Twins 5, A's 6: Willi Castro Heroics go for Naught in Yet Another One-Run Loss

"Jhoan Duran is awfully close to being a Matt Capps."

No. Just no.

The home runs and come backs don’t matter as we lost!!! You can’t lose games like this you just can’t!!! This is is make or break season defining road trip. Must have winning record!!! If this is how season will be I’d rather win 82 games and miss playoffs. I can’t stand the one run games and losses. I just can’t!!! I’d rather just get blown out as it would be way way way easier to deal with. 

As great as Lewis is, this manager and front office continue to be so stubborn it's laughable. Leaving Wallner and Lee in the minors to cling to Margot and Farmer. Insisting on sitting Ryan Jeffers 50% of the time. It's just asinine. 

42 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

We need a MLB manager.

I agree!

Back in the day I had a "Bring Billy Back" sticker on the bumper of my car. For all his flaws and, for lack of a better word, tempestuousness, I loved Billy Martin's passion and intolerance of ineptitude. It seems to me that Baldelli is as close to the polar opposite of Martin as possible in a manager. He's cold blooded and calculating--a man of the ledger sheet who might have fared better as a tax accountant. Admittedly he does have his strengths, but of all the essential traits he is lacking, chief among them I believe is common sense.  

Twins are giving up an awful lot of runs lately.  I also would prefer Lee and Wallner in place of Margot and Farmer.  This FO is so stubborn and unwilling to admit mistakes and move on from them.  We have a manager in Rocco that lacks common sense and managerial Instincts.  

I sure miss Cory Provus on radio.  The broadcasts have become a soap opera atmosphere.  Do they realize there is actually a game going on?

People are clamoring for Brooks Lee but it's going to be quite difficult for him to come up and outproduce Willi Castro at 2B.

It's June 22 and Farmer has played in 8 games this month with a .952 OPS. Now that Lewis is back, Farmer is only playing part-time and he's producing in that role.

The infield is not the problem right now, in fact the infield is this team's strength. The pitching is the problem.

The Twins are still playing ahead of their expected 83-87 wins projection. The current stretch of games to the All Star Game could be telling. 

It is looking like Funderburk does not pitch with confidence at times. Does the team need a reliable lefty in the bullpen and can Thielbar return to his former effective self? Right now the bullpen looks tired. A string of seven inning starts or an offense scoring more runs would help.

8 hours ago, howeda7 said:

As great as Lewis is, this manager and front office continue to be so stubborn it's laughable. Leaving Wallner and Lee in the minors to cling to Margot and Farmer. Insisting on sitting Ryan Jeffers 50% of the time. It's just asinine. 

Jeffers is mired in a dreadful slump right now, with a .345 OPS in June. Vazquez has actually put up a .790 OPS in the same period. More importantly, Jeffers has played 63 out of 76 games this season, and has stayed healthy. Maybe not so asinine. Margot has turned it around and is putting up a .758 OPS in June as well. 

The idea that these are easy and simple decisions is what's laughable. If they cut Farmer and Lee dings his back again and is out for a month, how's that going to work? I'm pretty sure you'll be back railing on the front office for being stupid, stubborn, and clueless if they drop Margot and Wallner goes 3-24 with 14K's too.

Offense really isn't the problem right now: we scored 5. Paddack is looking like he needs a break, a reset, or maybe the league has figured out this iteration and he needs to make some serious adjustments. Funderburk not putting out the fire and Duran blowing one cost us the game, not Vazquez, Margot, or Farmer.

The pitching has to step up: we've given up 6 or more runs in 7 games in June, 5 or more in 12. That's not going to get it done. Offense has scored 5 or more in 8 of the last 9.

38 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

The idea that these are easy and simple decisions is what's laughable. If they cut Farmer and Lee dings his back again and is out for a month, how's that going to work? I'm pretty sure you'll be back railing on the front office for being stupid, stubborn, and clueless if they drop Margot and Wallner goes 3-24 with 14K's too.

There's a lot more depth in the outfield. The dropoff from Lee to Diego Castillo is pretty steep. If Wallner fails again they have more options (Kirilloff, Keirsey, Emma, Will Holland).

