Twins 4, Red Sox 5: Bizarre Walk-Off Caps Strange Loss in Boston

Waste of a brilliant 5-3 DP by Miranda, trying to keep it even.

4 hits in 32 AB. ☹️

Heartburn-inducing ugly. Slight taste of vomit in the back of my throat.

If we’re going to score runs…well, like we’re scoring runs…then the pitching AND the defense both need to be very good. Again, the pitching was good enough…but, the defense wasn’t.

I didn’t have an issue with Moran in the 10th. Thought it bizarre when he was left in to face Refsnyder. He get’s the DP somehow…then, I’m sure Rocco wants to leave him in against Verdugo to preserve the lefty-lefty matchup. Weird sequence.

It’s Fenway…it’s not a great pitching staff…score more than 2 runs.

Shows the need for a long relief arm. If a starter only goes 5, you don't patch the game thru to the end with 1-inning jobs. You need someone to come in and pick up 2-3 innings.

Kepler doesn't love baseball. 

Jax was terrific. Mistakes by Vasquez on the catcher's interference, Solano suffering a brain blip, and Gordon's poor throw home were all tough, especially the latter two. Moran draws a ton of heat but as brutal as that inning was, it is over if Kepler catches that ball. A weird ending of a game where the Twins strike out 16 times. As good as the pitching has been, winning is really tough when the bats are flailing in such a severe upper cut style. The mathematics makes contact probability odds slim. Better days ahead. Kirilloff hit the ball hard three times tonight and made a couple of good plays at first base.  

27 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

Baffling that Moran continued to pitch after Refsnyder grounded into the double play. He clearly didn’t have it tonight and Pagan was warming (warmed?) in the pen. 

4 hits in 10 innings isn’t going to cut it. Neither is 3 errors in the field. The walk off is classic Fenway shenanigans. 

To be fair, Rocco backed himself into a corner by sticking with Moran all the way to the Refsnyer AB. By that time, he’s going to look bad if he leaves Moran in to get beat…but, he also looks pretty silly bringing in a right-hander (even ‘good’ Pagan) to face Verdugo and/or Devers with the game on the line. IMO, he needed to make the move to Pagan right away…and give Pagan a chance to clean up the mess against the bottom of the order.

Moran is hard to watch. Nibble, nibble nibble. I don't think he could throw 3 straight strikes if he tried.

That was the worst the Twins have played thus far IMHO.  After the Twins scored two in the 10th, I was quite surprised it was Moran, who has not done much so far. I actually hoped it would be Pagan. In any case, the Twins were not sharp in the field. Even that fly ball by Verdugo was weird. Kepler jogged over that way nonchalantly, like the ball was going to be 30 rows up in foul territory when clearly he could have made a play even if he thought it was going foul. Maybe he didn't see it well? That was just one of the examples. Boston tried to give us the game, but we refused once too often.

3 hours ago, h2oface said:

Miranda turning one of the coolest double plays I have ever seen. Spectacular.

What a weird game. I sure hope this is not a sign of things to come.

Miranda's double play was in a large part due to the Bosox player failing to stop.  Had he stopped and had Miranda go after him, the player is safe at first.  Classic example of 'running yourself into a double play (by the Bosox).

Geez Louise...

This game was like a slow-motion Heimlich Maneuver. 

And Jovani "No Mystery" Moran, sheesh....

In some ways this game was an example of what I like about baseball--even though I have watched thousands of games I don't recall ever seeing a catcher's interference in which the manager chose which play will stand and I know I've never seen a DP like the Twins executed in the 10th. And those occurred in the same game. But that doesn't mean I enjoyed watching it. I don't fault Rocco for having Moran start the 10th inning but no pitcher is on his game every night. So like many others, I do fault Rocco for not making a pitching change in the 10th when it became clear that Moran was struggling.

8 hours ago, wabene said:

Kepler doesn't love baseball. 

I didn't see the game and am looking for vidoe of the fly ball that the fan supposedly touched....can't find it.  Is this a reference to the fact that Kepler didn't try to catch it? (real question!)

The good part about fan-run sites is that we don't have to pretend there was anything positive about this. 

The Twins got absolutely dominated by a washed-up old pitcher who carried a 16.48 ERA entering the game. Sale had been lit up all year before this. 

Over the past 2 games, the Twins have started the game 0-12 with 11 K's in the first 2 innings. 

Buxton struck out 10 straight times before grounding out weakly to 3rd base in his second AB last night. 

We don't have to pretend this is a good team that's just experiencing some bad luck. Everything about these hitting statistics tells you that this offense is the worst in the league. There's no reason to expect better - at this point guys like Michael A Taylor and Solano are carrying the team on offense. Nobody's hitting, especially if they somehow manage to get men on base. 

The pitching has been off the charts awesome. The opponent's bats are catching up, though, and it's more likely the team ERA ends up towards the middle of the pack. What then? 

Folks, last night was bad baseball by what appears to be a bad baseball team. At this point it appears the Twins' only hope is that Jorge Polanco and Alex Kirilloff come back from major injuries/surgery and start carrying the offense. Does anyone realistically see that happening? 

The worst part: it's absolutely excruciating to watch. This type of swing-and-miss offense is exactly what MLB's been trying to fix with all the rule changes, and just about every team's offense is improved. The fact that the Twins have yet to see any improvement is a bad sign. It's early, but hard to believe this team is going to improve on last year. 

24 minutes ago, miracleb said:

I didn't see the game and am looking for vidoe of the fly ball that the fan supposedly touched....can't find it.  Is this a reference to the fact that Kepler didn't try to catch it? (real question!)

Maybe I'm reaching here because of his comments last year about how he might have chosen the wrong career, but Max just doesn't seem to enjoy his job much anymore. Yes I think he could've made a much better effort on that play. 

9 hours ago, Rosterman said:

Shows the need for a long relief arm. If a starter only goes 5, you don't patch the game thru to the end with 1-inning jobs. You need someone to come in and pick up 2-3 innings.

That's what I've been advocating for years. We not only lost the game by running thru our top BP arms, leaving only our low leverage arms. But we also short changed ourselves in the BP in our up coming games. Having a competent long RP could have saved the game & the BP.

A very disappointing game, offensively, defensively & (managetorially). I was waiting for the Twins to jump all over Sales (never happened). Although Gray threw a lot of extra pitches he was able to limit any damage, Kepler HR & Miranda's DP were bright spots. Too bad it was for nought.  

9 hours ago, wabene said:

Kepler doesn't love baseball. 

9 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

Opps, don't know what I'm doing.  Seems like Kepler gave up on that fly ball as soon as it was hit.  He did not at any time run hard to try and catch it.  Buxton in right at that time would have been fun to watch.  This game reminded me of watching last year's team.