Twins 3, Phillies 0: Twins Silence the Phillies to Win the Series

How can you take Gray out after 80 pitches and that many swinging strikes? I understand his track record isn’t great this year a third time around, but geez give the man a chance in the 7th. The moment he lets a base runner on you can take him out. You just used your best four relievers to win a game in which your starter went 6 scoreless and could have easily gone another inning. The bullpen usage will continue to bogle my mind. On a side note, Jax is back to being unreliable and Duran is giving up way too many hits. Not a good recipe heading down the stretch with a thin bullpen as it is.

Today was 1000% an example of Rocco deciding BEFORE the game is played, what he wants to do with the bullpen.

But a win’s a win. Rocco’s move and the ensuing huge break in the Bohm at-bat notwithstanding, that was a wonderfully pitched game.

Great series win against a very good team. Well done all around these last two games.

After this week, my only advice is the following, as spoken by Faber College ROTC student Kevin Bacon:

Remain calm. All is well.

One short week ago after Twins improbably finished a sweep against the Snakes, I tempered my rising hope for this team hoping they'd come away with at least 3 wins o

n their road trip to DET & PHI.  After cruising to a comfortable W on Monday---the reality of this maddening consistently inconsistent team reared its head with three straight brutal losses.

Coming into to face a hot Phillies team with Keuchel pitching, I expected the worst and received it.

Thankfully---Pablo Lopez stepped up BIG time yesterday (quietly becoming staff ace) and Sonny Gray came through with a great performance.  

Never would've predicted even a 3-run output from our offense today when I saw Luplow hitting in the 3-hole.  Glad he proved me wrong with a 1st inning BOMB off Suarez.

Like others, I was a tad baffled by Gray exiting after only 80 pitches.  Although Thielbar saved our bacon with a whiff of Bohm (thanks hp ump!), I was beyond frustrated with Jax's inability to put hitters away after Farmer's excellent play for the first out.

1-2 pitch to Cave:  single to RF

0-2 pitch to Stubbs (Catcher) hitting .208------serves up another line drive single, which was followed by Jax plunking 9-hole hitter Rojas on ANOTHER 0-2 pitch.

Thankfully, Thielbar (and not Moran) was able to come in and extinguish the rally.  Absolutely need Thielbar to be a key part of pen over the last 42 games.  Not be forgotten, I will give props to Pagan for blowing away Castellanos and Stott for the last 2 outs in the 8th.

That brings us to Duran.  He got the SV, but for the 10 straight appearance he failed to pitch a clean inning.  Duran hasn't pitched a clean inning since July 15th.  Is that a reason for concern?  His WHIP has soared to 1.61 over his last 10 games.  I know we've been spoiled with him, but it does seem that he's throwing fewer and fewer fastballs over the last month?  His K's are still there---14---over those 9.33 IP

Looking forward this week-----2 HOME vs. DET and 3 more vs. PIT.  Is it too much to expect 4 wins in those 5 games?  Probably so as one thing this team continues to do is play down to their competition. 

Any word/report if Lewis has progressed to the point that he's activated this week?  

15 minutes ago, BH67 said:

After this week, my only advice is the following, as spoken by Faber College ROTC student Kevin Bacon:

Remain calm. All is well.

To further quote Chip Diller (Bacon) regarding the upcoming 5-game homestand.

"Thank you Sir, may I have another"-------4 would be great.  3 at least.

Not sonny Red not sonny black but sonny gray!!! He was magnificent!!! Especially in 2nd inning with bases loaded!!! 7th inning was 😬😬😬😬farmer made web gem with first out ;that was huge)then jax had problems until Thielbar came in and got huge strikeout to end inning-he’s cold blooded! This was huge series win!!! Let’s get payback against Detroit and go 2-1 3-0 against Pittsburgh. Nerves are fried-Great win!!!

1 hour ago, stringer bell said:

Yeah, I think Baldelli's decision to pull Gray was mildly defensible. The bullpen was well rested, with Thielbar and Jax available after pitching on Saturday and all the other higher leverage guys fully rested. Gray was very good, it was quite hot and Gray has had a few "out of the blue" innings late in his starts. The other factor, I think, is keeping the rotation guys as fresh as possible. 

