Twins 4, Royals 2: Kepler Finds His Bat, Thielbar an Immovable Force in Win

Yet again Rocco has to use essentially every good bullpen option to nail down the win (not blaming him for that in this particular instance, just observing).  It bit the Twins hard on Saturday and Sunday last; here's hoping the Twins bats can make the unavailability of the bullpen aces irrelevant tomorrow.

So nice to see Kepler break out!!  Decent performance by Ryan.  Lopez IS a little scary.  He had two blown saves in his first five games.  Royals we're hitting him hard.  But he got that game ending double play.  Good job.  Thank God it wasn't Pagan.  We may have to deal with him Tuesday.  Nice win Twins against a team with seven rookies.  Nothing less than a sweep is acceptable.  After all we are playing basically a AAAA team.  We are using our top three starting pitchers this series.  We are at home and in a pennant race.  A sweep is a must.  The only negative this week is we still have Pagan and Baldelli in the wings that could throw a wrench in the works.

A win, but it's still a team with the same old problems: the inability to score runs and a bullpen that will always make things interesting. This could have easily gone the other way - just imagine how low we'd be on this team if that'd happened. 

Until they do something like win 9-out-of-10 and blow out a good team or 2 in the process, I really don't see any reason to feel differently about the Twins today than I did yesterday. A team that's been treading water for months, finally getting tired and slowly sinking without putting up much of a fight. 

It was a competitive win between the teams ...

Some have said that the royals are a AAAA  team , if so then that is what the twins are because they are the only teams the twins can beat  .... 

Let's hope kepler gets on a streak and starts hitting ....

That stat on Ryan being the first Twin to get to 100, and the Twins being the last team in baseball to get a pitcher to 100 innings just has be shaking my head.  With all of the glaring problems we've had with the bullpen I absolutely do not understand why we haven't stretched pitches for one more inning more frequently. 

10 hours ago, h2oface said:

Lopez sure is scary. Seems every batter can make good contact, and he is giving up a lot of hits since he has put on the TC uniforms.

It's very Twinsian.

25 minutes ago, HokieRif said:

That stat on Ryan being the first Twin to get to 100, and the Twins being the last team in baseball to get a pitcher to 100 innings just has be shaking my head.  With all of the glaring problems we've had with the bullpen I absolutely do not understand why we haven't stretched pitches for one more inning more frequently. 

This is all Rocco. He started using the bullpen too early in week #1 of the season and never changed his approach. He has worn out the bullpen. Can you imagine how bad it would be, if they had not went out and got 3 new arms for the pen?

I like the pitching chart with Pagan only having 19 pitches in the past 5 games.  

Please, please, please let this be the start of a nice 7-8 game winning streak.  And hopefully, a couple of those hitters who have been capable in the past will heat up and start punishing the ball.

2 minutes ago, roger said:

Please, please, please let this be the start of a nice 7-8 game winning streak.  And hopefully, a couple of those hitters who have been capable in the past will heat up and start punishing the ball.

Roger said please let's have a winning streak and I concur ...

The time is now ... no excuses  ...

3 hours ago, Nate Palmer said:

I would actually think that there is a strong possibility every arm is available again. There may be a preference to try and not use Duran and Lopez, but in a pinch both could probably go. Everyone's work load was (and has been) about as minimal as you could hope for. 

Available and effective are not necessarily the same thing.  I haven't crunched the numbers on specifically Duran or Lopez, but when I did that in the past for Taylor Rogers, it was clear as day that pitching on 0 days rest resulted in Rogers being pretty bad.  Anecdotally, that holds for Lopez this past weekend.

35 minutes ago, farmerguychris said:

I like the pitching chart with Pagan only having 19 pitches in the past 5 games.  

That's where you and I differ; I would much prefer the pitching chart with Pagan not on it.

22 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Available and effective are not necessarily the same thing.  I haven't crunched the numbers on specifically Duran or Lopez, but when I did that in the past for Taylor Rogers, it was clear as day that pitching on 0 days rest resulted in Rogers being pretty bad.  Anecdotally, that holds for Lopez this past weekend.

Agreed, just because the big guns were used & are available tonite doesn't mean they'd be as effective. I'd like if were managed a little different. Also IMO, Duran is the man! I'd trust him more to be put in the closer role than Lopez, better idea use them both in those situations.

Twins let the wind out of the sails of KC after they beat LAD. Happy to see Kepler hit and we pulled out the win but still not really happy w/ the line up, there's still a lot of room for improvement. 

Go Twins!

2 hours ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Available and effective are not necessarily the same thing.  I haven't crunched the numbers on specifically Duran or Lopez, but when I did that in the past for Taylor Rogers, it was clear as day that pitching on 0 days rest resulted in Rogers being pretty bad.  Anecdotally, that holds for Lopez this past weekend.

I don’t disagree with the point you’re making. Relief pitchers tend to be more effective when they aren’t pitching back to back games. But isn’t the end point of this thinking something like, ‘the good pitchers shouldn’t pitch, because then they’ll be unavailable to pitch’? If they’re available, they should pitch. 

1 minute ago, prouster said:

I don’t disagree with the point you’re making. Relief pitchers tend to be more effective when they aren’t pitching back to back games. But isn’t the end point of this thinking something like, ‘the good pitchers shouldn’t pitch, because then they’ll be unavailable to pitch’? If they’re available, they should pitch. 

Taken to an extreme yes, it can end up there.  It's why I specifically pointed out that I had no problem with Rocco using Jax, Duran, and Lopez last night; it was a two-run game, and you needed a win.  However, when Rocco used both Duran AND Lopez with a 4-run lead last Friday, that's where I have an issue.  Both of them were pretty shaky on Saturday (they combined for a 2.5 WHIP and 13.50 ERA on Saturday, and were then unavailable Sunday), and I think you have to attribute at least some of that to pitching on back to back days.  I would have much preferred Rocco used only one of Duran or Lopez, and had either Jax, Theilbar, or even Megill get the other 3 outs (if you can't rely on a guy to keep his ERA under 18 in 95% of their appearances, they should not be on the roster).

If your relievers' effectiveness is diminished when they don't get rest, you have to get them at least 1 days rest.  That means if you're going to empty the bullpen on a Monday, the options will be limited on a Tuesday, so Rocco needs to be very sure he is thinking that through.  Last night made sense to empty the pen.  Last Friday?  Not so much in my opinion.

3 hours ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

That's where you and I differ; I would much prefer the pitching chart with Pagan not on it.

I really agree with you 100% - I just felt like I might get grief due to being so vocal about him being on our team any longer in the past.  It makes NO sense that he's still even an option for Rocco to use.

1 hour ago, farmerguychris said:

I really agree with you 100% - I just felt like I might get grief due to being so vocal about him being on our team any longer in the past.  It makes NO sense that he's still even an option for Rocco to use.

I think you'll find very few Pagan supporters on this site.  So long as your criticism of him is respectful and not excessive, you'll be totally fine.