Tigers 4, Twins 3: Bailey Ober Good, Bullpen and Defense Let Twins Down Late

Still too many strikeouts especially looking. There's no plan right now at the plate. The common denominator continues to skate by.

 Detroit announcer said the infield was a sieve.     Did he mean it was a lousy infield or the Twins infielders were lousy?.   Two hits in the 4 run inning but but sounded like two plays that could have and maybe should have been made and maybe should have been errors..   Unless that was a bad hop to Farmer I don't see how that is a hit.    Game changers.

Castro, Farmer, and Margot have been huge disappointments so far this year. At a minimum, they have to play good defense. They are all turning outs into hits (because the Detroit scorekeeper is so biased towards giving Tigers players hits on anything).

13 minutes ago, FlyingFinn said:

Castro, Farmer, and Margot have been huge disappointments so far this year. At a minimum, they have to play good defense. They are all turning outs into hits (because the Detroit scorekeeper is so biased towards giving Tigers players hits on anything).

Nick Gordon has a wRC+ of 120 but I was repeatedly told there was no space for him. He had better batting projections than any of the three listed above and none of the three have put up defense to make up for their hitting.

Just a gut punch of a loss of which Bailey Ober absolutely deserved a W out of today.

With our pop gun offense (Margot hitting in 4-hole with Castro behind him) putting up 3 runs---going into the 8th, this is a loss totally attributed to PLAYERS NOT MAKING PLAYS that MLB players need to make.

Culprit #1:  Thielbar

Facing Baez with 1 out he hangs a 79mph pitch to one of the WORST hitters in baseball!  Baez was 3-27 in April with 10 whiffs before Thielbar FAILS to execute.  Not good.

Culprit #2:  Castro

Butchers a hard hit ball for a generously scored single after the Baez HR.

Also goes 0-4 (with 2 whiffs).

Hitting .122 on season.  With Correa out for likely a couple of more weeks coupled with Brooks Lee being unavailable---be prepared for more of the same.

Culprit #3:   Farmer

When  you're hitting .080 and being forced into regular playing time, you'd expect a veteran to, at minimum, to knock a groundball to his backhand down.  Another OUT misplayed that led to 2 runs scoring.

Culprit #4   Martin

I know a rookie----but a high school player versed in defensive fundamentals, knows that that throw HAS to go to 3B instead of airmailing it home when there was no chance to nail Greene at the plate. If Canha is at 2B, I seriously doubt he scores on Torkelson's 145 foot dork into RF.

Still p*ssed off almost 2 hours afterwards.

If Farmer and Castro both "misplayed" balls hit their way. They're not really hits. Both of those plays need to be made. And Martin can't just throw the ball willy nilly. That was a bad loss. I can't fault Rocco there,  other than the guys he had out there didn't or couldn't get the job done. And the need to score more runs is obvious. Not going to win a whole lot of games scoring 3 runs. Fine outing for Baily Ober. 

There are games they could have won.  There are games they should have won.  Today, they had the game won.  Yes, "they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory."

Although Jeffers is heating up, the only good hitter on the team is AK.  Yet he is out of the game as soon as a leftie begins stretching in the bullpen.

Sucks blowing 3-0 lead in 8th but should’ve won. 2-2 is ok but damn. 😥need to win series against Baltimore and get payback next weekend against Detroit!!!

More sloppy baseball. The Twins seem to make at least one or two fundamental mistakes each game. I don’t know who is responsible for this aspect of the teams performance but whoever it is needs a wake up call. They seem to come to the big league team flawed. The frustrating thing is that it doesn’t get any better. I assume it’s being addressed but maybe guys just need to sit until they get the message. 

55 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

See, now this is the early season chicken little, small sample size, sky falling on my head content I come to Twins Daily for. So good, I happily pay extra. 

I come for strong opinions, debate and civil discourse about baseball and the Twins.

9 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

Fair. If you can find a serious discussion on keeping Gordon over any of the mentioned individuals at the time I'd read it.  In the meantime, Gordon is still who we thought he was. 

There was plenty of discussion in January through his trade where I pointed out that he was projected to be the better hitter than the other utility options and had posted RAA’s of 0 at his various positions since 2022. I appreciate your opinion then that he had no path to playing time. I disagreed particularly after the Polanco trade when it became obvious that they had a need against right handed pitching.

As for the “we” I am not sure that there is one opinion on who we thought he was. I see an inexpensive player that can play several positions with four years of control and a projected OPS against right handed pitching of .726. I would not have tendered Farmer and planned on rostering Gordon.

5 hours ago, Matt Braun said:

I know that someone has to take the loss, but, man, Griffin Jax being that person just doesn't sit right. 

Another good example of why WPA is a total garbage stat. Farmer lets a playable ball through and Jax gets all of the blame.

4 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

On a team with Julien, Buxton, Vasquez, Miranda, Margo all batting under 200 maybe Santana looks better, but! 

Martin, Kiriloff, and Jeffers all above 200- wow.  None of them will win the batting title. 

Brandon Belt is still unemployed somehow.

The upper management deserves to reap what they sow. They sat back and did nothing to help this team.  

34 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

Acting like a 26 PA stretch can be used to present him as some sort of front office misstep is flat silly.

It is the projections entering the season and not the 26 PAs that gave my support to Gordon prior to the season. Those 26 PAs would be nice to have right now but as I said in my first comment the projections are the support.

I have no idea who Bowman is on the pitching staff.  Funny how twins use their roster.  SWR pitched great against Detroit.  Acala, his sometimes wildness not withstanding, I don't think has given up an earned run in his last 8 innings, both get sent down to St. Paul.  I understand options.  Just seems not right to reward 2 guys doing a good job by sending them to the minors.  The Twins have a long history of that.

11 hours ago, Jocko87 said:

especially since Gordon is no longer an infielder

I like Okert, he's been good and they control him for two more seasons after this one. They didn't give Nick Gordon away for nothing.