Gray has had some starts where the heat/humidity has gotten to him, so after 6 good innings and a lead I can see why they'd want to let him take a seat, and give the bullpen some work before the off day. It was a bit more wobbly with Jax than anyone would have liked, but they got through it.

Always good to win a series on the road. Hopefully the Twins can keep it rolling a bit and put some more distance between us and the Guardians.

Gray and Lopez are a very nice 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation. Been quite a while since we had that, and I still have a lot of faith in Ryan, Ober and Maeda. Starting pitching will carry this squad (which I don't see Keuchel being part of for long...)

3 hours ago, SwainZag said:

With the amount of times we have see Gray breeze thru and then implode in a later inning, combined with a fully rested back end of the pen, it's kinda hard to fault Rocco's reasoning in this one.

 

Jax’s WHIP in his last 7 games: 1.89

Duran’s WHIP in his last 7 games: 1.74 with 5 earned runs

Gray’s last inning was 8 pitches with 2 K’s against their 3,4, and 5 hitters.

He was at 80 pitches. At a minimum, just let him start the next inning and if you want you can take him out after a single base runner.

I guess you have Monday off but still, you had to use your best four relievers in a game in which you easily could have used two.

4-3 on the road works. Now the Twins have 12 of the next 14 at Target Field with 8 games versus teams below .500. Is it too much to hope that the Twins can go at least 9-5 in the next two week? They could also bury the Clevelanders as well.

3 hours ago, LewFordLives said:

Was listening to the game on MLB Radio with the Phillies broadcast team. The way they described it, you'd think that 3-2 pitch to Bohm was about a foot inside. I later saw the replay and laughed when I saw how close it was. Could it have justifiably been called a ball???…...sure. But it was close.

Have you seen the tracker? With a Twin at the plate, Twins fans would expect that to be called a ball 100% of the time.
 

It was a huge break. Breaks happen. Twins did plenty enough to deserve the win regardless.

3 minutes ago, h2oface said:

That would have been better than what it actually was, which was 3-4 with a 4 game losing streak and losing 3 in a row to lowly Detroit - 2 by being shutout!

Oops.

Kind of a frustrating season and was trying to think positive - my mistake.

Good catch.

10 hours ago, LastOnePicked said:

Yes, but in that situation of the ballgame. I can see why Philly fans got riled up. I know I would have if the situation was reversed.

That said, it was a fun moment. I enjoyed the Provus call as well.

I was thinking the same thing. That was a very borderline call on that "strike," and if it had been made against us I'd be howling and hollering too! I think we dodged a bullet on that one.

10 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

Gray and Lopez are a very nice 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation.

Particularly for the playoffs. With the luxury of a 4.5 game lead over the Guardians, I wouldn't be surprised to see those 2 with conservative pitch counts from here on in, provided that lead holds up.

I think the last 2 games show that the Twins could win a playoff series with good pitching. Those two games were the best 2 games of the season for the Twins since they were against a good team.  With Lewis and Alex coming back the Twins will be a better team. I am surprised that Rocco has not tried Julian at first base since we need his bat in the lineup and he has played some games there in the minors. It appears Lewis will come back soon so the only spot we have for Julian is at first base. That would give the Twins a good infield.  I think first base is the easiest infield spot to play and would be a good spot for Julian if Alex is not ready to play.

10 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

85F to 88F over 6 innings. on Sunday. Looked fatigued to me when Jeffers came out to talk just before end of 6.

Guys get paid to relieve.

Up against a premier offense that had won 41 of 61 games.

Used 4 guys because the first one didn’t do his job.

Relievers (most) are much more effective/comfortable with a clean inning to start and a chance to throw out of the wind-up.

If Jax has a clean inning - Thielbar clean - Duran clean ……..everyone is giddy about how sharp our Pen looked. Beat a team that was in World Series last year and held them to 1 run over 2 games in their own park.

No problem with the approach nor the outcome.

20 hours ago, Alex Wilde said:

Jax’s WHIP in his last 7 games: 1.89

Duran’s WHIP in his last 7 games: 1.74 with 5 earned runs

Gray’s last inning was 8 pitches with 2 K’s against their 3,4, and 5 hitters.

He was at 80 pitches. At a minimum, just let him start the next inning and if you want you can take him out after a single base runner.

I guess you have Monday off but still, you had to use your best four relievers in a game in which you easily could have used two.