Twins 9, Royals 3: Twins Turn Back the Royals on Independence Day

I don't care if he was facing the sorry, no-account (tm Mike Wilbon) KC Royals, Kenta Maeda dominated and it's great to see. You play the team in front of you, and you don't get extra credit for beating better teams. But Maeda did the job for 7 innings and it's exactly what what the Twins needed.

Also, it seems like every time I crap all over Kepler and declare I'm ready to be done with him he does something great, so...guess I need to keep trashing him? I'm not convinced he can keep this up, but ride this horse all the way to the trade deadline Maxie!

Sometimes beating up on a bad team can get a team on a roll that continues on after the garbage fore team leaves town. Hope that holds true!

Great to see the hitting!

I hate to be 'that guy,' but we really should see this sustained against a team other than K.C before we get too excited :)

32 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

Maybe this club is finally rolling. I'll withhold judgment until after the Orioles series.

Fwiw…Orioles now 6-10 in their last 16. Run differential down to +13. Then come the A’s.

The schedule is soft all July. Perfect situation for the FO to misjudge what this team is heading to the trade deadline.

Nice game, the Correa to lead off with Solano batting second is working…let’s leave that sequence alone. Just keep winning series…. I know it’s KC, but give credit where credit is due. 

That is two series wins in a row. They haven’t made it to three yet. It would be great to go into the break by getting that third in a row against the Orioles.

The Orioles won't be coming in hot. The Yanks are taking it to them.

3 hours ago, jkcarew said:

Fwiw…Orioles now 6-10 in their last 16. Run differential down to +13. Then come the A’s.

The schedule is soft all July. Perfect situation for the FO to misjudge what this team is heading to the trade deadline.

I view it differently. The twins managed a .500 record while it superstars played like replacement players. How good can the team be if the superstars start playing?? 

Jorge Lopez thew only 8 pitches while giving up 2 hits and getting 3 outs? Is that right? Don't see that very often.

I feel a little sorry for Buxton. He has been absolutely tattooing the ball and continues to have opposing players make highlight reel plays on him.

I like to see the offense score runs, not only via the HR. Lately, it appears that is happening. The more it does, the more I will believe good things are coming.

3 hours ago, jkcarew said:

Fwiw…Orioles now 6-10 in their last 16. Run differential down to +13. Then come the A’s.

The schedule is soft all July. Perfect situation for the FO to misjudge what this team is heading to the trade deadline.

They have had other opportunities and didn’t come through. They take the Blue Jay and Brewer series and then fall to a scuffling Tiger team that was done like 1-12 in June. They win a series against the Yankees and Royals and lose to an 8-21 White Sox team.

They have an opportunity to show consistency that they have yet to show this year. I would judge that as a step forward.

Love to see all of the positive recognition (with caveats, as always) for the highlights of this game.  It certainly makes for a refreshing post-game read.

Miranda's only mildly saving grace today was starting a double play, but his error lead to an unearned run and he seems to be flummoxed by average to below average major league pitchers.

He needs to go back (assuming an option remains) and figure it out while Castro is limited to the infield with Walner's return so richly earned.

Yes I'm excited we won and that we are 1 game over the pathetic 500 mark  ....

Maeda went 7 innings and 9 strikeouts  ,,, that's a good game  , but it's also the Kansas city royals ...

Yes we got hits and homers  but again it's the Kansas city  royals  and greinke at the end of his career  ...

We are supposed to beat these teams , and we do beat the Kansas city royals but we can't beat the rest of the sub 500 teams out there ...

Sweep Kansas city tomorrow and win the series against Baltimore and then maybe we can relax some , but consistency is what we need  ...

Sure would like for the twins  player's to go get a killer instinct and playball hard ...

I want a 10 game winning streak or more , even several winning streaks would be nice ...

So far, the "season begins today" promise is being kept.  Keep hope alive!

A recommendation and a question:

• Kenta Maeda is a brightly burning evening star right now - catch him before he sets
• Who put a quarter in Max Kepler, and what took them so damned long? (OK, that's two questions)

I really hope we have the pre TJ surgery version of Maeda back because he will be a real asset in the 2nd half of the season. He looked really sharp and his fastball reached 92mph - very encouraging. 

Great to see Lopez back with the team and in a good place. Very rusty when he came in but that was to be expected. Nice management from Rocco to get him in the game at the end. 

Buck is really hitting the cover off the ball - no K's today and his out nearly took the 3B's hand off. 

Oh, and congrats to C4 on 1000 hits. 

I know the Twins have struggled to score runs but I'm actually quite happy with our 44-43 record. The May and June schedules were brutal. We've held our own against most of the better teams - and even when we got swept against the Braves and Rays we had opportunities to win. 

July looks a lot more friendly with 2 series v KC, and we've got the A's after the All Star break. And the Mariners and White Sox are inconsistent so we could have a really strong month.

Kepler has always been a very streaky hitter. Right now for the last 15 games, he has been one of our best hitters. Wish he could maintain most of that. Buxton is hitting the ball hard. He even stole a base. Sure hope he can keep this up.

OTOH, Miranda is not squaring up the ball. Hasn;t had a hit since his return, but his outs have been weakly hit balls, which was his problem earlier in the season. Wonder how long his leash is? There are other options in St. Paul.

I agree with several other people that we need to keep in mind that this us the Kansas City Royals we are getting fat on.  The Kansas City Royals that are firmly entrenched in last place.  The Kansas City Royals that are 35- 40 games under 500.  They are doing a great job of beating up on Royals but not much else against everyone else.  They do have a much softer schedule the rest of July to get a firm hold of first place.  I love the Twins and am glad they beat up the Royals.  But we need to show some consistency and win series.  If you are 35-42 against non Royals teams the only consistency you have shown is you can't win regularly.

There is another excellent, wide ranging game recap by Dan Hayes behind the paywall at The Athletic.

https://theathletic.com/4666653/2023/07/04/twins-max-kepler-royals-zack-greinke/

In it the Twins talk about changing their IL routine and how they will have players go on rehab stints at St Paul to get dialed in enough to actually help the big club upon return. Ya think? 

This FO seems to miss the simple things and react very slowly. 

1 hour ago, wabene said:

There is another excellent, wide ranging game recap by Dan Hayes behind the paywall at The Athletic.

https://theathletic.com/4666653/2023/07/04/twins-max-kepler-royals-zack-greinke/

In it the Twins talk about changing their IL routine and how they will have players go on rehab stints at St Paul to get dialed in enough to actually help the big club upon return. Ya think? 

This FO seems to miss the simple things and react very slowly. 

I think a lot of teams have handled veterans coming back from injury the same way, though. There's frequently deference to the veteran player (especially position players) in coming back from an injury on whether they go out on a rehab assignment. I also wonder if there's any rules about it in the CBA? For the Twins it's going to be easier to convince a guy to go down on a rehab assignment when they can just slide over to Saint Paul for a week, another potential advantage to having their AAA affiliate on the opposite end of a light rail line.

This is one of those clubhouse management aspects. Easy for us to say "Go down to the minors for a week or two and get your timing back", but some of the veterans might easily respond with "I'm a professional, I'm ready to go, I don't need that, stop wasting my time." How you manage your way through those potential conflicts will matter.