The Twins Lineup Presents a Silver Lining

It appears that calling up AK has really helped the whole team hit better. Ak is hitting .400+ and for some reason the whole team seems to be hitting better since he joined the team. The Twins were the worst hitting team in baseball before AK joined the team. Sometimes it just takes one hitter to hit well and others seem to follow.

Last week I was concerned about the Twins being a winning team, but now think they are headed in the right direction as a team.

The Twins are doing well and the pitching has carried the team mostly giving the offense time to warm up. I was pretty sure that two young guys were big keys for the Twins this season. Both Alex Kirilloff, already showing his glove and stick matter, and Royce Lewis can be dynamic. I did not think we would see both Bailey Ober and Louie Varland this early, and man have they been good.

The season is young and counting out Cleveland, or any team, is looking for bad luck. The Twins need only to take care of their own fortunes.

Right now I'm not seeing consistently good swings from Brooks Lee at AA, and Jose Miranda looks like he is still searching for the ball at AAA. Eddy Julien looked pretty good for the Twins in his very short stint with the team and continues, even in a minor slump, to have good at bats, get on base, and hit for extra bases. Julien does not have a golden glove but all talk of that shortcoming has been blown way out of proportion. Eddy gets to most balls and make the plays. He just isn't as athletic and always looks a little stiff. Matt Wallner may have a rough time getting his next opportunity. He has done a fine job working on his defense and his speed is more noticeable in the field as he has become more comfortable out there. Something tells me that he always believed he would be a pitcher/DH and never worked as hard at playing defense. I think the Twins are sitting on a decent roster collection right now. If Buxton, Correa, and Polanco reach expectations, we could begin to see how good the young guys (Kirilloff, Larnach, Lewis, Julien) are as compliments.

The lineup definitely got off to a slow start this season, with some players underperforming and others getting pretty unlucky out there (i.e., hard hit balls going straight at someone). Obviously the offensive explosion from this weekend isn't sustainable, but there's a real likelihood that more consistent run support is on the way.

A lot of us have ben very hopeful about Kirilloff; the bat plays, it's just a question of whether or not he's healthy. So far, so good on that end of things, and he adds something a little different to the lineup, potentially. It's still relatively small sample sizes, but he also hasn't presented big splits either, so he shouldn't need to be platooned much. I'll be interested to see if he's still showing this excellent strike zone judgment as the season progresses, because if he's refined that and keeps drawing walks when they don't give him anything worth swinging at, he's going to continue to be a force.

Having Polanco back is also a big addition, even if he's dropped off a bit from his season debut. He's a threat in the lineup and one of the things we saw from Bomba Squad days was how much a deeper lineup could exhaust a pitcher. With Taylor showing a better power stroke this season, Vazquez is really the only zero in the lineup right now.

The big question for me is whether or not Gordon can find his form again. he's still not looking good at the plate and while he's been a little unlucky, he's also been bad, reverting back to some old habits i think. It would be nice to have him be a more solid bench bat, especially with Solano and Castro doing little to impress.

Sometime you need a wake up call,as the team got. Sending Miranda to St Paul was needed weeks ago and finally happened. His all around play was showing up every day. Farmer playing 3rd has stabilized the position until Lewis is ready. His at bats have been far better than Miranda's. This week on the West Coast will tell everyone if they are going to compete. The pitching has been good,the offense has been a problem. The other 29 teams know throw pitches above the zone and let the hitters get themselves out. Hopefully they take some of the at bats they had this weekend with them.

Watching an offense sputter can be really frustrating but the amount of negativity over the past few weeks was kind of extreme for a team that has been pretty solidly over .500 the whole time.

I think Correa actually looks like he's finally coming around this time after a couple of false starts earlier this year.

Kirilloff has definitely been a spark for the offense.  Feeling pretty optimistic about him as a building block for the next few years right now.

Good to see Larnach's confidence building week in AAA carrying over too.  His streakiness has been tough but when he's been good he looks like a building block too.  A more consistent Larnach could really help for building the team next year as well.

I'm not really counting on huge contributions from most of the top hitting prospects for this year, even if they are nearly ready, but I do think that Royce Lewis could really be the key piece in a few weeks.  He can bring another dynamic to the team with both the bat and his speed on the bases, not to mention making Willi Castro redundant and sending him to AAA while also putting Farmer into a bit more of a platoon role where his bat should really thrive. 

I could be pinning a lot of hope on a guy who will most likely be a little rusty.  But if he does rake against minor league pitching during his rehab assignment it could be a tough wait for two weeks before he is likely to be activated.

I wonder what the plan will be with Buxton now that the weather is warming up.  Given the perceived success of their DH plan, I could see them keeping him there exclusively all the way to late August and then just playing him in center a few times a week to get ready for a playoff run.  Still, him getting maybe 2 starts a week in center would be nice from a team building stance, though maybe not worth the additional risk.  I'd especially like to see Jeffers get into the lineup at DH one more time a week to at least get a better assessment of whether his bat really is breaking out this year.

The optimist in me sees so many underperforming players that you have to think the only direction they can go is up.  That is fun to say when you are in 1st place and 3.5 games ahead (albeit in a terrible division).

It is interesting how injuries continue to play a huge part in how the offense has rolled so far this year.  Kiriloff, Polanco, Kepler, Farmer, not even looking at the pitching staff.

So much luck is required to be a viable WS contender.  Injuries play a huge part of that.

I just can't see Lee being brought up this year. he looks like he is right where he belongs in Wichita. Also he doesn't have a place to play. It would take a lot of injuries to get him on the 40 man. I hope Lewis can take over at 3rd and Buxton can go back to the outfield. This would let Miranda become a !B/DH. He just doesn't seem athletic enough to play 3b.

I not sure the batting lineup has a silver lining at the moment with so many hitters struggling to produce in batting average , clutch hitting , adjustments  with two strikes and if the manager doesn't like to steal bases , maybe the hit and run would be the answer ... ...

The only way to go is up   ....

7 hours ago, Karbo said:

 the pen has me worried. Lopez and Duran are quality pitchers, but Griffith is looking shaky. Nice find with Stewart

Griffith is getting BABIP'd to death without the hard contact to support concern.

Stewart OTOH brings a world of concern with him to the mound each time he makes that long walk. A 9:8 K:BB ratio is traversing a tightrope without a safety net. 

6.5 weeks into the season and the pre-season observation is playing out as true that this year's Twins looks like they stole the Dodgers playbook and are executing it mid-market team style.

They stockpiled depth all thru the 40 man roster, and even beyond, to weather the regular season storm of attrition that is inescapable by all but the 2022 Guardians. 

10 hours ago, Ricky Vaughn said:

He just doesn't seem athletic enough to play 3b.

Maybe, but he is better at third than he was at first base. At third a player is involved in less than three plays per game whereas the number is close to eight for a first baseman.