I think Wallner would have come up for Kepler except the Athletics are throwing LH starters and Wallner still can't hit lefties. Kepler is going to sit until the Diamondbacks series. If he's still not right on the 25th Wallner will get the call.

Rocco has never had common sense or managerial instincts. Without his analytics he'd be a lost puppy. If you haven't gotten use to the way things are, you'd better try or just quit watching, cause it's never going to change with this current regime in charge. It's who, what, and how they are, and when you believe you are the smartest people in the room, even though you've WON nothing worth bragging about in 8 years, they aren't going to change despite their failures. They'll always have an excuse. If it isn't injuries or limited payroll it'll be something else. It's not their fault they bring in poor players that can't hit or pitchers that are injured. Ha Ha! Just drink the kool-aid and be a believer.

Pitching is our weakness. I like the idea of moving Paddack in the bullpen and giving his rotation spot to Varland or Festa, with Zebby ready to go right behind them. We NEED to get an impact starter with control at the deadline like Luzardo or Crochet. We also need to dump Theilbar and get a solid lefty for our bullpen since we can't trust either Okert or Funderburk. Farmer and Margot should be gone too. Better options available in Saint Paul.

2 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

Jeffers is mired in a dreadful slump right now, with a .345 OPS in June. Vazquez has actually put up a .790 OPS in the same period. More importantly, Jeffers has played 63 out of 76 games this season, and has stayed healthy. Maybe not so asinine. Margot has turned it around and is putting up a .758 OPS in June as well. 

 

Margot had a nice little stretch the first 10 days of June.  Since the start of the Oakland series, he has 2 hits in 22 at bats.

No team that aspires to make the playoffs can send Margot out as a regular corner outfielder.  For the year he is at -.9 WAR, with an OPS+ of 70.  That's totally unacceptable for a left fielder (where, to top it off, his glove rates as terrible this year).

And how bad is Margot vs right handed pitching?  Worse than Vazquez...  .464 OPS compared to Vazquez's .484

11 hours ago, Matt Braun said:

Ron Davis

 

He who shall never be forgiven must never be mentioned.

12 hours ago, USAFChief said:

We need a MLB manager.

We need a new manager and a new front office  , boy are they stubborn when they're wrong  ...

3 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

Jeffers is mired in a dreadful slump right now, with a .345 OPS in June. Vazquez has actually put up a .790 OPS in the same period. More importantly, Jeffers has played 63 out of 76 games this season, and has stayed healthy. Maybe not so asinine. 

Vazquez has been constantly playing very good defense, it only makes sense for him to catch at least 50% of the time. And especially so when he's out-hitting Jeffers. As I said before Vazquez is Jeffers safety net. With the extra emotional & physical stress w/o Vazquez, Jeffers would be going into a tailspin that'll more than likely ends up in injury. I like Jeffers & hope he gets out of his slump soon. But don't underrate Vazquez.

They have managed Paddack wrong. When he was doing well at the beginning of the season, the attitude was let's see how far he can go. It should have been he's just came off 2nd TJ, we need to manage his innings. I've advocated at the beginning of the season to keep Varland in long relief & don't waste his bullets in AAA. Keep the short relief & the rotation well-rested. The rotation & BP have kept us in games at the beginning of the season but now look fatigued. Bring Varland up now! Maybe Paddack & others will bounce back. Our offense looks better

Technically Duran blew a "Hold" as he came in for the 8th inning and it wasn't a save situation unless he had come out to pitch the 9th as well. 

I agree with RV78 regarding our manager.  It's spreadsheet, spreadsheet, spreadsheet for Rocco.  I don't think I've ever seen him make a move that would have departed from his spreadsheet.  I once saw Billy Martin send Rich Reese up to pinch hit with the bases loaded in the 7th inning of a game against the Baltimore Orioles in 1969 with lefty Dave McNally on the mound going for what could have been a major league record 16th win in a row.  The lefty vs lefty matchup is something Rocco would NEVER do.  Reese hit a Grand Slam HR to deep left center field at the old Met Stadium, something Justin Morneau would refer to as an "oppo taco."  

At some point, a manager needs to "manage."  Not just glance at a spreadsheet and check a box.