games. That's like looking at a crack in the sidewalk while you and others stand at the edge of it claiming it's the Grand Canyon. 

    Don't deserve to keep playing. Everybody is playing 162 games. The Win Loss Records are ****ING Close. 

    I reject whatever logic you and others are using to subjectively define deserving. 

     

    They would have no shot to beat at least half the AL teams who qualified in a 5-7 game series. No shot.  3-19 against the Yankees, guardians and orioles. 

    3 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

    How is the NFL watered down? If anything, it’s the only sport where expanded playoffs make sense (not that I think they should have expanded) since they don’t play even half the league. 32 teams and each team plays what, 14 other teams? The NBA and NHL are watered down. And they play half the games MLB does.
     

    The dodgers finished 16 games ahead of Arizona last season and the dbacks knocked them out. No way you could realistically make an argument that Arizona was better, as a whole. That would get a big “SSS” in any other argument on here.

    Why is the NFL continually expanding the playoffs not the same as the MLB? I don't track how it matters how many teams they play in the regular season when your gist is about letting the lesser talent into the post season.

    The NCAA screamed bloody murder about doing so for the last 40 years (and they were totally wrong).

    34 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

    Why is the NFL continually expanding the playoffs not the same as the MLB? I don't track how it matters how many teams they play in the regular season when your gist is about letting the lesser talent into the post season.

    The NCAA screamed bloody murder about doing so for the last 40 years (and they were totally wrong).

    They haven’t continually expanded. There were 6 qualifying teams from 1990-2020 and the league added 4 expansion teams in that time. MLB went from 2 to 4 teams in ‘95, 4 to 5 teams in 2012 and then 6.
     

    The number of teams you play matters because the schedule is so unbalanced in the NFL. Different divisions play different divisions both inside and outside the conference. You don’t even play all the teams in your own league. While I don’t like seeing a team .500 or less get in, it’s easier to accept in a league where there are comparatively so few games against less than half the teams. I’ve seen the twins play 22 games against the top half of the AL qualifiers and they won 3. They had an opportunity to show they deserved a shot and they couldn’t do it. 

    Sorry, but every argument seems to stem from MLB having to be a slave to tradition while the NFL gets to embrace innovation. Tradition is going to kill MLB because there aren't enough people who care about such things anymore, and fewer and fewer every year. There's never been an industry that survived that didn't embrace new ideas, even if some of them didn't pan out.

    14 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

    Sorry, but every argument seems to stem from MLB having to be a slave to tradition while the NFL gets to embrace innovation. Tradition is going to kill MLB because there aren't enough people who care about such things anymore, and fewer and fewer every year. There's never been an industry that survived that didn't embrace new ideas, even if some of them didn't pan out.

    It’s got nothing to do with tradition. It’s the idea that a team could play mediocre to slightly above mediocre baseball for SIX MONTHS and just have a hot couple weeks and get to the World Series because that’s how baseball is. That’s why the 100 loss marlins might take a series from the twins. The teams with the best records in MLB win the World Series less often than the top seeds win the Super Bowl.

    Now, with both leagues playing each other and fewer divisional games, you could make an argument that the MLB playoffs make no sense. We try to decide in one month what’s already been shown in 6 months.




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